My experience setting up a Chromebook

I just bought and tested a relatively affordable HP chromebook for remoting into work while travelling. Here are the specs:

• 14" resistive touch screen (1366x768)
• Integrated Intel HD 500 Graphics (better than some Chomebooks but worse than in a MacBook which have HD 615)
• 4GB of RAM
• 32GB of flash memory (20GB free)
• $299 (lowest seen at $179 on Cyber Monday 2018)
• 2 USB-C slots for charging from both sides, micro-SD, 2 USB-A, one on each side as well, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack
• Front-facing camera
• ~3.4 lbs, ~.7” thick
• In theory a 10hr battery life ....

The deal maker was that the monitor can be opened up 180 degrees, the audio is not terrible, and there is a touch screen. Before I bought it, I made sure to test graphics using ChromeExperiments.com and the ones I tried worked well.

Here are some neat things you should do when testing out a Chromebook.

1. Middle click is a three finger tap
2. Use Australian scrolling to make down be down and up be up (like on iOS, Android, and macOS)
3. 1Password X is a Chrome App (as opposed to extension) that syncs with Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android through your 1Password account. If you don't have membership, you can use the regular 1Password available through the Android Play Store
4. Instant tethering works with Android 8.0+. You must enable it on your android phone via Settings, Google, Instant Tethering as well as in Chrome via chrome://flags,
5. Citrix Receiver Chrome App (beware copies not published by Citrix!) works and doesn't have the weird issue I faced on iOS when typing keyboard combinations into a remote Windows VMWare Linux guest
6. The Google Secure Shell App is a NaCl Chrome App (not to be confused with the extension) that runs a full screen ssh client
7. Until recently PUBG mobile didn't work on Intel-based Chomebooks but it does now.
8. You can enable a sand-boxed Linux environment. Your Linux home directory is visible in the Chrome OS "Files" app under "Linux Files" which allows you to install an IDE such as CLion. You can use apt-get to install new packages (developer tools are not pre-installed)
9. CLion actually works using 1GB of memory, leaving me about 700 MB free.

What doesn't work:

1. Apple Music isn't supported

Hangups:

1. Trying to type in the dark. The keyboard is not backlit.

Worth trying:

1. Codenvy's Hosted Eclipse Chrome App (recently acquired by RedHat and supports ClangD but without a C++/C editing plugin)

Here is are the model number and SKU.

• Touch screen ($299): Model: 14-CA061DX, SKU: 6199102
• No touch screen ($249): Model 14-CA020NR, SKU 6204709

I'll be updating this post periodically.

Last Update: 2018-11-25