In the last video, we've talked about Chromebooks, the different types, and its amazing features. In today's video Peter is going to share about the limitations of Chromebooks. Watch it here:
Will these limitations stop you from getting a Chromebook?
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Yes, Chromebooks are not your ordinary PC, but when you get the job done using this cheaper but impressive hardware, why spend more?
Don't forget to check our previous post: Which Chromebook Should I Buy?
Transcription:
What's up, guys? Pete Moriarty recording another quick video for you. Today, again, we are talking about Chromebooks. I'm getting so many questions about Chromebooks this week, which is awesome. Really love answering these, guys. Yeah, thanks so much for asking them. We've got questions from Leila, questions from Andy, and we've got one more from Ben as well this week. So, I'm going to do my best to answer them. In this video, I'm going to share what things can't a Chromebook do. So, if you're listening in, make sure you say hi, give us a wave, and we'll get started.
Before I get into what a Chromebook can't do, I'm going to quickly, very quickly, recap on what's a Chromebook great for, just so we can remember what we're talking about what these devices are used for. Number one, they're low-cost. They have ridiculous battery life, right? They're going to last a very long time. Number three, they're shareable, and number four, They're secure, right?
By sharable, I mean because they're all tied to a Google account, it means that anyone can pick up a Chromebook, sign in with a Google account, and have all their stuff there. It means the devices make great shared devices, if you've got staff out on the road and they need to share a device in a truck between multiple people, it makes it really easy, or if you want to buy one and just check it on your boardroom, then that's also very useful for that, as well.
Number two, secure. Because they're locked and connected to your Google account, it means that you can remote wipe. It means no one's going to access that machine that you don't want to access that machine. It means that if you want to deploy a policy to all of the Chromebooks across your business that says from something as simple as changing the background picture to something more advanced like disabling the camera or not allowing someone to tether it to their phone … I don't know why you'd want to do that … But any of the features you want to lock down or change or roll out to any Chrome devices, you can do from an admin panel.
Previously, you had to do those by investing in a Windows server and active directory and IT people to run it and all of that other mess. Chromebooks just completely eliminate all those mess, so that's what Chromebooks do really well. That's the purpose for a Chromebook.
What can you do on them? You can work with web apps. Most of our work nowadays is done on the web. The modern worker spends about four or five hours a day in web-based apps. We are no longer using desktop-based apps in the workday for most people.
Number two, you can also use any Android apps on modern Chromebooks. So, I've got my Pixelbook here, my Google Pixelbook. So, it flips over. It's got the touchscreen, which is pretty cool. I've got my notes on Google Keep right now that I'm using for this video, but any Android app that I want, I can actually install on that Google Chromebook, which is really great because it means that if … I don't need to, but if I wanted to, I could install something like Microsoft Excel. I could install Microsoft Word and use not the native Windows versions, not the Mac versions, but the Android versions of those, which are actually pretty good because I've tested them out.
If I wanted another app like Skype, which wasn't available in the Chrome web store, I can use the Android version of Skype on my Chromebook, as well. So, you'll find that for most apps, if they have a decent Android version, then you're going to be able to get them running on a Chromebook.
Where does it trip up? Where do we start to run into problems? That's the million dollar question. If you were to ask me what things do I miss after two years of running on a Chromebook as my primary machine, let me list them out for you. Number one, and this is I think the most obvious one, hardcore media editing, right? That's image editing and video editing. You can do light softcore editing of images and videos, but the hardcore stuff doesn't really work.
What do I mean by that? Well, Google's got the basics of an image manipulation tool built into Chrome OS. Iif you need to resize an image, export it as a JPEG or PNG, you can do that, all of those basics, right? They are also apps in the Chrome store which allow you to do those kind of basic image manipulations.
It's not a Photoshop. If you really needed Photoshop, if you want to apply certain styles, if you're a professional photographer, then it's just not going to work for you, right? That's not what this machine is designed to do. You can get the absolute basics done, but it's not going to be great.
Personally, for most of my photo editing and touch ups and whatnot, I'm using Google Photos for that. That happens to all happen in the web, and you can do quite a bit with Google Photos. You can change exposure. You can do things like crop and resize and do all of those kind of things, so that's pretty straightforward, right? But hardcore image editing, if you are a professional photographer and you really want to use your Photoshop, it's probably not going to work great.
Number two. Good day. How you going? Thanks for saying hi. So, number two is hardcore video editing. So, I shoot a lot of video personally as well as for the business, but personally, I shoot a lot of video because I like filmmaking. I've got a drone. I've got a GoPro. When I'm out on the weekend and I'm doing dumb stuff in my Jeep, I want to film it all in 4K so I could put it on Facebook and YouTube and that kind of stuff, but I get all this footage and it really just doesn't work on the Chromebook, right? I can edit short videos and snip little bits and pieces together using online video editors, but for the most part, they're pretty sucky, right?
If you want to do hardcore video, if you want story and music and bringing lots of clips together and B roll and the kind of filmmaking that a professional filmmaker would do, then it's just not going to work on a Chromebook. It sucks. I've tried all of the Chrome apps. They suck, and I end up using my iMac at home.
This is the only reason why I'm tempted to maybe pick up a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air to take with me while I'm traveling because I like to make films when I travel. I like to do that kind of stuff, so it's just not going to happen on a Chromebook unfortunately. Don't expect it to happen.
One of my good friends, Jake Howard, said something really interesting about this. He basically said, “Look, me not being able to do this fiddly work, the image editing, the video editing, is fantastic because it forces me to delegate,” and personally, I love that as well. If I'm forced to delegate because I just can't do that stuff that I would otherwise be doing because I want to do, then it forces me to delegate.
Obviously with my filmmaking, that's something I don't want to delegate. I want to do that on the weekends because that's something that's a personal pleasure for me, but anything work-related that I can't do on the Chromebook is potentially something that I should be delegating to someone else.
What the Chromebook is really great for is running meetings, leading a team, responding to emails if you need to do that, working on Google Spreadsheets, working on any of your cloud apps, reading graphs and reviews, drawing pictures with a stylus if you want to do that, taking notes in Google Keep, joining Hangouts, listening to music.
On the personal side of things, I can do all of my internet banking. I can watch Netflix. I can do any of that kind of stuff on the Chromebook. It's just that hardcore media editing where it starts to slow down.
Now, talking about slowdowns, people kind of ask, “Well, how powerful is a Chromebook? How many tabs can I have open and how quickly do they run?” In my last video, I explained what the different models are of Chromebooks and which ones are kind of faster and which ones are kind of slower and what price range you want to be spending depending on the kind of work that you're doing. If you're a business owner, you're probably going to be spending the 600, 700, $800 mark on a decent mid-range Chromebook, or if you want to go something nicer like the Pixelbook, you're spending a little bit more, but you're getting something that's going to be a real decent workhorse.
So, finally, one more question from Ben. That question was, “What about Adobe Creative Suite, the other apps like InDesign?” I just said, look, flat out no. They're Windows or Mac only. They're not going to work on a Chromebook, but there is a bit of a secret.
There is an app called Crossover, which runs on Android, and therefore runs on the Chromebook, right? This app called Crossover will let you run Windows apps within other platforms' architectures, right? So, the whole idea of this app is to run Windows apps on Android and on tablets, right?
I haven't tested this, but it's possible to try running things like Adobe Suite via Crossover on the Chromebook. It's a bit of a fiddly process to jump through all those hoops just to get stuff running on the Chromebook if you really, really, really need to use InDesign. My personal answer to that question would be, Ben, delegate more and have other people doing that. You should be a CEO and not dicking around in InDesign yourself, but if you really want to run something like that, that's untested so far.
It might be something that I get our R&D team to test out, but my philosophy is don't try and shove a square peg into a round hole. Don't buy a Chromebook and try and make it behave like a Mac or try and make it behave like a Surface Pro or like a Windows machine. Know what a Chromebook is great for, which is reasonable cost, insane battery life, super secure, connected to your Google account, everything in sync. It just works, right? It does everything on the web and all of your cloud-based apps absolutely brilliantly, and of course, everything in the Google world absolutely brilliantly, as well.
Keep to that, and if you can keep to that, then you're going to have a great experience with Chromebooks. If you haven't bought one yet for your business, just buy one. Even buy one of the cheap ones. Spend 500 bucks. Buy a super cheap one. Jump on our store, ITGenius.com and get started with one.
I promise you, every customer who's tried just one has come back to us. Some have said, “Hey, this is amazing. I'm never buying a PC again. I'm rolling this out to all of my staff.”
Some have come back to us and said, “Yeah, it was good, but it only worked in X, Y, Z, certain circumstances,” or, “It only kind of worked as our shared device in the boardroom.” That's fine, but every business who's on G Suite should have at least one Chromebook in the business. If you haven't already, time to get one for yourself.
Head along to ITGenius.com. Go to our store on the website and you can purchase one online or if you'd like some help from our team, then go ahead and message our team, [email protected], or you can just message this page or message our business page and the team will be very happy to help out with some recommendations.
Thanks for watching and thanks for those of you who tuned in and said hi. If you have any questions, just message them to this page or pop them below in the comments and I'll be very happy to answer them. Take care. Cheers.
To learn more about our Cloud Support Service, or schedule an IT Systems Check, contact itGenius - the Google Workspace Experts
