New Chrome Book

[PlaneMan]

Finally upgraded my Chromebook, the old Acer C720 was starting to feel slow so I got a ASUS C302CA and I’m blown away, it wasn’t cheap (Should get £50 cashback from AO and maybe £6 or so from Topcashback) but the fact it runs the Play Store without being in the beta channel is worth the £ IMO.

The screen is lovely, the touch works a treat and the hinges are just the right side of stiff to enable the screen to stay put no matter what mode you use it in. The keyboard feels really nice compared to the C720 and my X220. The keyboard back light could be a real bonus when using it in poor light.

It’s USB C only so won’t suit everyone but my phone is USB C so I have a few adaptors lying around. It will charge of my phones quick charge USB C charger when it’s on, just, but the supplied charger does it much faster. I doubt it would charge from my phones charger if it was playing an intensive game or lots of video. Fine in a pinch but not ideal.

In tablet mode it feels big but not daft, the weight is fine, on the heavy side for a tablet but again not daft.

I can see this being my go to device for a long time.

[The Duke]

That looks a very nice laptop. Does it come with a digitiser? My youngest wants a windows ‘drawing’ computer, but I don’t want to have to deal with a 9 year old and windows. Given she is already invest in android, this may be a good option.

What is the app support like?

[PlaneMan]

The android app support is very good, some warn that they are designed for phones so might not scale well but overall they just work.  Only the PayPal one (so far) won’t even give you a chance to install it from the Play store, could probably side load it but I can’t be bothered as I rarely use it anyway. Haven’t tried many games yet, just one of the Angry Birds ones, no problems with that.

Netflix works great, Prime video, iPlayer and the CCTV app (side loaded as it’s no longer in the Play store) all work just fine.

I put the Chromebook into developer mode to enable side loading android apps, took about 30 minutes to reboot and have a think. Just as easy now as a phone or tablet with the ‘install from unknown sources’ enabled.  Slightly odd is you have to enable the Play store first, it’s switched off by default.

The only Chromebook I know of that supports a pen is the very expensive Samsung one.

[PlaneMan]

Got some cables from Amazon and they both work great, USB C to HDMI and a straight USB C to USB C.

[Ed P]

The Lenovo MIIX 510-12ISK 30.48 cm IPS Convertible Tablet PC is in the same price bracket – Windows 10 and comes with a very nice (and accurate) Wacom pen. I bought one for my wife as a major anniversary pressie. She loves it and the i3 config is more than adequate for her. It runs Mint in a vm quite happily too.

[PlaneMan]

No argument about that Ed but I didn’t want Windows, I wanted a Chromebook with Android support.

[Ed P]

Just for interest, others with similar needs and a ‘good enough’ laptop could look at running Android x86 in a VM. This review is very dated but shows what was possible 3 years ago. I would guess that unless you have a fast CPU/GPU games may be a bit naff, and it is only Nougat at the moment.

[blacklion1725]

I remember having a play with it a few years ago – and also trying RemixOS booting from a USB drive – which worked very well. That projected has also forked and has a an emulator and (upcoming) a mobile version – looks interesting.

[RSB]

I have no idea why the topic buggered up before. I have closed the other and created this one There is some stuff missing but not much can be done. I believe that I was updating something at the time of a reply which caused an issue. WIll just have to see how it goes.

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

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