Unboxing a $100 Chromebook

&gt; Like, real Linux, not some weird virtualized or translated environment.<p>Ah, no. It is very much specifically in a container inside a VM. Now, full credit where it&#x27;s due: You&#x27;re unlikely to notice. Performance is good, they&#x27;ve done work integrating it (filesystem integration, forwarding windows to the host display servers through Sommelier). But native it is not.<p>(Details: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromium.googlesource.com&#x2F;chromiumos&#x2F;docs&#x2F;+&#x2F;HEAD&#x2F;containers_and_vms.md" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromium.googlesource.com&#x2F;chromiumos&#x2F;docs&#x2F;+&#x2F;HEAD&#x2F;con...</a>)<p>EDIT: I guess I should mention; this <i>does</i> come up occasionally in ways that can actually matter. IIRC I got bit by the (default?) container setup not allowing you to ptrace, you can&#x27;t mount filesystems or loop devices (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromium.googlesource.com&#x2F;chromiumos&#x2F;docs&#x2F;+&#x2F;HEAD&#x2F;containers_and_vms.md#fs-mount" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromium.googlesource.com&#x2F;chromiumos&#x2F;docs&#x2F;+&#x2F;HEAD&#x2F;con...</a>), and you can&#x27;t touch the kernel or hardware (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromium.googlesource.com&#x2F;chromiumos&#x2F;docs&#x2F;+&#x2F;HEAD&#x2F;containers_and_vms.md#Missing-Features" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromium.googlesource.com&#x2F;chromiumos&#x2F;docs&#x2F;+&#x2F;HEAD&#x2F;con...</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromium.googlesource.com&#x2F;chromiumos&#x2F;docs&#x2F;+&#x2F;HEAD&#x2F;containers_and_vms.md#Can-I-install-custom-kernel-modules" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chromium.googlesource.com&#x2F;chromiumos&#x2F;docs&#x2F;+&#x2F;HEAD&#x2F;con...</a> ).

I do all my work on an under $200 Chromebook. I have a VPS where I do all the actual work. I use Mosh and TMUX for connecting and saving my different projects (I&#x27;m a freelance developer who is often juggling multiple clients). Basically, the Chromebook is just an SSH client and a web browser (I can also boot into Linux if needed - slightly different than described in the Tweets).<p>I&#x27;ve been doing this for years. The battery life is great and it is also nice knowing that I never have to worry about losing my device since all of my actual work is on a server I can login to using just about any other device including my phone. Most people are shocked when they see my &quot;work station.&quot;<p>I read about people using TMUX and a VPS as a development environment here on HN a long time ago and have never regretted the move.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microcenter.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;649971&#x2F;evolve-iii-maestro-e-book-116-laptop-computer-dark-grey" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microcenter.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;649971&#x2F;evolve-iii-maestr...</a><p>On sale $59.99 ; regular price $79.99. Smallish keyboard however...

&gt; It even has USB-C ports on BOTH sides of the device, which seems to be a Pro-level feature for Apple.<p>Not trying to nitpick or anything but Apple used to offer USB ports on both sides of their non-Pro laptops, but in the new ones they offer Thunderbolt ports rather than USB C. My understanding is that they only offer ports on one side to let them only need to use one Thunderbolt controller. (The Pro machines with 3&#x2F;4 ports have two, one on each side.)

Hah, I bought this exact Chromebook (from the same store, too -- maybe a Best Buy exclusive model?) too.<p>I got an even better deal on it. Over the July 4th weekend, it was on sale for $79.<p>Overall, it works pretty well considering the cost. Keyboard is OK, build quality is OK, Wi-Fi works fine, USB C charging works fine (its bundled charger can rapid charge my phone, my phone&#x27;s charger can charge the Chromebook), and performance is very livable for basic web browsing and watching TV shows.<p>The only thing that does suck is the display. If you stay within a few degrees of the ideal viewing angle, it&#x27;s decent enough, but get even a little too far off axis and it looks really bad.

With these kinds of really cheap devices, it always makes me wonder whether you are not better off buying older used hardware instead... especially if you are looking for a cheap linux laptop.<p>For example, some time ago I got a Thinkpad X200 tablet in good condition off ebay for that price. I was mainly interested in the tablet functionality, but it&#x27;s a nice little laptop that is still usable today.<p>Even if you are specifically interested in Chrome OS, Chrome OS Flex might be an option on used hardware.

I love these cheap ARM laptops. I wish there was better support for the hardware, though. I have been using an Asus c101pa as a second laptop for so long that it&#x27;s outlasted three thinkpads, but e.g. there is still no Linux support for the GPU and probably never will be.

That thing is like 70% of the performance of my 2014 Thinkpad which cost ~20x as much in today&#x27;s money.<p>The only metrics where it does really badly is the small amount of RAM and storage.

How does the economics of a machine like this work? Does Google pay the producer (Lenovo)?<p>Is possible to install an alternative OS?

While I have no use case for a Celeron-based Chromebook myself, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this tweet thread as it progresses beautifully while examining the cost-feature angle via multiple humorous analogies. In other words, it&#x27;s a beautifully designed tweet thread that keeps the reader entertained.

How are the keyboard and trackpad?<p>IMO, bad trackpads are the biggest pitfall of cheap (and not-so-cheap) laptops, by far. At least with a bad screen you can still generally read the interface without too much trouble, but a bad trackpad can make a computer really frustrating to use!

I guess the real question is - why is Flutter so resource heavy and slow?<p>We live in an age of algorithmic optimisation. Surely it should be unremarkable that a cheap computer can run modern services?

&gt; This thing is powered by a processor named after a salad vegetable<p>I&#x27;m guessing that&#x27;s a joke because Celeron sounds like celery?

I learned to code on a machine like this. It was a $200 Chromebook (9 years ago!) But I was able to install Linux, first with Crouton, later GalliumOS and learn Ruby and JS on it just fine.

So what&#x27;s really funny is that I&#x27;ve done a lot of stuff with older hardware like this. I use caprover on a cloud provider and then add extra nodes at home with cheap laptops that I&#x27;ve collected over the years.

Sorry to bring this out of the blue, but I can&#x27;t resist.<p>The developer in these tweets is surprised that this Chromebook can run Flutter applications. This just shows how bloated and slow software development has become. Why wouldn&#x27;t a low-powered device such as this run an application without a problem? I guess when you&#x27;re developing and testing on thousand dollar computers, you don&#x27;t really consider all the millions (likely billions) of people running low-end computers such as these.

in the EU<p>159EUR ... 250EUR ...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geizhals.de&#x2F;?fs=Chromebook++Celeron+N4020&amp;hloc=at&amp;hloc=de&amp;hloc=eu&amp;hloc=pl&amp;hloc=uk&amp;sort=p" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geizhals.de&#x2F;?fs=Chromebook++Celeron+N4020&amp;hloc=at&amp;hl...</a>

Cannot find anything less than $300 AUD in Australia (equivalent $180 USD). Any recommendations for how I can find a bargain?

I read that thread on Twitter earlier today. Great stuff.<p>I bought a Lenovo Duet 2 last year - similar comments: except for my phone, the Duet could replace all of my devices, at a drastically low cost. Except, while it does everything, the CPU and memory are weak. If I were poor, it could easily be my only device and do everything I need. But, I am not poor and have 2 Mac laptops, 2 iPad Pros, and a really nice System76 Linux laptop. Still, the Duet is amazing for the money. Chromebooks are great generally for security and low effort admin, and the Linux containers handy - but, in using Google products it is really important to carefully set privacy and data sharing options.

&#x27;For Less Than a Tank of Gas&#x27;.<p>That&#x27;s something to think about right there.

I wonder what landfill alot of these things will end up on in a few years.<p>Be good to see more framework style stuff with a focus on long term usage.

Yall are trying to make me feel bad who just bought Apple MBP 15 inch, i7, 16GB RAM, 256 SSD to learn HTML and CSS.

What&#x27;s the power consumption of a device like this? Can you flash Ubuntu on it? What about Pop OS!?

<i>&#x27;m not going to lie -- this screen really is quite hard on the eyes. It&#x27;s a step down if your normal laptop costs 25X AS MUCH </i><p>what does he mean. is is blurry or too bright?<p>Yes, computers get way cheaper when you exclude windows and name brand parts.

Can anyone comment on external displays? The last time I tried this was about 5 years ago. I had a Samsung chromebook which was a great little device, but the font rendering connected to an external display was too terrible.

&gt;A few minor stutters<p>I consistently get a single stutter around the March 2016 mark when doing a page reload even on pretty powerful hardware.<p>...but I see not when scrolling the timeline back, suggesting some sort of caching issue perhaps

I recommend a $200 Lenovo. It&#x27;s tough to beat the quality.

I wish there was a cheapish Chromebook with a 120 Hz display. I&#x27;d use it mostly as a dumb terminal but I really don&#x27;t want to buy 60 Hz screens anymore.

Now we can do One Laptop Per Child. [1]<p>[1] The project originally aimed for a price of 100 US dollars. In May 2006, Negroponte told the Red Hat&#x27;s annual user summit: &quot;It is a floating price. We are a nonprofit organization. We have a target of $100 by 2008, but probably it will be $135, maybe $140.&quot;[32] A BBC news article in April 2010 indicated the price still remained above $200: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;One_Laptop_per_Child" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;One_Laptop_per_Child</a>

This reads like an advertisement and the constant comparisons with Apple products is weird. I can only assume the comparisons are being made because he or the people around him use very expensive Macbooks, but It doesn&#x27;t help that this thread was written by the submitter and that he <i>happens</i> to be an engineer at Google talking about how great this cheap Chromebook is.<p>Looking past that, It&#x27;s good for developers to have some low end hardware to test their software on and I think that every web developer should be required to test their applications on hardware comparable to this, if not even less powerful.

That&#x27;s nice, but Chromebooks are designed to become e-waste after a period of only a few years (updates stop after the device gets to be a few years old).

Curious how much it cost to build for Lenovo, because since it gets user data, that&#x27;s how it&#x27;s being &quot;financed&quot;.

it&#x27;s like 800x what an ARM SBC gets you. fuck ARM, mass incompetency. (new Qualcomm Wear 5: a 10 year old Cortex A53... get out. how is an ancient design the &quot;low power&quot; go-to?)<p>i&#x27;m so glad x86 has a basic self respecting low-end that does ok. i have a Chuwi Lapbook 12.3 that- 5 years ago- was a similar-ish kit for &lt;$250 (but a 2k screen). everything worked out of box in Debian. it&#x27;s just absurd what a dumb stupid awful terrible just-emerging rk3588 costs (much worse A76 cores+puny cores), by compare, to these much much much better x86 systems, that have keyboards, storage, displays to boot. risc-v is no better. i detest the lack of real competition. how has this marketplace rotted &amp; ossified in place so, been so noncompetitive for so long?<p>there&#x27;s just no one to keep a reasonable low end other than Intel. i love love love &amp; wanted wanted wanted to get some AMD 1-liter mini-pcs, but they just never became available, and prices spiraled up and up and up. there&#x27;s still no competition for a reasonable computer compared to what Intel offers us. this world is in huge denial.