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I've been using a Toshiba Chromebook 2 (4GB, full-HD display version) that I got on sale at Best Buy for ~$280 during their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales and it's really done good for me so far. Crouton took no time at all to set up, and I only use it when I can't do something in the cloud or SSH'd to one of my servers. Since most of my time, including most development time, is spent "in the cloud" then the only thing I really need my Chromebook for is basic web browsing and an SSH client. I also occasionally use Koding for development, and I'm looking into Cloud9 just for the added ability of being able to hook it up to my own server(s). Most of my work is web development (Go, JavaScript/Node.js, HTML stuff, python, ruby, etc.), software development (Go, Linux stuff, etc.), and security auditing/light pentesting (which I can do with a small set of tool using crouton or other tools that live on my servers). Overall, if you have something that's nearly always on - like a server or VM - then the Chromebook will treat you really well. Even if you don't have one, you can easily use free services such as Koding and Cloud9 for development systems, all without even touching crouton. The only thing you'd really need crouton for is if you want more fine grain control of the software living on your machine, install other program (e.g. firefox, tor browser, atom, or any linux programs). As far as hardware, the Chromebook has just what I need to survive. The speakers on the Toshiba Chromebook 2 are awesomely loud, and made by SkullCandy which explains that. The battery life at 100% can easily last 10-12 hours of full use. The display is a gorgeous 1080P IPS display, and it has HDMI out just in case. The 4GB full-HD model also has a 2.58 GHz intel celeron processor, so I don't have to worry about ARM compatibilities and it just runs very well, plus it has 4GB of RAM to help with that processing. One factor I was very surprised about was the weight: it's barely there. Seriously though, I didn't expect it to be that light. But it doesn't have a fan, so that could explain why it's so light - not enough thickness to pack heavier componentry into. And it doesn't get too hot at all either, unless you're using it from 100% to dead constantly with heavier processing then it gets just a bit warm. Overall, if you can shell out the couple hundred dollars for a Chromebook, I'd go for it. |