So, I was ask to create a presentation about Obesity. I have to say, that as a rule, my thoughts went to my PC back at home (The one with the Windows 7 and office 2010 on it). And I actually (and now I foolishly admit to it) went to my PC to start working on my presentation... Only to find out that my office 2010 licence key ran out and that I need to renew it (WTF?!).
Being really ticked off, both because I totally forgot about my office running out of date and because I have to present tomorrow, I started looking for an alternative solutions to my problem.. And so, I decided to go to the computer lab at my college campus in order to use one of the computers there with a legally working office.... Only to find out that the lab was completely full! Only four seats were empty and they were meant for those with laptops (fours places with only power & internet connections) aka chair & table - no computer. At that moment I though I was going to kill someone (nothing makes me mad more than having a plan set in my mind and the entire universe trying to mess things up). Sitting down at one of the empty available seats and thinking what to do, it came to my mind that there's a Chromebook in my backpack...But being aware to the fact that I need presentation and that Google Drive doesn't really have a good presentation maker I was pretty reluctant to use it (The Chromebook) but having no choice one way or another I gave it a shot. As luck would have it, the person whom I doing the presentation with, started working on few slides, but since he didn't have office and - the way I see it now - because he is smarter than me (lol) he decided to use Prezi (an app that I did not know about until today) and he shared the presentation with me... Now that's where the Chromebook started to shine! In 3 seconds I opened the Chromebook, connected to the web, opened a Prezi account and started working on my presentation. Figuring out I will need to write some things down as well, I opened a new Google document and that worked perfectly (not to mention the pleasure I always have while typing on my Samsung ARM Chromebook). I have to say that's it is the first time ever since I have the Chromebook that I have pushed it to it's limits... And actually, it didn't feel like I did... I had around 11 Chrome tabs open, 1 Prezi, 1 docs, and the rest are Google Images, Google searches, plenty of website about obesity (Wikipedia being at least 3 of the tabs at least) And everything worked so smoothly and so fluently that for a second I forgot I am on a 250$ (now even less) worth of a netbook and though I am on my PC back home. The funny thing is that I used to own an Asus Eee PC netbook and when I had to do multiple tasks simultaneously it used to lag and you felt the computer getting warmer and warmer and working hard! but not with this little Chromebook, I don't know what Samsung did with this little thing, but no matter what I did, it kept working very smooth for the entire working process and didn't stagger even a little bit (And the presentation has plenty of images & animations etc..Something that usually would have caused even my PC back at home to stagger from time to time)
On a silly side note, one of the best feelings I had (Call it ego... Or whatever) was when people around me saw me open this little (and very pretty) thing and tried to figure out what kind of OS was I running... Even to the point of somebody asking me if "This is the newer version of Windows 8". Because in Israel very few people know about the Chromebook, I had to do some explaining about the Chromebook but overall it felt really good to share this computer with the rest of students I have spoken with, even to the point that one of them said that this kind of computer is exactly what he needed and that he'll consider buying one really soon.
So, during all that stuff I just mentioned above, and after I finished the presentation and was satisfied with everything I had a serious *facepalm* moment Why didn't I just went and used the Chromebook in the first place? I guess that I am still pretty green in the Chromebook world but now I have finally learned my lesson... If you need something done, do it yourself...With your Chromebook first, and then go to other sources... The way I see it, the web and the Chromebook offer so much already (and it only gets better) that I see myself returning to my PC only to clean dust that accumulated on it.
On a slightly different note... I am a little disappointed that the Chromebook doesn't really offer ways to listen to music when you don't have Google Music application on your Chromebook, It's not that I don't like using it, it's just the Google Music Play (or whatever the name is) is not available yet in my country. And even though I like listening to music via Youtube, I have certain tracks that I like and can't find them online so I was forced to use my Nexus 7 as a music player. But that's more or less the only complain I have.
I also noticed a nice change after the last few updates (Don't know which one exactly), I am now able to play 1080p videos on Youtube without any lags, I don't know if I am the only that had that issue, but back when I got the Chromebook, whenever I tried playing 1080p movies on my Chromebook, the video lagged badly and wasn't playable, 720p was pretty okay with the occasional lag here and there but overall watchable.
So That's about it folks. I actually wanted to make a post about my gaming experience on the Chromebook (Which also improved greatly) but I will leave it to the next time =]
