Have you ever considered buying a Chromebook and when mentioning it to others you were met with funny looks? I definitely have and I can’t understand why!

Here’s the thing, Chromebooks are actually pretty decent laptops, you just need to understand their concept which happens to be the cloud.

That’s why as somebody who’s owned a Chromebook in the past and is considering to buy another one, I want to share my opinion about these devices and why I’m seriously thinking about getting another one.

What is a Chromebook?

Technically speaking, a Chromebook is a web browser with a screen and a keyboard.

These days you can run practically anything from the browser. This means that Chromebooks don’t need to be as powerful as Windows laptops or MacBooks.

This makes them considerably cheaper then their competition. Personally I think that the main reason why Chromebooks have a bad reputation is because people are looking at their specs and are comparing them to Windows based laptops or even netbooks, if you’re old enough to remember them.

Having used and even owned several Windows-based netbooks when I was growing up, let me tell you they were very slow even on Windows XP! I think that that’s enough words for you to understand how bad they were.

But Chromebooks are the complete opposite and they’re actually pretty snappy. Obviously it depends on the specs but even when the specs are low, they still manage to perform well.

Advantages of a Chromebook for Blogging

There are many advantages of using a Chromebook. I mean for starters, Chromebooks are great for home use especially if you mainly use them for browsing the internet, checking your emails and managing the family spreadsheets.

They’re also great for university work. Back in my uni days, several students including me owned a Chromebook and I could access my work either using Office Online and OneDrive or Google Docs and Google Drive.

The entire experience was actually quite simple and the Chromebook just worked!

At present I draft out my blog articles in Notion, and guess what, Notion is browser based which means that I can comfortably type using a Chromebook. It even has an Android app, but we’ll talk about that in the next paragraph.

Depending on the model you choose, some Chromebooks are a compatible with the Google Play Store which means that you can download and install Android apps. This opens the Chromebook to a wide range of other uses.

Other than their low prices, Chromebooks also tend to be lightweight and have great battery life making them the ideal companion to take with you to cafes or on trips.

Disadvantages of using a Chromebook for Blogging

As with many things, Chromebooks are riddled with disadvantages, but I feel that the positives outweigh the negatives. But you have to understand their concept.

For starters, Chromebooks tend to have much less storage space compared to traditional laptops and when looking at some popular models such as the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go, they tend to average out at around 64GB.

But here’s the thing, you have to remember that you’re storing everything in the cloud, Google Drive to be exact. You don’t actually need to download you’re entire drive, just the things you need, which shouldn’t take up a great deal of space.

The second disadvantage, and it’s quite a major one is the fact that you need to rely on an internet connection for the majority of tasks. There are some websites and services that you can use offline, but for the majority of things you will need an internet connection.

You also tend to be limited on software, if your Chromebook supports the Google Play Store, you have access to many apps, but in general, most of the time you will likely be using browser based alternatives.

The Verdict

Personally, I think that Chromebooks are very underrated, especially when it comes to things like blogging. I mean it all depends on your blogging toolkit, at present I use Thomas Frank’s Creator Companion on Notion for managing my content and drafting out blog posts. That’s a browser based app which I can easily use in the browser.

When it comes to office software, I tend to prefer using the Google Docs office suite, which unsurprisingly works well on Chromebooks, after all it’s browser based!

Overall, as an ex-Chromebook user, I am seriously considering investing in a Chromebook for blogging. But I have a one prerequisite, I want it for portability so I’m not looking for anything larger than 12” so that I can easily take it with me anywhere I go.