[turkeywelder]

In our use it was perfectly fine, it'll run fine with 4gb of ram and a Celeron. I wouldn't want to do hardcore software dev on one because they're usually low end screens and CPUs, but as a "here's a safe machine you can't break" they're absolutely brilliant for family.

Boot time is instant, OS updates are instant, battery life is great, if there was ever "linux for the desktop" it's ChromeOS.

It's not all roses though: full disclosure: our Chromebook is stuck on Chrome 68 so these might not apply any more.

- The file management is poor, a zip file can and will confuse it

- Bluetooth is Windows XP levels of stable, if you get a device it likes you're good, but it can be finicky.

- The device has a fixed expiry date where they stop getting software updates, this is the big kicker for me, because we had a perfectly functional machine that was a bit old that just got turned into E waste because nobody wanted to support the software any more. Shame because it was a fantastic machine. I'm hoping our Mac lasts longer than the Chromebook it's replacing

[tanaros]

I have no experience with this, but you may be able to install Neverware CloudReady on the old Chromebook to extend its life.