Should I switch from Windows 8.1 to Chrome OS?

[Deferno54]

I currently own a Toshiba Satellite C-855 S5350 Laptop (6 GB Ram, 500 GB Storage, Intel Pentium B980) and I was wondering if I should switch to an HP Chromebox (2GB Ram, 16 GB Storage, Intel Celeron 2955U). I have found my Windows Laptop to be a little laggy in certain circumstances and all I use it for is social media, web browsing, video watching, etc.. I was thinking about setting up a desktop work station and saw that the HP Chromebox came at an amazing price with the keyboard and mouse. My laptop is 2 years old and what I would call a notch or two below mid-range. And I am really deciding whether it would be worth making a workstation with a monitor and the chromebox, or just slap the laptop on the desk and use it because it is perfectly fine for what I use it for.

PLEASE shoot me with your opinions as I am terrible at choices.

Thank you for taking your time to read this and helping me out!

*Quick Note: Besides that chromebox I am also open to another chrome os device along with a nice black friday deal, although not planning for another windows laptop*

*AND would it be worth installing windows 7 in my laptop to make it a ton faster? I don't need the touch-friendly OS as my laptop is not touchscreen.*

Once again, Thanks!!

 

[anon(5600632)]

I weighed the same choice and stuck with windows. There are still some old style programs that need to be installed on a hard drive (Quicken, for example). The pure web nature of Chrome OS takes away that option.

The best thing for my Windows 8 machine is a free app called "Classic Shell:, which makes it look, feel and run like Windows 7. And you can also remove many of the Windows 8 pre-installed apps.

 

[hoobie1928]

I just ordered the Toshiba Chromebook. I am excited about the switch to Google OS. However, I am keeping my windows 8.1 laptop. I will need to remote access it at times to be able to use Microsoft Silverlight for work. Other than that I am excited to switch. Windows lost me with 8. It is a good operating system for mobile and tablets. However, I feel it is lacking when it comes to non touchscreen devices.

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[PaulQ]

I have both a Windows 8.1 laptop (touchscreen - which is pointless) and a new Toshiba Chromebook 2. To me, they are different animals. I still need the Windows laptop to run programs I use. The Chromebook is great for times I don't want to be at my laptop - it's light and simple. Using the full Microsoft Office is still better than the online version in my opinion.

One way you can sort of test whether or not you would do well with just Chrome OS is to try using only Chrome on your Windows laptop. It's not exactly the same but if you can do everything from within Chrome using web apps (e.g. Google Docs, etc.), then you'll be fine with Chrome OS.

As for speeding up your laptop, you'll see a lightening boost if you replace your hard drive with an SSD. I did this and ...wow... breathed new life into my old laptop. I don't find Windows 8 to be particularly slow and I only run it in desktop mode - the "metro interface" is a waste on a laptop.

If you do go Chrome OS, I recommend the Toshiba. Great product. Get the higher end model with the HD screen.

Good luck!

 

[benhaube]

I got a Chromebook for Christmas. Having used it for a day and a half I can say it does everything I need it to. I have a windows 7 desktop that I built myself, but with my G Pad 8.3 GPE I wasn't using it much. Now with the Chromebook I have a feeling I will hardly ever use it. Currently it just houses 2 2Tb hard drives with lots of ripped movies my music library. Even my music library is on Google Play Music, so i can get to it from any device I have.

To put it simply, I find the Chromebook much simpler and a lot quicker due to the eMMC hard drive. It's a lit easier to pull the Chromebook out and get done what I need to do rather than boot up the desktop machine.