There is much to be said about a Google Chromebook. The operating system is the Chrome browser. It does not work offline. It does not run Windows applications. There is a lot to say.
It is not that those things are totally untrue. Chrome OS does a lot of things outside of the Chrome browser, but the average person would not be able to see that. Applications that run on Chrome OS, are progressive web applications, or applications that require access to a web browser, and Chrome is the interface for those applications. Windows applications run within the Chrome browser. And while Chrome OS does provide offline functionality, the average person is not cognizant of it.
In fact let's talk about that offline functionality, because that is the real problem I have with the Chromebook. There are three ways to approach offline functionality in Chrome OS. The first is native support built into the Chrome browser to access Google Docs files offline, same as exists on Windows, Linux, or Mac, when Google Docs is access through a Chrome browser. The second is offline storage provided through Android applications, which is a big deal because Google is not doing a good job of informing users that their best offline situation is through Android applications. Yes I am referring to Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Spotify, or any other app that stores information offline. And the third, most obvious form of offline storage, the internal storage that ships with a Chromebook, is the biggest issue.
Google is still allowing the original equipment manufacturers that create their own version of the Chromebook, to deliver devices to the public with an abnormally small amount of storage. An amount of storage that isn't even great for a cellphone, let alone an actual personal computer. The Google Pixelbook Go, their own idea of what Chrome OS should look like, ships with a minimum of 64 GB of storage. Asus is still selling Chromebooks with 16 GB of storage. In my opinion neither situation is preferable, although one can get by with 64 GB.
While 64 GB of storage is a lot to run Android applications from, as my cellphones have that amount of storage, it is not a lot of space to store files. This means that a user needs to rely on the cloud, and this also suggests that the Chromebook is a nice way for Google to make money off of time through their own storage solution, which is the only one that fits into Chrome OS nicely.
There are extensions that provide access to OneDrive and Dropbox from within Chrome OS, but the best way to access those solutions are through their Android apps. Only Google Drive works through Chrome OS in the file manager in a way that is baked in. Now, one could argue that Apple does the same for iCloud and that Microsoft does the same for OneDrive. This is true. But both sell devices that typically offer a lot more than just enough storage to get by. Arguably, on the Windows side one can still find 16 GB and 32 GB computers if they look hard enough.
The biggest differentiation between what Apple and Microsoft have done, from how Google treats the Chromebook, is that there are still devices in the wild that offer a traditional hard drive in that users can access a ton of offline storage. You can use the cloud, but you don't necessarily have to use the cloud.
I get what Google is doing by only allowing SSD and eMMC storage for the Chromebook. That is commendable is this is the future. But the bottom line is that the Chromebook should not be sold in smaller configurations like 16 GB, or 32 GB. Those configurations do not provide a lot of storage for Android applications, and they do not provide a lot of storage for Linux applications.
The saving grace of Chrome OS, is access to Linux, and access to Android applications. I would not recommend their Linux access to consumers, because it does not have the same graphical interface that exists when consumers install Linux on an old PC. But I would highly suggest using Android applications, as they run well on Chrome OS, and provide an interesting way to interact with the Android ecosystem through a laptop.
So at the end of the day, Chrome OS is perfectly fine, so far as you have a device with 64 GB of storage or more to make up for what it does not provide, through Android applications, or Linux. If you are going to purchase a Chromebook, make sure it has enough storage to make it worth it without the cloud or the internet. Enough to run Microsoft Word and actually do some damage; the Android version of Microsoft Word not on the one that runs in the web broswer.
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