Rethinking Chromebooks

A couple of years ago, I tried switching from a Windows laptop to a Chromebook. It didn’t work. At the time, I was simply too entrenched in my specific needs to make the switch. Things have changed since then. For over a year, I’ve been using an ASUS Chromebook Flip C302 as my primary computing device. Besides having a mouthful of a name, it’s a great little machine. The combination of it plus my Samsung Note 9 has been nearly perfect. I say nearly perfect because I recently ran into an issue where my Chromebook couldn’t cut it. Some will call it an edgecase, but it created a problem nonetheless.

I recently found myself in need of a resume. I have one, sort of. It’s been years since I actually needed a resume, so I haven’t really stayed on top of it. I tried building one from scratch, but quickly realized that it was garbage, so I hired a professional. This particular professional, like many others, uses Microsoft Office, specifically Microsoft Word to create documents. I wasn’t concerned. As a Chromebook user and Microsoft Office 365 subscriber, I assumed everything would be seamless. I mean, I could simply use the web version of Word, right? Yes and no. It turns out that the online version of Word doesn’t play all that well with all desktop versions of Word.

The resume contained a lot of formatting that didn’t translate well from the desktop to the web version. My attempts to make edits and leave comments from within the web version were a disaster. Formating got destroyed, things disappeared from the page, and I quickly became frustrated. Within a day of going back and forth with the author of my new resume, I realized that I had found an instance where a Chromebook simply wouldn’t cut it.

Sooo, what’s a guy to do? I haven’t purchased a Windows laptop for myself in nearly five years. I literally started digging through my computer graveyard, i.e. the closet for one of my old machines. There were plenty to choose from. In the end, I ended up using an old 15.6-inch Sony VAIO to edit and complete the resume. The VAIO is a bit long in the tooth, but it’s a nice big machine to type on. I appreciate the screen real estate for going back and forth between documents, notes, etc. It worked out quite well.

In the end, I received a new resume and went on my merry way. However, it made me realize that as much as I like my Chromebook, the platform still “isn’t there” yet. At least not for me. For Chromebooks to be truly mainstream, this type of thing can’t happen. At least not as long as such a large number of folks continue to use Microsoft Office as their content creation suite of choice. I understand that this is as much Microsoft’s fault as Googles, but when given the option, it seems logical to stick with a Windows machine for the immediate future.

Consider this, I can use Chrome on a Windows machine to seamlessly do everything I can do on a Chromebook. I can’t do the opposite, at least not seamlessly. I’m sure the Chromebook zealots — and Microsoft haters — will disagree, but it doesn’t change the fact that my struggles were real. As PC laptops continue to get better, and Chromebooks continue to become more expensive, a decision that used to simple is much more complicated now. This is especially true now that Microsoft has embraced Chromium in their new Edge browser.

Given that one can purchase a nice Windows laptop from Lenovo, Dell, HP, or Microsoft for around the $1000 price point, it makes spending $800-$1000 on a nice Chromebook a tough sell. I’ll continue to use my Flip for now — as I said above, it’s a great little machine — but I’m currently on the hunt for a new Windows laptop. I’ve narrowed my search down to a select few machines from Microsoft and Lenovo.