PCs or Macs or Chromebooks?
You may have come across Chromebooks while browsing in a
computer store, but what makes a Chromebook different to a
PC or an Apple Mac? And should you buy one?
There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages in all
things and the Chromebook is no exception. There are also a
number of misconceptions that surround them.
You may have heard that Chromebooks only work when
connected to the internet. This is only partially true. The
programs that come with the computer work happily whether
you are connected to the internet or not and allow you to produce and edit MS Word docs (Google
Docs) as well as Excel spreadsheets (Google Sheets) and PowerPoint presentations (Google
Slides). Documents you produce can be stored locally on the chromebook and will be also copied
to password protected storage “in the cloud” - ie on the internet - when a connection is available.
This synchronising of the documents with storage on the internet means the document is available
to any device you have which has Google Drive installed. If your Chromebook goes wrong, or is
lost or stolen, a replacement will get the documents for you and you can carry on where you left
off.
Switching a Chromebook on is also very fast. The model I am using to write this takes around 10
seconds from completely off to fully up and running. The battery life is also great, up to about 10
hours, as long as I keep the brightness down a little.
There are apps available, many of them free, for email handling (gmail is built in but
there are others), games, accounts, image manipulation and much, much more and
they are easily added. Most of these do need a connection to the internet to work.
The one app you won’t find is an antivirus program. The reason for this is that a
Chromebook is basically immune to viruses because of the way it is designed.
If you wish to use programs such as InDesign (the software we use to produce the magazine),
or perform in depth manipulation of photographs with Photoshop, then you need a PC or an
Apple Mac. But if, like most of us, you need a computer to perform word processing, create
spreadsheets, make PowerPoint slide shows, read and write emails and browse the int