Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Kevin asked: “I’m interested in the comparison between the Galaxy Tab Pro and the Chromebook you’ve been advertising on the show. Trying to figure out if I should be moving over to the Chromebook from my Galaxy Tab. I’ve been happy with the Tab through the years, but I know it’s getting old.”
Counterintuitively enough, your old tablet may actually do more than a Chromebook, but the one thing Chromebooks do, they do very well.
Basically, you want a Chromebook if you do everything online. You won’t be able to download apps, or run any kind of software natively on your computer. A Chromebook is a web browser in a box.
You can use the same web apps you can use on any browser, visit the same pages you could see on any browser, watch the videos you could on any browser, but there is nothing outside the browser.
Chromebooks don’t compromise when it comes to browsing though, it’s not any kind of mobile anything, you get the same full experience you would on any computer.
They are also maintenance free
They are also maintenance free, you turn them on, you turn them off, Google takes care of keeping them updated and secure without you have to do or know anything at all.
They’re very convenient little machines, but they are only a gateway to the web, and Google’s web at that: you will be using the Chrome browser, if you prefer any other well, that’s not how Chromebooks work.
We should also mention that Chromebooks will not run Java apps, as Google considers Java to be a security risk and will not permit the Chrome browser to use it. Flash is okay, of course, because Chrome sandboxes Flash into its own virtual space inside the browser itself (instead of using the external Flash player that runs as an app on your computer, like any other app).
Chromebooks browse the web very quickly and smoothly, because of their SSD storage and the Chrome browser itself being fast, and that performance doesn’t slow down over time. For many who use them, Chromebooks become their favorite way to casually browse the web.
We should also mention that Chromebooks will not run Java apps
Finally, you can also browse the extensive library of Chrome extensions and apps in the Web Store. Although you can’t always run the programs you want, you should almost always be able to find a way to get the job done. The things you can do with web apps and browser extensions now are really quite amazing.