[mntmoss]

The main downside of using any of the smaller/cheaper devices is in the I/O capabilities, which manifest both in the software and the hardware. With the hardware it's pretty obvious - a lot of Chromebooks are like phones and only have one or two USB ports. With the software, it's more like the sandboxing perpetually getting in the way of you doing things locally. Chromebooks are more flexible than Android devices in that you have the possibility of getting a full Linux environment, but the little issues will still arise now and then - and if you're on ARM, a lot of Linux software just will not be made for you.

If your workflow is just remote access with SSH and an occasional Web site, a smartphone or tablet can already do the job. Just deck it out with peripherals, a stand, etc. You can get very, very far with remote access. But for a full local development environment, especially if it involves graphics, there's a tendency to depend on a "desktop x86" stack that tends to creep in no matter what you do.