by Chris Guld, GeeksOnTour.com
When we traveled for a month thru Italy and Croatia last summer, the only computer I took with me was a Chromebook. I’ve been asked for a report on how it worked out.
The first week of our trip I was in a writer’s workshop, and there was little to no Wi-Fi available. I used my Chromebook, offline, to do all my writing. I used Google Docs that is built in to the Chromebook to do the writing. When I was able to connect to a Wi-Fi Internet connection, my documents automatically sync’d with my Google Drive in the cloud. If anything had happened to my laptop, I knew my documents were safe.
When I was connected, I could handle my email, post to Facebook, and research anything I needed on the web. If Jim wanted to use my Chromebook, he would just click his account on the opening screen and then he would see his favorites, his email, his photos, and he wouldn’t accidentally mess up my stuff!
I loved it. I wouldn’t think of taking my bigger, and more expensive, Windows laptop, unless I needed to do video editing while I was away. I could even update my GeeksOnTour.com website using WordPress tools from my Chrome browser and I had no problem doing all the work of producing our monthly newsletter. I was also impressed that I could use Android apps on it, like Snapseed. That meant I could use the larger screen of the Chromebook to do photo editing. The Chromebook I have is a bit old now, it’s the ASUS Flip C100P. We bought it well over a year ago at Walmart for $200. There are probably better ones available now.
For lots more info on Chromebooks, see our 45-minute What does this button do show #117: All about Chromebooks. Here is a little video showing off the Chromebook. It even fits in my purse! I love it.
[Editor: Here are many Chromebooks available at Amazon.com.]
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