Maybe admins need to log their family in as a local account.
Either way, in my opinion, there's only a 5% reasonable point in having a chromebook even if it can do 95% of what a WIndows machine can do (Which I do not believe).
You seem to be missing the entire point of a Chromebook. They are low cost alternatives to full fledged laptops or tablets. I bought a refurb one for myself and use it all the time to watch Netflix, Hangouts, emails, remote desktop, browse the web, and other tasks. Sure, I could use a tablet or my phone for these things, but this format works much better for me. I liked it so much I bought one for my parents who would sit in a cramped room with an ancient Vista desktop to do Hangouts with our kids. They LOVE the Chromebook because it is dead simple.
But you can get full fledged laptops and tablets for the same price. So I think you're the one missing the point. The point is that they're good for someone to check email on and they're locked down tight so they're hard to screw up. Of course, that pretty much applies to modern Windows devices too now. The downside is that Win8 requires tweaking for more advanced users to be happy. Win10 looks to be pretty decent out of the box though. Unless you're just a diehard "I hate it just because also apps should die except on Android for some reason" kind of guy.
Have you used a chromebook? You can't get a full fledged laptop with the same speed, battery life, and portability for double the price of a chromebook.
What does that have to do with cost? He said they're "low cost alternatives to full fledged laptops or tablets". He didn't say "well they have this or that feature!". But let's discuss these things anyway. Have you used a HP Stream 11? Compare that to the HP Chromebook 11. Same manufacturer, and largely similar hardware.
Performance: Similar CPUs... but the Stream 11's N2840 has a higher turbo (200Mhz) than the N2830 in the Chromebook 11. Similar situation for graphics turbo. Both have 2GB of RAM, although Windows has excellent virtual memory support in case you really load up lots of tabs (ask the Anandtech authors, has been discussed before). ChromeOS uses less space so 16GB might not be the end of the world, but Stream has 32GB - not to mention recent Win 8.1 deployments have crunched down the footprint which means more space available on the Stream. Whoops.
Battery life? HP rates their Stream 11 at 8 hours 15 minutes on a 37Wh battery, and rates their Chromebook 11 at 8 hours on a 36Wh battery. Portability? The Stream 11 is the same size, only a hair thinner, and a hair lighter. Display? Same display. Whoops.
So clearly the Chromebook is cheaper? Nope. $199 for the Stream 11, $279 for the Chromebook 11. Whoops!
And then we face reality. Have you actually tried using that "lower footprint" win8.1 on a n2840? I have. I'd rather never do that again. Because the footprint is so low that the system just freezes for seconds at a time. Windows performance tax has only increased with the years.
Win8.1 install takes up 25 - 27 gb of roughly 30gb (post ntfs format) space. Enjoy your 3 - 4 gb of usable space. And yeah that v-mem is going to take the remaining 2/3 of that space. gg
Oh you will now say "get rid of the bloat". No no mate that's not how a pc for a grandmother works. You get what u paid for and you suffer with it.
And then u still have to have an AV suite, a firewall and a malware scanner running in the background. Cos you know. Windows.
Me thinks you are doing it wrong. That or maybe/possibly you have a large restore partition there. Including page file and hibernation file, a 32GB Windows 8.1 install, including all updates and the big update 1 (once cleaned up) should leave approximately 11GiB of free space with 32GB (~29 odd GiB) of storage. That isn't a ton of space, but should be plenty to install a fair number of windows store apps. Then load on an SD card or something for media and desktop applications.
I'd still say the minimum for a "real" machine should be 60/64GB, if not double, but you can do it with 32GB without being a serious issues (heck, my laptop currently has a 32GB mSATA drive as its boot drive and it has 9.8GiB free with fully up-to-date Windows 8.1 on it and a few programs installed, though most stuff is on the 120GB 2.5" SSD in the drive bay).
i agree. with the new low power, low cost Atom machines with Windows and the pricepoint at around 300 (even cheaper for tablets), the Chrome os hardly makes sense any more.
You're still missing the point. It's not just the price. It's the simplicity. My wife used to constantly get viruses, crash things, have to do data backups etc.. Now she has a chromebook, and it just works.
And that is what a great deal of the computing public out there want. As much as we enthusiasts love out Windows machines, most really don't care and just want to get on with their day without being stopped by Trovi/Ask Toolbars and constant updates getting in the way. Unless Microsoft really knuckle under and make Windows 10 onwards far more idiot and bullet proof they really may as well give up in the domestic/home market.
just ordered a refurbished for $167 from acer outlet w/ hd screen to replace my wife's dell xps13 w/ win8.1, crapping out just outside warranty period of course.
we've been hardcore windows users for years, but collectively tired of the upkeep, further tied into google services and web so the clean slate of chrome os will be a welcome change. windows binary compatibility is a double-edged sword, and frankly the time investment to maintain compatibility isn't worth the bother, in our house at least.
My non-tech-savvy mom has been using a Win8 touchscreen laptop (hybrid, actually but she always uses it in laptop mode) for about two years without any issue. Nowadays you can get plenty of low-cost Win boxes that are dead simple to use and significantly harder to infest. Especially if you primarily use the Modern UI variant of IE11 and apps from the Store. If you're talking about Windows 7 and earlier, yes I'd agree that they're significantly riskier for those who are computer illiterate.
Anyway I find it funny that many praise the Google-flavored walled garden approach, which used to be a source of much hate directed against Apple products. Better still when MS implemented a Store of their own, people pissed and moaned endlessly. I still see posts complaining about the Windows Store and railing against apps on Windows. Like MS really had a choice in the matter - that's where the market headed.
To be fair, the Windows Store is generally slow, hard to find useful apps, and far more limited in selection than Android or Apple App Stores. You could argue it's a chicken vs. egg problem, but MS for better or worse has the legacy and baggage of backwards compatibility. If they dropped it, they would lose a huge reason for why people use Windows. Heck, Windows RT is almost dead already for precisely that reason.
On the phones the store is already pretty decent. Pretty much everyone on Win8 that cares will be upgrading to Win10 (for free), with an improved Store populated increasingly by Universal Apps that can run on Win phones, tablets, and more traditional PCs - fullscreen or windowed on the desktop.
Under new leadership they seem to be handling the mix of touch-only, hybrid, and non-touch devices much better. ARM builds will probably vanish for now except on phones. However with Windows RunTime, they could release a future port of Windows on ARM or MIPS and that would have access to their library of apps.
I'm actually reading this on my Chromebook even though I have a super high end laptop and desktop to game with. The Chromebook just works, is great as a web browser if you need to type, and I can leave it in standby and just reach for it whenever I want. Instantly pops up. No worries about security. Love my Chromebook,
Beware, Haswell and Broadwell Chromebooks are being subsidised by Intel, but the subsidy is only tempory. As soon as Intel corners the market the subsidy will disappear and they will be replaced with cheaper Bay Trail chips: http://techtainian.com/news/2014/6/1/intel-is-subs...
Intel subsidizes a lot of things by offering chips at discounted prices. You'll note that the article talks about Haswell Celeron chips being subsidized by Intel, and yet here we are with a Broadwell Chromebook six months after that article was written. And yes, a lot of Chromebooks in the meantime used Bay Trail.
Celerons are used in other laptops besides Chromebooks, but where the limited RAM and other cut corners are a problem on Windows that's not generally the case with Chrome OS. Intel may have dropped the price of the Celeron chips $50 to get into things like the C720, but as I've just shown with the benchmarks, C720 at $249 (i.e. unsubsidized) would hardly be a bad option.
Long term, we'll have to see what's available and the pricing -- and we still don't have a clear idea how much the 1080p IPS Chromebook 15 from Acer will cost. But if they can get that out at $299, it's guaranteed to win a ton of awards. At $349, it ends up more like the Toshiba Chromebook 2: lovely display, but $349 for a Chromebook is getting to be a bit high in pricing.
Doesn't Toshiba offer a 13 model with an IPS display? I think it only has a baytrail though.
One great thing about ChromeOS you didn't mention was the upgrade paradigm/procedure. It takes literally 10 seconds or so to upgrade my Chromebook. Compared to the hours of my life I've spent tapping my fingers and waiting for Windows to cycle through installing updates it's a breath of very fresh air. I would actually say a Chromebook does 100% of what 'most' people want. I think you'd only have to look at some simple numbers to see that 'most' Windows computer users aren't in fact running Photoshop or high end games or anything like that. And the Windows machines available at these same prices would not be a good choice for those activities at any rate. Most computer users are surfing the web, doing some e-mail and facebook and that's about it. I see a lot of comments about needing Windows to do 'real work'. This usually referring to MS Office I suppose. A lot of businesses run using Google Docs though. And I'm sure their work is just as 'real' to them. So I don't really get such notions. You can do plenty of 'real work' on a Chromebook, depending on what your work is. There certainly isn't anything stopping you from doing school work or running a business or writing the great American novel on one. I'm interested to see what Google does with ChromeOS going forward. Frankly I think the answer lies in the massive uptake of containerization going on in the Linux community. It would be very easy for Google to take advantage of the wide range of powerful Linux apps while still maintaining the high security and ease-of-use of Chromebooks if they implemented some type of Docker type container mechanism into the heart of it.
Yes, I mentioned the Toshiba CB2 with 1080p IPS a couple times. As for the "100% of what most people want"... no, I don't believe that at all. It's 100% of what some people do, sure, but even my non-techie wife ran into limitations pretty quickly when I had her use a Chromebook. Some of it was due to differences in how you use the laptop (where are my files kind of stuff), and she could live with the platform if necessary, but there are lots of small things that can get missed. Maybe it's 99% of what most people need, but that 1% can still be too much if it's an important item (e.g. a bank site that doesn't work properly with Chrome, though that's rare these days).
Use certainly depends on ... well... use. But of the handful of friends and family I help out with computer stuff most only need to know anything about the file system ever to download and install applications. Typically a browser or virus program or flash plugin installer and the like. Most of that stuff goes away with ChromeOS. For the little that's left I don't find using the file system any worse than explaining how to use a traditional file system to them. But yes, certain people will have certain needs or uses which either wouldn't work or would require learning a new routine.
I'm not digging Chromebook's power / functionality / utility.
I just purchased a Dell laptop with 15.6" touch screen, Intel Haswell core i3, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, DVD, HDMI, USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0, 6 cell battery etc. for $299. For less than $100 replaced the HDD with a Samsung 250 GB 850 EVO SSD,
OK, it came with Win 8.1 OS. I've been using Windows since it first came out (e.g. 3.1, 95, XP, 7) and have yet to have a malware issue. I set it up to boot to desktop mode (e.g. have a Android tablet for touch apps) and find the Win 8.1 experience comparable to Win 7 and sometimes better. Additionally, MS just announced that they will provide a free upgrade to Win 10 (to users of Win 7 and 8.1).
I find the ability to easily choose/ add upgraded components, run applications and have productivity independent of the cloud, USB / HDMI connectivity and much higher performance for just a few $ more, a no brainer.
On a budget? My daughter just purchased a ASUS laptop with 15.6" screen, Intel 2.16GHz N2830, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, HDMI, USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 and Win 8.1 BING for $219.
I don't know when the last time is I actually got hit by malware/virus on one of my PCs. But I have friends and family I help who are not as savvy that get malware ALL. THE. TIME. It's crazy to me -- like a person will have a system for less than two weeks, and it has malware (that happened with my dad just this past month). I'd blame porn sites for some users, but that's not even the problem on some of these systems. It's looking for "free [anything]" and going to the wrong web sites, or searching for a web site in Bing instead of typing in the URL (that's what got my dad I'm pretty sure).
I'd love to say the solution is user education, but that just doesn't work. Get yourself a bunch of friends or relatives with children 8+ years old who are allowed to use the PC on a daily basis and I guarantee some of them will get hit with malware within a month. I tend to fix at least 20 computers a year where the only problem is that they got hit by malware. Thankfully, most of them aren't as bad as Cryptowall, which wiped out my dad's desktop and is asking for a $2000 ransom. (And that was with Norton AV running.)
@JarredWalton: I hear you loud and clear! My father gets stuff on his machine within days after I clean it. I dread going home. I just can't protect him enough from his stupid habits. In his case, I think is 'gun' sites. And randomly clicking on anything that pop-ups up in his face.
While my kids were young it wasn't much of a problem. Now that they are older it is crazy ("gee I can get free music, or the latest episodes of Teen Ware-wolf before it is on Netflix, from this site, all I have to do is download this .exe." Doh!). I had to remove their admin rights. It is a bit of pain now and then, but it was the only way I could keep sane.
That said, I have a Chromebook (13" Toshiba for $180 last fall) and they all fight for it. I don't care what they do on that thing. I can wipe and rebuild it in 15 min if needed.
Personally, I really think that Windows 10 should come with a sort of "RT mode" that doesn't let a user run anything that doesn't come from the Windows Store to protect from this sort of thing. Make it a switch that only the admin can modify, and that'd help a lot. I actually was considering a Surface 2 for my parents for a while because of this very reason (and they only need Office and IE anyway).
This is what apple does on OS X as well, at least the Yosemite I use for work. You can set in the security settings that things downloaded from the Internet can't be run without overriding it in the security settings.
You don't get viruses etc. from porn sites. That's turn of the century thinking. You get malware from legitimate download sites. I guess you haven't read the articles from HowToGeek where they found that all the main download sites are stuffing the software with junk.
Thats why folks and family get infected all the while due to them downloading innocent software encrusted with malware laden installers.
Okay, yes, you can get malware infections from non-porn activities, but looking for porn is also still a major source of problems. Particularly if someone looks for free stuff. But the toolbars and other addons are certainly bad as well.
You talk about those laptops like they're actually good. I wouldn't touch one of those 5400RPM hard drives with a 10-foot pole. The perceived performance of one of these chromebooks would absolutely crush all of those laptops you mentioned, just because of how glacially slow the hard drives would make them feel.
The first laptop, where you replaced the hard drive with an SSD, is now at a total price of $400, which is roughly double the price of these Chromebooks. Of course, for more money, you can get a laptop with higher performance specs. This is how economies work. However, those are both 15.6" laptops as well, and 15 inch laptops are painfully large and bulky. 14" is as high as I could ever see myself purchasing, but 13.3" is a much more realistic "high end" for me in terms of size.
My Acer C720P also has no problems with productivity sans an active cloud connection. Google Drive / Docs can be used without an internet connection, and it most definitely has both USB 3.0 and a full HDMI port -- so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. The battery life on my C720P almost certainly stomps whatever cheap Windows laptops you bought as well.
To recap, Chromebooks are good because: - They are significantly less expensive than any Windows laptop worth having (the Stream 11 and X205TA are the first *real* competitors to Chromebooks, because they have SSDs at Chromebook price points) - They do have all of the connectivity you talked about, such as USB and HDMI - You're able to do productive things without an internet connection thanks to HTML5's notion of offline web applications, plus Google's Native Client (NaCL) initiative that allows you to run near-native code on Chromebooks in a fully sandboxed environment, including some rather intense games (though not very many) - Userproof: no malware, no crashing, no problems. - Compact, portable form factor, with build quality that far exceeds the chintzy feel of sub $400 15.6" Windows laptops which literally feel like they're 95% air, and 5% plastic that's about to break.
I would *strongly* recommend buying a solid Chromebook (like the C720) and giving that a whirl. Your notions seem to be based on misconceptions and on the experiences gleaned from 10-seconds of clicking buttons on them at Best Buy while sneering at the Chromebooks.
Hey coder543, what "rather intense games" do you run on Chromebooks in a sandboxed environment? Serious question -- I'd love to have something a bit more demanding to test than WebGL portals! And if I can get something with a freaking benchmark in it, I'd be ecstatic. :-)
I took my little 11" Samsung Chromebook on my three week vacation to Canada a few months ago. I just charged it up and didnt take the charger with me as I reckoned it would last. Well I used it most days for checking upon stuff, was no hassle to carry around and it lasted the whole vacation...with an hour to spare on the battery. No cheap nasty $300 Windows laptop would have done that.
Plenty laptops these days with a slow but big Intel CPU around $200. It might be pretty bad in terms of battery life but the speed will be appreciated all the time. I'm typing on an Asus with a Celeron 1000M which is snappy for web browsing.
That sounds like a good deal but a $300 i3 isn't every day pricing is it? I have a Chromebook I paid $150 for. An Acer c720 with the Haswell Celeron. It's no problem to load Linux up in a parallel boot and I can do anything I need to with it. Mostly though I have just left it as ChromeOS native and it's a great little machine to do this or that. Easy and simple to use and maintain. Battery lasts forever. Could upgrade the SSD if I wanted - it's M.2 so still a little more expensive but not a huge deal. A lot of use for $150.
OK- I don't know how anyone who has been using Microsoft OSes sicne the Win 3.1 days can never have run across a virus. It's been a while for me, but I've certainly come across them now and again since I started "computing" in the DOS 5.0 days. Especially when they started spreading by USB stick with the fantastic autorun feature. I don't remember that last time I personally had one, but friends and family (and even a few work computers) do get them on occasion. Mainly it's stupid highjacking stuff.
I agree that a $299 Core i3 15.6" laptop smokes any Chromebook, and ultimately is more useful.
I know this lag of which you speak. It is extremely irritating. That's why I love my 4.5 GHz G3258. It can run too many things at once, but it absolutely screams at web browsing. 100mS sunspider score. lol.
Why does it all of a sudden seem to me that an iPad 2 and a Bluetooth keyboard would be a much better choice than this?
- Closed system to protect from malware: check
But then the iPad takes off:
- It's much faster - The store has many more titles then the Chrome store and generally a higher quality - You don't need to lock yourself into the Cloud if you don't want to - The screen is much better all around - It's lighter - There's an LTE option
Heck, if you desperately want a closed system but still much better system all around, why not get a Surface RT?
What is the price of the Ipad 2 + Bluetooth Keyboard? lol
I feel like you are comparing a Tesla with a Geo Metro saying it gets better gas mileage AND is faster. While not un-true, it is also woefully misleading.
"Window Surface 2 Rt" To close to "Windows Surface Pro 2". People thought it could do windows. Better would have been "RT Surface 2" Problem with limited apps and developers. Not even another major browser besides EI. And"EI" is no chrome killer. To Refuge that commented. There is threat of substitution with iPad. You don't have to go for latest and greatest. 1st iPad Air(still better display) with discounted keyboard case.
Everytime I have used a web service, like Google docs, Office, Dropbox, OneDrive etc., the very low speed of transferring files is killing me. I have a 60/60 Mb/s connection, that often is utilized less than 1%.
The idea of "cloud" is somehow ok, but until the speed is raised dramatically, it´s way, way to slow for my temper.
Jarred, I wanted to thank you for the most honest, useful, unbiased, comprehensive and well-written Chromebook (and Chrome OS) review I've ever read.
I am in the camp that thinks Chromebooks can do 100% of what a lot of users want to do with their laptop (especially older and non-tech savvy types) but overall, this was the best description of all the pros and cons of Chromebooks I've seen. It makes a very good case for why Chromebooks are good for some people, but also why they are probably not the right tool for others.
Thank you for your attention to this segment. I very much look forward to your thoughts on the upcoming Rockchip and Broadwell Chromebooks (and the Toshiba Chromebook 2 1080p version if you can get your hands on one).
I have the Chromebook 13 (1080p, 4GB RAM, 32GB Flash) with the Tegra K1 processor and get 9-11 hours from a single charge. My only complaint with the Chromebook 13 is the screen, even the HD model comes with a TN panel. It's not a terrible screen, but it's not great either.
An excellent review, thank you very much. You have explained the pros and cons of the product from a user's point of view, which has become rare on this site lately.
Thank you for skipping editorializing and pretending to be an armchair CEO. Thank you for not inserting one-liners out of the blue to compliment (or marginalize) certain corporations. Thank you for not including in the charts whatever Apple's product that you believe should be at the top. (iPad Air 2 is understandable) Thank you for explaining everything from user's perspective. I am tired of reading "In the future corporation XXX should do better to improve ...." type of editorials in a product review that I wonder worth buying.
You helped me so much with rich information with regard to this Chromebook. I appreciate it again.
I own an Acer Aspire S3 ultrabook and screen quality is awful (blue tint, grainy) and the battery has deteriorated to under 50% of its original capacity (according to a software readout which seems correct to me) in about a year. So while battery life on this Chromebook right out of the box, I guarantee they are using a very cheap battery that will show after not much use. You really do get what you pay for here!
No, as it's not supported on Chrome OS. I'd really like to add some better graphics/gaming benchmarks if possible, but I just don't know of any. If you have recommendations, let me know!
I have one. (On it now.) The big thing I'd mention that's not here is there are glitches--session crashes if I use an external monitor for a long time, occasional reboots (maybe triggered by very low battery), and an ignorable but really odd glitch where garbage flickers up on part of the built-in LCD for one frame. GMail loads awful slowly, and Google Play Music stutters (meaning software isn't all there yet--music is smooth on my much-lower-powered phone!).
Despite all that I like it; I'm using the 4GB RAM model and running Ubuntu alongside Chrome OS via crouton just to have a local Unix shell. It's a nice cheap portable terminal first and just happens to sort of serve as a standalone computer too. Those issues make it hard for me to recommend it to most other folks, though.
Probably wasn't ready in time, plus I'm not sure Denver is really all that great in the first iteration. If Denver is so awesome... why isn't it in Tegra X1? Ha.
I know how ironic this will sound, but Google is horribly short sighted.
Optimized and polished Andromium-like Android (google it for more info) just kills Chrome in every single respect. And Google just seems to fail realizing that for some reason
Dear Anandtech, Please start all laptop reviews with a brief summary of the quality of the display options. If the displays aren't reasonable quality I can quickly ignore the rest of the review. I skimmed the first part of this review until I got to where it said the display was a poor TN, and read no further. Hopefully others will find the review useful. Thanks.
Acer Chromebook is one of the best laptops ever released on the market. They have the most excellent specs and functions that could be of great for both business and entertainment.
I much prefer Chromebooks over cheap Windows laptops. Less of a headache/irritant all around. I'm a Mac user, but I think Chromebooks are a better alternative to my iPad than a $500 Windows laptop. I still use my old Asus laptop for an occasional bout of C&C, but that's all.
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damianrobertjones - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Maybe admins need to log their family in as a local account.Either way, in my opinion, there's only a 5% reasonable point in having a chromebook even if it can do 95% of what a WIndows machine can do (Which I do not believe).
HotBBQ - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
You seem to be missing the entire point of a Chromebook. They are low cost alternatives to full fledged laptops or tablets. I bought a refurb one for myself and use it all the time to watch Netflix, Hangouts, emails, remote desktop, browse the web, and other tasks. Sure, I could use a tablet or my phone for these things, but this format works much better for me. I liked it so much I bought one for my parents who would sit in a cramped room with an ancient Vista desktop to do Hangouts with our kids. They LOVE the Chromebook because it is dead simple.Alexvrb - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
But you can get full fledged laptops and tablets for the same price. So I think you're the one missing the point. The point is that they're good for someone to check email on and they're locked down tight so they're hard to screw up. Of course, that pretty much applies to modern Windows devices too now. The downside is that Win8 requires tweaking for more advanced users to be happy. Win10 looks to be pretty decent out of the box though. Unless you're just a diehard "I hate it just because also apps should die except on Android for some reason" kind of guy.talonz - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
Have you used a chromebook? You can't get a full fledged laptop with the same speed, battery life, and portability for double the price of a chromebook.Alexvrb - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
What does that have to do with cost? He said they're "low cost alternatives to full fledged laptops or tablets". He didn't say "well they have this or that feature!". But let's discuss these things anyway. Have you used a HP Stream 11? Compare that to the HP Chromebook 11. Same manufacturer, and largely similar hardware.Performance: Similar CPUs... but the Stream 11's N2840 has a higher turbo (200Mhz) than the N2830 in the Chromebook 11. Similar situation for graphics turbo. Both have 2GB of RAM, although Windows has excellent virtual memory support in case you really load up lots of tabs (ask the Anandtech authors, has been discussed before). ChromeOS uses less space so 16GB might not be the end of the world, but Stream has 32GB - not to mention recent Win 8.1 deployments have crunched down the footprint which means more space available on the Stream. Whoops.
Battery life? HP rates their Stream 11 at 8 hours 15 minutes on a 37Wh battery, and rates their Chromebook 11 at 8 hours on a 36Wh battery. Portability? The Stream 11 is the same size, only a hair thinner, and a hair lighter. Display? Same display. Whoops.
So clearly the Chromebook is cheaper? Nope. $199 for the Stream 11, $279 for the Chromebook 11. Whoops!
Alexey291 - Sunday, February 1, 2015 - link
And then we face reality. Have you actually tried using that "lower footprint" win8.1 on a n2840? I have. I'd rather never do that again. Because the footprint is so low that the system just freezes for seconds at a time. Windows performance tax has only increased with the years.Win8.1 install takes up 25 - 27 gb of roughly 30gb (post ntfs format) space. Enjoy your 3 - 4 gb of usable space. And yeah that v-mem is going to take the remaining 2/3 of that space. gg
Oh you will now say "get rid of the bloat". No no mate that's not how a pc for a grandmother works. You get what u paid for and you suffer with it.
And then u still have to have an AV suite, a firewall and a malware scanner running in the background. Cos you know. Windows.
azazel1024 - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
Me thinks you are doing it wrong. That or maybe/possibly you have a large restore partition there. Including page file and hibernation file, a 32GB Windows 8.1 install, including all updates and the big update 1 (once cleaned up) should leave approximately 11GiB of free space with 32GB (~29 odd GiB) of storage. That isn't a ton of space, but should be plenty to install a fair number of windows store apps. Then load on an SD card or something for media and desktop applications.I'd still say the minimum for a "real" machine should be 60/64GB, if not double, but you can do it with 32GB without being a serious issues (heck, my laptop currently has a 32GB mSATA drive as its boot drive and it has 9.8GiB free with fully up-to-date Windows 8.1 on it and a few programs installed, though most stuff is on the 120GB 2.5" SSD in the drive bay).
stefstef - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
i agree. with the new low power, low cost Atom machines with Windows and the pricepoint at around 300 (even cheaper for tablets), the Chrome os hardly makes sense any more.syxbit - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
You're still missing the point. It's not just the price. It's the simplicity. My wife used to constantly get viruses, crash things, have to do data backups etc..Now she has a chromebook, and it just works.
jabber - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
And that is what a great deal of the computing public out there want. As much as we enthusiasts love out Windows machines, most really don't care and just want to get on with their day without being stopped by Trovi/Ask Toolbars and constant updates getting in the way. Unless Microsoft really knuckle under and make Windows 10 onwards far more idiot and bullet proof they really may as well give up in the domestic/home market.jaromski - Sunday, February 1, 2015 - link
just ordered a refurbished for $167 from acer outlet w/ hd screen to replace my wife's dell xps13 w/ win8.1, crapping out just outside warranty period of course.we've been hardcore windows users for years, but collectively tired of the upkeep, further tied into google services and web so the clean slate of chrome os will be a welcome change. windows binary compatibility is a double-edged sword, and frankly the time investment to maintain compatibility isn't worth the bother, in our house at least.
Alexvrb - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
My non-tech-savvy mom has been using a Win8 touchscreen laptop (hybrid, actually but she always uses it in laptop mode) for about two years without any issue. Nowadays you can get plenty of low-cost Win boxes that are dead simple to use and significantly harder to infest. Especially if you primarily use the Modern UI variant of IE11 and apps from the Store. If you're talking about Windows 7 and earlier, yes I'd agree that they're significantly riskier for those who are computer illiterate.Anyway I find it funny that many praise the Google-flavored walled garden approach, which used to be a source of much hate directed against Apple products. Better still when MS implemented a Store of their own, people pissed and moaned endlessly. I still see posts complaining about the Windows Store and railing against apps on Windows. Like MS really had a choice in the matter - that's where the market headed.
JarredWalton - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
To be fair, the Windows Store is generally slow, hard to find useful apps, and far more limited in selection than Android or Apple App Stores. You could argue it's a chicken vs. egg problem, but MS for better or worse has the legacy and baggage of backwards compatibility. If they dropped it, they would lose a huge reason for why people use Windows. Heck, Windows RT is almost dead already for precisely that reason.Alexvrb - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
On the phones the store is already pretty decent. Pretty much everyone on Win8 that cares will be upgrading to Win10 (for free), with an improved Store populated increasingly by Universal Apps that can run on Win phones, tablets, and more traditional PCs - fullscreen or windowed on the desktop.Under new leadership they seem to be handling the mix of touch-only, hybrid, and non-touch devices much better. ARM builds will probably vanish for now except on phones. However with Windows RunTime, they could release a future port of Windows on ARM or MIPS and that would have access to their library of apps.
AmdInside - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
I'm actually reading this on my Chromebook even though I have a super high end laptop and desktop to game with. The Chromebook just works, is great as a web browser if you need to type, and I can leave it in standby and just reach for it whenever I want. Instantly pops up. No worries about security. Love my Chromebook,darkness2 - Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - link
then why dont use it as a gaming computer :)deontologist - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
So you slackers, where's that nexus 9 review?JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Talk to Josh. ;-)mukiex - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Well Josh better get UP ONS, 'cause I wanna see in-depth Denver perf =DPC Perv - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
At this point he should not bother with the Nexus 9 review. Nothing good will come out of it.lefty2 - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Beware, Haswell and Broadwell Chromebooks are being subsidised by Intel, but the subsidy is only tempory. As soon as Intel corners the market the subsidy will disappear and they will be replaced with cheaper Bay Trail chips:http://techtainian.com/news/2014/6/1/intel-is-subs...
is a strategy by Intel to make
JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Intel subsidizes a lot of things by offering chips at discounted prices. You'll note that the article talks about Haswell Celeron chips being subsidized by Intel, and yet here we are with a Broadwell Chromebook six months after that article was written. And yes, a lot of Chromebooks in the meantime used Bay Trail.Celerons are used in other laptops besides Chromebooks, but where the limited RAM and other cut corners are a problem on Windows that's not generally the case with Chrome OS. Intel may have dropped the price of the Celeron chips $50 to get into things like the C720, but as I've just shown with the benchmarks, C720 at $249 (i.e. unsubsidized) would hardly be a bad option.
Long term, we'll have to see what's available and the pricing -- and we still don't have a clear idea how much the 1080p IPS Chromebook 15 from Acer will cost. But if they can get that out at $299, it's guaranteed to win a ton of awards. At $349, it ends up more like the Toshiba Chromebook 2: lovely display, but $349 for a Chromebook is getting to be a bit high in pricing.
errorr - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
of course what you suggest is illegal as well...
savagemike - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Doesn't Toshiba offer a 13 model with an IPS display? I think it only has a baytrail though.One great thing about ChromeOS you didn't mention was the upgrade paradigm/procedure. It takes literally 10 seconds or so to upgrade my Chromebook. Compared to the hours of my life I've spent tapping my fingers and waiting for Windows to cycle through installing updates it's a breath of very fresh air.
I would actually say a Chromebook does 100% of what 'most' people want. I think you'd only have to look at some simple numbers to see that 'most' Windows computer users aren't in fact running Photoshop or high end games or anything like that. And the Windows machines available at these same prices would not be a good choice for those activities at any rate.
Most computer users are surfing the web, doing some e-mail and facebook and that's about it.
I see a lot of comments about needing Windows to do 'real work'. This usually referring to MS Office I suppose. A lot of businesses run using Google Docs though. And I'm sure their work is just as 'real' to them. So I don't really get such notions. You can do plenty of 'real work' on a Chromebook, depending on what your work is. There certainly isn't anything stopping you from doing school work or running a business or writing the great American novel on one.
I'm interested to see what Google does with ChromeOS going forward. Frankly I think the answer lies in the massive uptake of containerization going on in the Linux community.
It would be very easy for Google to take advantage of the wide range of powerful Linux apps while still maintaining the high security and ease-of-use of Chromebooks if they implemented some type of Docker type container mechanism into the heart of it.
JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Yes, I mentioned the Toshiba CB2 with 1080p IPS a couple times. As for the "100% of what most people want"... no, I don't believe that at all. It's 100% of what some people do, sure, but even my non-techie wife ran into limitations pretty quickly when I had her use a Chromebook. Some of it was due to differences in how you use the laptop (where are my files kind of stuff), and she could live with the platform if necessary, but there are lots of small things that can get missed. Maybe it's 99% of what most people need, but that 1% can still be too much if it's an important item (e.g. a bank site that doesn't work properly with Chrome, though that's rare these days).savagemike - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Use certainly depends on ... well... use. But of the handful of friends and family I help out with computer stuff most only need to know anything about the file system ever to download and install applications. Typically a browser or virus program or flash plugin installer and the like. Most of that stuff goes away with ChromeOS. For the little that's left I don't find using the file system any worse than explaining how to use a traditional file system to them.But yes, certain people will have certain needs or uses which either wouldn't work or would require learning a new routine.
AmdInside - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
Agreed. When patch Tuesday is here and I see an update to .Net I cringe cause those are the slowest updates, even with Windows installed on an SSD.harrynsally - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I'm not digging Chromebook's power / functionality / utility.I just purchased a Dell laptop with 15.6" touch screen, Intel Haswell core i3, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, DVD, HDMI, USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0, 6 cell battery etc. for $299. For less than $100 replaced the HDD with a Samsung 250 GB 850 EVO SSD,
OK, it came with Win 8.1 OS. I've been using Windows since it first came out (e.g. 3.1, 95, XP, 7) and have yet to have a malware issue. I set it up to boot to desktop mode (e.g. have a Android tablet for touch apps) and find the Win 8.1 experience comparable to Win 7 and sometimes better. Additionally, MS just announced that they will provide a free upgrade to Win 10 (to users of Win 7 and 8.1).
I find the ability to easily choose/ add upgraded components, run applications and have productivity independent of the cloud, USB / HDMI connectivity and much higher performance for just a few $ more, a no brainer.
On a budget? My daughter just purchased a ASUS laptop with 15.6" screen, Intel 2.16GHz N2830, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, HDMI, USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 and Win 8.1 BING for $219.
JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I don't know when the last time is I actually got hit by malware/virus on one of my PCs. But I have friends and family I help who are not as savvy that get malware ALL. THE. TIME. It's crazy to me -- like a person will have a system for less than two weeks, and it has malware (that happened with my dad just this past month). I'd blame porn sites for some users, but that's not even the problem on some of these systems. It's looking for "free [anything]" and going to the wrong web sites, or searching for a web site in Bing instead of typing in the URL (that's what got my dad I'm pretty sure).I'd love to say the solution is user education, but that just doesn't work. Get yourself a bunch of friends or relatives with children 8+ years old who are allowed to use the PC on a daily basis and I guarantee some of them will get hit with malware within a month. I tend to fix at least 20 computers a year where the only problem is that they got hit by malware. Thankfully, most of them aren't as bad as Cryptowall, which wiped out my dad's desktop and is asking for a $2000 ransom. (And that was with Norton AV running.)
BackInAction - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
@JarredWalton: I hear you loud and clear! My father gets stuff on his machine within days after I clean it. I dread going home. I just can't protect him enough from his stupid habits. In his case, I think is 'gun' sites. And randomly clicking on anything that pop-ups up in his face.While my kids were young it wasn't much of a problem. Now that they are older it is crazy ("gee I can get free music, or the latest episodes of Teen Ware-wolf before it is on Netflix, from this site, all I have to do is download this .exe." Doh!). I had to remove their admin rights. It is a bit of pain now and then, but it was the only way I could keep sane.
That said, I have a Chromebook (13" Toshiba for $180 last fall) and they all fight for it. I don't care what they do on that thing. I can wipe and rebuild it in 15 min if needed.
jhoff80 - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Personally, I really think that Windows 10 should come with a sort of "RT mode" that doesn't let a user run anything that doesn't come from the Windows Store to protect from this sort of thing. Make it a switch that only the admin can modify, and that'd help a lot. I actually was considering a Surface 2 for my parents for a while because of this very reason (and they only need Office and IE anyway).jimbo2779 - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
That's actually a really good idea. It would be really useful for the people that have to"admin" for a computer owned by a family member or friend.nils_ - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
This is what apple does on OS X as well, at least the Yosemite I use for work. You can set in the security settings that things downloaded from the Internet can't be run without overriding it in the security settings.jabber - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
You don't get viruses etc. from porn sites. That's turn of the century thinking. You get malware from legitimate download sites. I guess you haven't read the articles from HowToGeek where they found that all the main download sites are stuffing the software with junk.Thats why folks and family get infected all the while due to them downloading innocent software encrusted with malware laden installers.
http://www.howtogeek.com/207692/yes-every-freeware...
JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Okay, yes, you can get malware infections from non-porn activities, but looking for porn is also still a major source of problems. Particularly if someone looks for free stuff. But the toolbars and other addons are certainly bad as well.sonicmerlin - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
Maybe Microsoft should release windows RT laptops.coder543 - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
You talk about those laptops like they're actually good. I wouldn't touch one of those 5400RPM hard drives with a 10-foot pole. The perceived performance of one of these chromebooks would absolutely crush all of those laptops you mentioned, just because of how glacially slow the hard drives would make them feel.The first laptop, where you replaced the hard drive with an SSD, is now at a total price of $400, which is roughly double the price of these Chromebooks. Of course, for more money, you can get a laptop with higher performance specs. This is how economies work. However, those are both 15.6" laptops as well, and 15 inch laptops are painfully large and bulky. 14" is as high as I could ever see myself purchasing, but 13.3" is a much more realistic "high end" for me in terms of size.
My Acer C720P also has no problems with productivity sans an active cloud connection. Google Drive / Docs can be used without an internet connection, and it most definitely has both USB 3.0 and a full HDMI port -- so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. The battery life on my C720P almost certainly stomps whatever cheap Windows laptops you bought as well.
To recap, Chromebooks are good because:
- They are significantly less expensive than any Windows laptop worth having (the Stream 11 and X205TA are the first *real* competitors to Chromebooks, because they have SSDs at Chromebook price points)
- They do have all of the connectivity you talked about, such as USB and HDMI
- You're able to do productive things without an internet connection thanks to HTML5's notion of offline web applications, plus Google's Native Client (NaCL) initiative that allows you to run near-native code on Chromebooks in a fully sandboxed environment, including some rather intense games (though not very many)
- Userproof: no malware, no crashing, no problems.
- Compact, portable form factor, with build quality that far exceeds the chintzy feel of sub $400 15.6" Windows laptops which literally feel like they're 95% air, and 5% plastic that's about to break.
I would *strongly* recommend buying a solid Chromebook (like the C720) and giving that a whirl. Your notions seem to be based on misconceptions and on the experiences gleaned from 10-seconds of clicking buttons on them at Best Buy while sneering at the Chromebooks.
JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Hey coder543, what "rather intense games" do you run on Chromebooks in a sandboxed environment? Serious question -- I'd love to have something a bit more demanding to test than WebGL portals! And if I can get something with a freaking benchmark in it, I'd be ecstatic. :-)jabber - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I took my little 11" Samsung Chromebook on my three week vacation to Canada a few months ago. I just charged it up and didnt take the charger with me as I reckoned it would last. Well I used it most days for checking upon stuff, was no hassle to carry around and it lasted the whole vacation...with an hour to spare on the battery. No cheap nasty $300 Windows laptop would have done that.zodiacfml - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Plenty laptops these days with a slow but big Intel CPU around $200. It might be pretty bad in terms of battery life but the speed will be appreciated all the time. I'm typing on an Asus with a Celeron 1000M which is snappy for web browsing.johnny_boy - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
Sure, and they are HUGE. This chromebok is not only in an ultrabook form factor, but it is also completely silent, being fanless.savagemike - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
That sounds like a good deal but a $300 i3 isn't every day pricing is it? I have a Chromebook I paid $150 for. An Acer c720 with the Haswell Celeron. It's no problem to load Linux up in a parallel boot and I can do anything I need to with it. Mostly though I have just left it as ChromeOS native and it's a great little machine to do this or that. Easy and simple to use and maintain. Battery lasts forever. Could upgrade the SSD if I wanted - it's M.2 so still a little more expensive but not a huge deal.A lot of use for $150.
kmmatney - Saturday, January 24, 2015 - link
OK- I don't know how anyone who has been using Microsoft OSes sicne the Win 3.1 days can never have run across a virus. It's been a while for me, but I've certainly come across them now and again since I started "computing" in the DOS 5.0 days. Especially when they started spreading by USB stick with the fantastic autorun feature. I don't remember that last time I personally had one, but friends and family (and even a few work computers) do get them on occasion. Mainly it's stupid highjacking stuff.I agree that a $299 Core i3 15.6" laptop smokes any Chromebook, and ultimately is more useful.
Shadowmaster625 - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I know this lag of which you speak. It is extremely irritating. That's why I love my 4.5 GHz G3258. It can run too many things at once, but it absolutely screams at web browsing. 100mS sunspider score. lol.Daniel Egger - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Why does it all of a sudden seem to me that an iPad 2 and a Bluetooth keyboard would be a much better choice than this?- Closed system to protect from malware: check
But then the iPad takes off:
- It's much faster
- The store has many more titles then the Chrome store and generally a higher quality
- You don't need to lock yourself into the Cloud if you don't want to
- The screen is much better all around
- It's lighter
- There's an LTE option
Heck, if you desperately want a closed system but still much better system all around, why not get a Surface RT?
Refuge - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
What is the price of the Ipad 2 + Bluetooth Keyboard? lolI feel like you are comparing a Tesla with a Geo Metro saying it gets better gas mileage AND is faster. While not un-true, it is also woefully misleading.
buevaping - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
"Window Surface 2 Rt" To close to "Windows Surface Pro 2". People thought it could do windows. Better would have been "RT Surface 2" Problem with limited apps and developers. Not even another major browser besides EI. And"EI" is no chrome killer. To Refuge that commented. There is threat of substitution with iPad. You don't have to go for latest and greatest. 1st iPad Air(still better display) with discounted keyboard case.kevith - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Everytime I have used a web service, like Google docs, Office, Dropbox, OneDrive etc., the very low speed of transferring files is killing me. I have a 60/60 Mb/s connection, that often is utilized less than 1%.The idea of "cloud" is somehow ok, but until the speed is raised dramatically, it´s way, way to slow for my temper.
teldar - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I'd like to see it compared to the Stream 14. Any chance of that happening at some point?aryonoco - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Jarred, I wanted to thank you for the most honest, useful, unbiased, comprehensive and well-written Chromebook (and Chrome OS) review I've ever read.I am in the camp that thinks Chromebooks can do 100% of what a lot of users want to do with their laptop (especially older and non-tech savvy types) but overall, this was the best description of all the pros and cons of Chromebooks I've seen. It makes a very good case for why Chromebooks are good for some people, but also why they are probably not the right tool for others.
Thank you for your attention to this segment. I very much look forward to your thoughts on the upcoming Rockchip and Broadwell Chromebooks (and the Toshiba Chromebook 2 1080p version if you can get your hands on one).
jwcalla - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I think I'll pull the trigger on one when a Tegra X1 version comes out. And then run Ubuntu in chroot for any extra goodies.LordConrad - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I have the Chromebook 13 (1080p, 4GB RAM, 32GB Flash) with the Tegra K1 processor and get 9-11 hours from a single charge. My only complaint with the Chromebook 13 is the screen, even the HD model comes with a TN panel. It's not a terrible screen, but it's not great either.PC Perv - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
An excellent review, thank you very much. You have explained the pros and cons of the product from a user's point of view, which has become rare on this site lately.Thank you for skipping editorializing and pretending to be an armchair CEO. Thank you for not inserting one-liners out of the blue to compliment (or marginalize) certain corporations.
Thank you for not including in the charts whatever Apple's product that you believe should be at the top. (iPad Air 2 is understandable)
Thank you for explaining everything from user's perspective. I am tired of reading "In the future corporation XXX should do better to improve ...." type of editorials in a product review that I wonder worth buying.
You helped me so much with rich information with regard to this Chromebook. I appreciate it again.
dragonsqrrl - Saturday, January 24, 2015 - link
hmm, Nexus 9 results... interesting. Nexus 9 review incoming?eiriklf - Saturday, January 24, 2015 - link
To me it seems like they should have used Denver.johnny_boy - Saturday, January 24, 2015 - link
I own an Acer Aspire S3 ultrabook and screen quality is awful (blue tint, grainy) and the battery has deteriorated to under 50% of its original capacity (according to a software readout which seems correct to me) in about a year. So while battery life on this Chromebook right out of the box, I guarantee they are using a very cheap battery that will show after not much use. You really do get what you pay for here!war59312 - Saturday, January 24, 2015 - link
Typo on page 2:"he Acer Chromebook 13 ends up doing "
That "he" should of course be "The".
happycamperjack - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
It's "Shield Tablet" NOT "Shield". "Shield" is the Tegra 4 running portable gaming machine that came out in 2013.Valis - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
When is chromebooks with Tegra X1 coming out? Next year? ohh. ;o)mikk - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
No Gfx Bench?JarredWalton - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
No, as it's not supported on Chrome OS. I'd really like to add some better graphics/gaming benchmarks if possible, but I just don't know of any. If you have recommendations, let me know!twotwotwo - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
I have one. (On it now.) The big thing I'd mention that's not here is there are glitches--session crashes if I use an external monitor for a long time, occasional reboots (maybe triggered by very low battery), and an ignorable but really odd glitch where garbage flickers up on part of the built-in LCD for one frame. GMail loads awful slowly, and Google Play Music stutters (meaning software isn't all there yet--music is smooth on my much-lower-powered phone!).Despite all that I like it; I'm using the 4GB RAM model and running Ubuntu alongside Chrome OS via crouton just to have a local Unix shell. It's a nice cheap portable terminal first and just happens to sort of serve as a standalone computer too. Those issues make it hard for me to recommend it to most other folks, though.
sonicmerlin - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
Why didn't they use a Denver CPU?JarredWalton - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
Probably wasn't ready in time, plus I'm not sure Denver is really all that great in the first iteration. If Denver is so awesome... why isn't it in Tegra X1? Ha.darkich - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
I know how ironic this will sound, but Google is horribly short sighted.Optimized and polished Andromium-like Android (google it for more info) just kills Chrome in every single respect.
And Google just seems to fail realizing that for some reason
AceMcLoud - Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - link
Just get a MacBook Air ...JarredWalton - Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - link
For only five times the cost?speculatrix - Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - link
Dear Anandtech,Please start all laptop reviews with a brief summary of the quality of the display options.
If the displays aren't reasonable quality I can quickly ignore the rest of the review.
I skimmed the first part of this review until I got to where it said the display was a poor TN, and read no further.
Hopefully others will find the review useful.
Thanks.
sunsetwatch - Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - link
Acer Chromebook is one of the best laptops ever released on the market. They have the most excellent specs and functions that could be of great for both business and entertainment.zephonic - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
Re: the Chrome OS vs. Windows debate:I much prefer Chromebooks over cheap Windows laptops. Less of a headache/irritant all around. I'm a Mac user, but I think Chromebooks are a better alternative to my iPad than a $500 Windows laptop. I still use my old Asus laptop for an occasional bout of C&C, but that's all.
vayal - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
Would you know if the video decoding is done through the CPU or the GPU when playing a video in the **browser**?