How Much Chromebook Do You Need?

[raymac46]

The new HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook introduced at CES this year looks amazing - all metal chassis, 12th Gen i5, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB nvme, 4K IPS super bright screen, great keyboard and trackpad, RGB backlit keys. It promises to be expensive, and it is a Chromebook. Do you really need that much?

My experiments with a much cheaper system would say no - unless you are some sort of developer or video processor. Even then you'd be tied into the Google ecosystem.

What I think goes into a nice Chromebook would be the following:

• Core i3 CPU - the cheaper Celerons, Pentiums and MediaTek CPUs seem a little wimpy and I wouldn't like t have a system that reminds me of the old school netbooks.
• 8GB RAM - this is more than enough for websurfing and office tasks - you can have several tabs open and still watch video or listen to music. 4GB is a little skimpy in my view.
• 64GB storage. You are going to store most of your stuff in the cloud, and you can always add a mini SD card if you really need it.
• 1080p IPS screen - this is plenty of HD for video.
• Backlit screen - very nice to have.
• Good keyboard - nice feel.

You should be able to get all that at a reasonable price. I wouldn't cheap out, but I wouldn't blow my brains out on a super expensive laptop either. Better to go for a gently used Thinkpad and install Linux on it.