Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
I'm an Android dev who uses Macs at work and Windows at home. I've never used Linux other than at university ten years ago and it was pretty lovely and hard to configure but that was Red Hat / White Box which are probably quite different to Ubuntu.

I want a laptop to use for personal Android projects but don't want to pay Mac prices. Windows is more annoying due to USB driver issues specific to Android, plus it has lovely trackpad support.

I'm considering a Chromebook and using Crouton to get Android Studio on it? Anyone tried this for dev work? Should I just buy a Mac? Also am I going to get angry with anything lower spec than a Pixelbook?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
Saying that ChromeOS is bad for a computer illiterate person and that they should use Windows instead makes absolutely no sense to me. My dad is clueless and I got him a Chromebook when I moved out so I wouldn't have to go round and fix it all the time. He loves it and uses it every day. Never had a virus or other malware, never had a problem, it just works. I think ChromeOS is hands down the best option for a beginner.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Statutory Ape posted:

youre the only one mentioning windows i think

silence_kit posted:

get him a Mac or PC desktop or laptop
Although sure, the point about printing may be valid.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

8 Ball posted:

Yep that's my budget in USD - I'm in the UK, the closest I've found are references to an upcoming 2016 release for it and then.. nothing.
I think my dad has a 2015 CB2, got it from John Lewis around March 2015. But maybe I'm wrong and it's the 2014 model.

Tunga fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jan 4, 2018

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
Just wondering now as it's what my dad has, is this the 2014 or 1015 model?
https://www.johnlewis.com/toshiba-cb30-b-104-chromebook-intel-celeron-4gb-ram-16gb-ssd-13-3-silver/p1841467#tabinfo-ratings

Edit: I found a Hangouts conversation that I had later in 2015 about how Toshina hadn't released the 2015 models here and it was a shame. So I assume this is the 2014.

Tunga fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Jan 4, 2018

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:

Yeah the N2840 is the dead giveaway that it's the 2014 version (the 2015 had a much better 3215U Celeron or an i3.)
Right, makes sense. It performs surprisingly well, even to this day. The casing creaks a bit now but it's still running great. It's also the only non-Mac touchpad I've ever used that I didn't immediately declare to be total garbage, though I've never used a Pixelbook or similar.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
Got excited that I could finally install a couple of decent games on my dad's Chromebook as he's always asking for them. But no, the 2014 Toshiba is still waiting.

Atomizer posted:

The Dell, Toshiba, and Acer 15 are the most notable ones on that list. Some of those brands I've literally never heard of until today, though. "eduGear?" "PCMerge?" "Prowise?" "Viglen?" :confused:

Viglen is a name you see in British public-sector / hospitals / education so I imagine that model was sold to schools here. Guessing eduGear and Prowise are similar given the names.

Tunga fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Jan 16, 2018

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
How is Android gaming performance on ChromeOS devices? Is it equivalent to running it on Android or are the framerates worse due to emulation or whatever? I realise this may vary depending on the exact hardware involved.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
Does this mean we might get working Android Studio and Steam on ChromeOS without having to do hacky Crouton stuff? Because that would definitely turn the Pixelbook into a buyable product.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
My girlfriend wanted a Pixebook so I ordered her one. Turns out she had also ordered herself one due to the £100 offer expiring that day. When hers arrived it was so beautiful that I immediately became jealous and decided to keep the spare one for myself. So now I have a £1k Chromebook I don't really need.

A couple of Android games I tried had hosed up touch controls but most seem fine and framerates are excellent. Zen Pinball even has keyboard support which makes me very happy. Hardware is gorgeous as everyone knows already. The pen seems like a gimmick but she likes it for doodling and I figured I'd keep it anyway.

The real reason I justified keeping it is that Linux container support seems to be on the way. If I can run Android Studio on the thing, even if ADB support is a bit wonky, it becomes a very interesting device.

One thing I noticed: Chrome two-finger forward/back navigation swiping seems a bit broken, is this normal? It sometimes kind of gets stuck between the two pages and I have to swipe or tap again to fix it.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:

Yup, I know exactly what you're talking about. I think it has to do with difficulty tracking multiple touch points; if I do it more deliberately, with both fingertips stacked vertically instead of almost horizontally as is more natural, it seems to work better. More commonly though I just use the back/forward navigation keys since they're right there (in the function key row.) Also Alt+left/right does the same thing, and I usually have one thumb on Alt anyways to use it with up/down for page up/down.
I switched to Chrome OS beta channel and it now uses an arrow animation (similar to MacOS) which suffers none of these problems and looks better anyway. So that's solved I guess.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
My number one Chrome OS annoyance is that I wish it had virtual desktops/workspaces like macOS. Switching between multiple apps is really clunky in comparison. As far as I can tell there's no way to achieve this though.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
How do I pin an arbitrary website to the shelf? I found many articles, including Google's own documentation, saying to use Chrome -> menu -> More tools -> Add to shelf. But that option doesn't exist on either of the two Pixelbooks I have here. They're both on beta channel so that could be the cause. Can anyone else verify if this option exists? Or anyone know another way to do it?

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:



As an alternative, you could also pin a tab up top by opening the context menu on it.
Yeah I do use pinned tabs too but wanted to set something to run in its own window without browser Chrome. Weird that it's just not there. I guess it's just a bug with the current beta build

Tunga fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jun 16, 2018

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:

I just noticed this post and thought of your comment above.
Thanks, I saw this too and that was the solution so all sorted now :).

In other news, I'm looking to replace my dad's Toshiba Chromebook 2 (2014, the Celeron one) with something similar that runs Android apps. He mostly just wants to play Zen Pinball so nothing too taxing.

So ~13in, 1080p, and Android apps. Ideally ~£350ish but not sure if that's realistic. Chromebooks seem to much more expensive than they used to be.

Acer R13? How's the MediaTek CPU?

Tunga fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Jul 9, 2018

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:

The 2014 Toshiba CB2 has the CPU on my "avoid at all costs" list; I found the MediaTek in the R13 (and Flip C101, etc.) to be quite snappy by comparison. A used/refurb'd R13 should be $200-300 on eBay.
Thanks, though I'm not buying my dad a thing from eBay, too much hassle if there's a problem.

There are C302 refurbs direct from Asus for £370 which is an option.

The problem I have is that everything just seems a bit meh compared to the Toshiba given the prices. All I really want is Android apps on that device.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
Consumer rights are stronger when dealing with a business rather than an individual, I get an actual warranty, the item is definitely going to be what it says it is, and the person/company won't disappear after I buy it and ignore my emails if I need to send it back for some reason.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:

you can just get an Android tablet
You sort of can't these days. Outside of cheap Chinese no-brand garbage there isn't much showing up. I assume Samsung are still making them but everybody else seems to have left the building. The fact that Google now have no supported first-party tablet for the first time since 2012 says it all about the future of Android tablets.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
I believe any modern network connected printer should just work. You may need to give it the IP manually but my random Canon inkjet just showed up by itself and worked with no hassle.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
I have nothing bad to say about our Pixelbooks except the price is a bit steep for what it does. With the current £300 off I might even say it starts to look like good value.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
I'm not sure if people are talking about the Slate and the Pixelbook in the same conversation but just to be clear there is no i3 Pixelbook. There's actually no i3 Slate either, it's an m3.

The only difference between the lower two Pixelbook models is storage. I have the 256GB i5 and I think that's probably the best option as 128GB can disappear once you start using Linux containers. For just browsing you don't really need it but that point it's hard to say that the thing is really good value at all as there are cheaper Chromebooks that fill that use case just fine.

Tunga fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Dec 7, 2018

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
My Dad's Toshiba Chromebook 2 (I know there were two generations but don't remember the years, this one is the 1080p variant of the original generation) battery seems to have died, it basically won't work unless connected to AC. It's battered as hell and time for a replacement.

I got a Pixel 4 XL which, in the UK, came with a free Chromebook but it seems to be some hot garbage thing. It's specifically listed as the "HP 14-DB0003NA 14" AMD A4 Chromebook". The touchpad is squidgy as hell and the screen is 1080p turns out it's 768p but really dull. The keyboard is, surprisingly, not too bad. I've also read that the performance isn't very good. Overal it somehow manages to feel like a downgrade over his five year old Toshiba.

If he decides he doesn't like it, what's a good Chromebook I can buy in the UK that's around the same screen size, has a decent 1080p panel like the Toshiba (touchscreen not needed), has Android app support, and isn't stupidly flimsy? Budget would ideally be around the same as the Toshiba was (~£250ish I think) but I think that'll be a tough find so not a hard limit. Specs don't need to be high, he mostly only uses it for basic web browsing and video streaming, though would like to play some relatively basic Android games like Zen pinball as well.

Tunga fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Dec 9, 2019

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Heners_UK posted:

I completely get why you say this. I don't think a touchscreen is truly needed, but I do find that, if I have it, I use it, especially one Chrome OS. The first point withstanding, you might find it desirable, especially if Android apps are in use, which generally assume direct input.
I have a Pixelbook myself so I totally get this, I wouldn't dream of owning a Chromebook without a touchscreen. But trust me when I say that my dad doesn't want or need a touchscreen, nor is he willing to pay the price of anything that has one. He doesn't even understand what an Android app is, he just wants to play pinball with physical tactile buttons and watch Sky Go, both of which happens require Play Store access to achieve on Chrome OS.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply