The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 17)

Battery Life

The battery life of a Laptop running Chromium OS is comparable if not slightly better than what you get from running Windows. The 5200mAh battery in my Laptop is quoted at 2h 37min when I looked this morning and it lasted for about that length of time before I plugged it in.

While running Chromium OS on a Laptop increases the battery life significantly, but it doesn't increase it by the 6+ hours that is quoted by Chromebook manufacturers, this is more than likely down to Chromebook OEM's use internal batteries so they can make them bigger than an external battery used by Windows Laptops, also the ARM or Intel Haswell CPU's used in Chromebooks are more energy-efficient than pre lintel Haswell processors and the SSD's that are used in Chromebooks are more efficient than standard spinning HDD's combined with the internal SSD is mainly used for holding Chrome OS while having some Offline storage for storing pictures for uploading to Google Drive as well as for the Google Drive Offline Cache. The lack of a DVD drive not only keeps the weight of a Chromebook down it also keeps the power use to a minimum, and with a Chrome OS recovery only needing a USB flash drive, SD Card or external HDD for re-installing Chrome OS it makes a DVD drive pretty redundant.

Printing

Printing is handled via Google's Cloud Printing service so you ether need a computer hooked up to a Printer with Google Chrome installed as a Print Server and the Printer setup in https://www.google.com/cloudprint/ or a Google Cloud Print ready Printer that has the Google Cloud Print service already built-in. The most energy-efficient of the two options is a Google Cloud Print ready Printer as it doesn't need a Computer to be switched on all the time acting as a Print Server.

Roland

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The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Update)

I'll be doing a special post or two from Monday reviewing my first two weeks of this experiment, as I'm starting to run out of things to talk about with just under two weeks left of this experiment, & I want to keep what I talk about fresh without having to repeat things that I've already covered in previous posts.

Roland

The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 16)

In this part I'll talk about the difference between the Windows 7 Desktop and the Chromium OS/Chrome OS Desktop as well as the Difference between the official Chromium OS/Chrome OS Desktop and the Chrome OS styled Desktop that I created earlier in this series

Chromium OS/ Chrome OS Desktop

The Chromium OS/Chrome OS Desktop is minimalist but functions just how it's supposed to.

[caption id="attachment_1627" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Chromium OS/ Chrome OS Desktop[/caption]

The Chromium OS?Chrome OS Desktop can't have any icons, files or folders placed on it and has a very minimalistic Taskbar known as the Shelf, it has a quick launch area on the left with a very Android styled App drawer icon, and on the far right there is a minimalistic Tray with a Universal Notification area on the left, then a universal button that shows the time, WiFi signal strength, remaining battery and the current logged in users Google profile picture.

The Universal button brings up a pop-up that shows the currently logged in user picture along with Name, email address, log out button, WiFi Connection name, volume slider & mute button, Settings button, battery status, date, Help button, shutdown button & Lock button.

The Notification Centre shows the number of notifications & pops up to show a list of Notifications.

[caption id="attachment_1629" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Notification Centre with Notification waiting[/caption]

The App drawer is very Android styled with a side scrolling expandable grid of short cut icons.

[caption id="attachment_1631" align="aligncenter" width="300"] App Drawer open & on Page 1[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1632" align="aligncenter" width="300"] App Drawer open & on page 2[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1633" align="aligncenter" width="300"] App Drawer open & on page 3[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1634" align="aligncenter" width="300"] App drawer open & on page 4[/caption]

The currently open app shows up to the left of the app drawer icon instead of to the right of the quick launch bar like in windows.

[caption id="attachment_1635" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Open application icon on taskbar[/caption]

The Lock/login screen is very minimalist and very Linux like.

Lock/Login screen

Windows 7 Desktop

The Windows 7 Desktop can get very cluttered with files, folders & icons. Also with the extra power of Windows the Start menu can be very cluttered with all the built-in apps along with all the desktop programs which can make productivity slow with a load of programs that you don't need being pre-installed with Windows.

Chrome OS styled Windows 7 Desktop

Having a Chrome OS styled Windows Desktop still allows the power & flexibility of Windows with the streamlined work flow of Chrome OS.

Conclusion

There is no substitute for a Chromebook, but Chromium OS comes pretty close to having a Chromebook, the only drawback is that if a certain piece of hardware isn't compatible with Chromium OS then you won't be able to use it, in my case the Sound Chipset used in my Laptop isn't compatible with Chromium OS. One slight problem with Chromium OS is that the Adobe Flash player Extension doesn't work which means that anything that relies on Flash such as YouTube isn't accessible.

Chromium OS is a good introduction to Chromebooks for anyone that has a spare Laptop or Netbook and 4GB USB Flash drive or external USB HDD as it's pretty straight forward to install, but if you want to Duel boot with Windows it's a bit more complex to get a dual-boot system working.

Roland

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The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 15)

This is just a quick run down of the Pros and Cons of Chromium OS (Chrome OS included) vs Windows 7.

Chromium OS vs Windows 7

Chromium OS Pros

• A lightweight OS that uses minimal system resources with plenty of HDD space left for Downloaded files.


• Easy to try out without installing, and easy to install if you decide to try it out properly.


• Doesn't need any Hardware Drivers as everything just works.


• All your Apps sync when you have to restore your Chromebook as they're web apps.


• Chromium OS is cheap as it's freely available, and official Chromebooks aren't that expensive.


• Easy to maintain as it just updates when a newer version is available (Chrome OS on Chromebooks only)


• Lightweight Laptops with long battery life.


• Boots up & Shutsdown fast.


• Sleek modern looking UI.

Windows 7 Pros

• More powerful OS.


• Plenty of specialist Programs.


• Works on a wide range of hardware.


• Can function just as easily Offline as it does Online.

Chromium OS Cons

• Works to its full potential Online, but has some limited Offline functionality.


• Not guaranteed to work 100% on all hardware.


• Only has a limited number of Offline capable Apps.


• Don't get as longer Battery life on regular PC's has you do on Chromebooks.


• Not guaranteed to get updates as it's down to the people who build Chromium OS to post an updated build.

Windows 7 Cons

• Close to reaching End Of Life, and virtually impossible to get hold of.


• Resource Hungary.


• Takes up a lot of HDD space.


• Prone to Viruses and Malware.


• Needs time to maintain as not all updates install automatically.


• Heavy and bulky Laptops with poor battery life.


• Slow Boot time even on Windows 8/8.1 & slow to Shutdown.


• Clunky UI.

Conclusion

Chromebooks are worth considering if you're in the market for an Ultra Portable lightweight Laptop with plenty of battery life as long as you don't need any specialist Programs or need to do masses of work Offline, as long as you can live with doing limited Offline work in Google Drive or have a Mobile Phone with Tethering or a portable WiFi hotspot for when you're not near a public WiFi Hotspot.

Star  Rating

Chromium OS/Chrome OS: 9.5/10

The lack of Offline Apps is the only drawback of Chromium OS/Chrome OS but other than that it does exactly what it says.

Windows: 4.5/10

The resource hungry nature of Windows combined with the potential for viruses and Malware and the lack of 100% automatic updating without some user intervention is a major drawback.

I've found one issue with running Chromium OS on my Toshiba Laptop in that the sound card doesn't seem to be compatible meaning I don't get any sound out of the speakers, also Flash Player seems to be broken meaning that YouTube videos don't play (I've not added these issues to the cons list as it could just be due to the particular sound chip set used in my Laptop isn't on the compatible list, and the Flash Player issue won't be present in a Chromebook running official Chrome OS built and supported by Google).

Other than the two little niggles with Chromium OS on my Toshiba Laptop it does everything that I need and boots up faster as well as shutsdown faster than Windows.

I'll definitely be sticking with Chromium OS for the rest of the remaining two weeks doing this experiment and into the future until I can get an official Chromebook.

Roland

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The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 14)

After spending two weeks living in Chrome I've decided to go one step further and install Chromium OS on My Toshiba Laptop.

Chromium OS

Chromium OS is the open source version of Chrome OS. Chromium OS isn't as polished as Chrome OS and isn't guaranteed to run properly on your hardware compared to buying a Chromebook.

Getting & installing Chromium OS

I Googled Installing Chrome OS Onto A Laptop and came across this handy little tutorial that also then gave me links to where to get the software required to install Chromium OS.

I then downloaded the latest build of Chromium OS from the 20th of April 2013 from here and followed the instructions for Windows and downloaded Image Writer for Windows from here and wrote the Chromium OS image to a 4GB Sandisk USB stick.

I then downloaded Plop Boot Manager from here and burnt it to a blank CD if I was unable to boot from USB.

Installing Chromium OS

The first thing that I did was boot my Laptop from USB and try out Chromium OS without installing to make sure that the WiFi Card worked. I then re-booted back to Windows and did a backup of my pictures and downloaded files.

I then booted back into Chromium OS from USB and once logged in I:

pressed Ctrl+Alt+T to bring up the command prompt

Typed install followed by pressing Enter

when asked for a password i entered facepunch

Chromium OS then Installed, I then followed the prompt to re-boot and remove the USB Stick.

Setting up Chromium OS

I then selected my language, Keyboard layout & WiFi Network, entered my WiFi password and was presented with a standard Google Login/Signup prompt. I then logged into my Google Account, set the correct Time zone and waited for all my Chrome apps & bookmarks to sync.

Initial impressions

Chromium OS is a lightweight OS compared to the likes of Windows, Linux & Mac OSX, the 1TB drive in my Laptop has 908.2GB of free space remaining compared to the just over 800GB of free space that I'd got free when I was running Windows or Linux.

Roland

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The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 13: Halfway There)

After living in Chrome for two weeks I'm finding it increasingly harder to switch back to using traditional Windows programs.

Since I've lived in Chrome for two weeks I've become more productive as everything I do is within a web browser any way I can't see the point in using traditional programs.

I can see why people are finding it hard to switch to Cloud Computing when for a long time the norm for an Internet Connection  was a slow 56k Dial-up connection that was knocked out when someone accidentally picked up the phone, but with always on Broadband over a phone-line or a cable Broadband Connections more common  it paves the way for lighter power friendly Ultrabooks.

I'm going to slowly upload all my none Program Installers up to my Google Drive and possibly my Microsoft SkyDrive as well creating more space on my 1TB HDD for my Google Drive & Microsoft SkyDrive Offline cache.

Halfway there conclusion

To wrap up my two weeks of living in Chrome. I like the idea of Chromebooks as they suit my needs. All I need to do now is finish off this 1 month experiment, & probably keep living in Chrome until I've got the money together to get a Chromebook.

Roland

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The Chromebook Test: Living In Google Chrome For A Month (Part 12)

After some searching on the Chrome Store I found a Chrome Extension called Save to Google Drive that allows you to take Screen shots in Chrome and directly Upload them to Google Drive.

[caption id="attachment_1595" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Save to Google Drive, a handy screen capture Chrome Extension[/caption]

I've managed to only take 1 screen shot using Save to Google Drive of my blog stats screen using the WordPress Chrome web app.

[caption id="attachment_1596" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Screen shot taken using Save to Google Drive Chrome Extension[/caption]

I've come across one little annoyance with this Extension though, as it seems to have issues taking screen shots of Chrome windows, but yet it has no trouble with Chrome web apps. I don't know if this is a bug in Save to Google Drive o down to the fact that I'm using a Canary build of Google Chrome, and as I've now only got Chrome Canary installed and not got the regular stable build of Chrome installed as well I'm no longer able to check if it's a problem caused by Canary or just a bug.

[caption id="attachment_1597" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Save to Google Drive bug[/caption]

If I had a Chromebook to hand I'd be able to check the Save to Google Drive functionality from within Chrome OS, so it's probably worth me keeping the Extension again when I've got a Chromebook to test it out on.

Roland

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