Should we get a Chromebox or similar?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My father-in-law’s desktop just died rather spectacularly - the technician he called says “well, the fan works…”. Not sure we can retrieve data from the thing’s hard drive even if we could figure out how to get it into an enclosure (they’re 1000 miles away from us, so not much we can do about hardware problems). He may have backups on an external drive but when I tried to talk him through how to find the USB cable for that, to plug into their other computer, he couldn’t figure THAT out either.

But that’s not the main question here.

The tech guy has been trying to talk him into just going with a computer that keeps it all on the cloud - e.g. a Chromebook or more useful for him, a Chromebox. He has no real idea what this means.

He’s already got keyboard, mouse, and monitor, so all he’d need would be the CPU.

How tough a learning curve would this be? Bear in mind, my husband and I are quite technical; I would expect neither of us would have much trouble figuring it out (though I’m sure some cussing would be involved at first). But this is an 80 year old man who can’t remember how to use the Roku we set up for him with a one-button-does-it-all remote, so…

How different would the interface be from what he’s used to? He had a Windows XP machine until 18 months ago; it died, so he bought a refurbished (BAD IDEA) Lenovo that had a memory catastrophe within weeks of the 90 day warranty expiration (Lenovo actually sent him the replacement memory as the behavior had started before that); it was resurrected but has croaked again.

And: what’s the gimmick with these? Do they just basically have a browser, and assume you do everything online (e.g. Google Docs, web-based email), with no local programs?

Can they read data from external drives?

I must say, the price point is pretty nice - I saw an HP Chromebox for 179 at Amazon and Asus units are similar, but the selection isn’t that great overall.

2

If you want a cheaply made computer with very little processing power that won’t do anything but go online, go for it. The OS is simple, not a lot of extra stuff to get confused about or mess up. Just be sure to go in with the assumption that if you can’t do something in a web browser, you can’t do it at all. This is no longer strictly true, as they are adding apps that increase functionality as time goes by, but if you want to edit photos or videos or music, play any non-browser games, or get any kind of real work done just forget about it and buy a real computer. You can use a flash drive or external hard drive if you like, or cloud storage. If you have a choice between HP and Asus, take Asus.

This is a CPU. I suspect what you mean is he needs a new computer, although if it is the CPU itself that’s bad you might come out cheaper by just replacing that depending on what kind it is. If that’s the case, I’d ask your computer guy what he’d charge to install one.

3

I’m quite sure it would be cheaper to replace the entire computer than to attempt to diagnose the innards of his existing one - which was, as I said, refurbished and a lemon to begin with.

He doesn’t really do anything on it except email / web browsing / document editing, so he really doesn’t need gaming capability and so on - so from what you said, it WOULD do the job for him.

4

My 85 year old mother switched from a Windows computer to a Chromebook with no problems at all. It wouldn’t work for me but it suits her needs just fine – web browsing, email, some browser games. Sounds like a fine (and economical) choice for your situation.

Everything is done online – you can’t download and run programs on Chrome but you can access data on an external drive.

How to work with external drives on a Chromebook

5

I put a couple I know on an ASUS Chromebox and have not had a single issue with it in a year. If you don’t have a specific Windows or Mac program that has no equivalent on the web, you should be using one. Just not having to deal with malware has been wonderful - they get their email, browse the web, pay bills, upload pictures and edit them.

6

Chromebooks are fine devices as long as the consumer understands what they can and can’t do. My granddad has one that he loves. He also has a laptop for Photoshop (he is a photographer) and other things that he knows the Chromebook can’t do. He uses it a lot for email and web browsing, as well as to broadcast videos to his non-smart tv with a Chromecast.

7

I think the bolded part is no longer true - you won’t have the full suite of stuff you could get onto a Mac or a PC, but there are some things you can download.

Thanks for the link on external drives.

I think part of what bugs me is that there is SUCH a poor selection of Chrome boxes, versus the laptops. My father-in-law uses a big keyboard and a big monitor and doesn’t want to give them up (and I don’t blame him). I don’t know if the Chromebooks can be left shut (i.e… screen not in the way) and just used with external keyboard / monitor, or what tricks you’d have to play to make it work.

8

The online version of Office is excellent, as is Google Docs.Polarr is a terrific image editor. The newest version of ChromeOS allows you to use Android apps as well.

I’d have to check. I mostly use the ASUS Chromebox that I can get for $179.