Here’s How It Went…

Many of my long-term followers may have noticed a drop in the amount of content I’ve been putting out over the last two weeks. The simple reason for it is that I’ve been away on holiday or as they say in the States on Vacation. 

I decided to visit Poland for the first time in a very long time and it was worth it, especially as we visited the Tatra mountains where I tried out the Garmin Instinct, a rugged GPS smartwatch, which I’ve owned for a while now but other than a few cycling trips, I haven’t really had a chance to try out.

I’m happy to say that it served me well, but I will be writing a dedicated blog post about that soon!

But let’s get back to the main topic of this blog post, in fact, let’s get back to a few days before I went on the trip. I was facing a bit of a dilemma.

Before the trip

I needed to take a device with me that I can write content on as well as a handful of other computing tasks that I couldn’t imagine doing on a smartphone.

I had a choice of either taking my 11-inch iPad Pro with me, my Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 or both.

My needs were simple, I wanted a device that I could use to respond to my emails, write blog posts if and when I needed to, watch videos and a few other things.

I could have easily taken both, the iPad and the Chromebook, but unfortunately, I was limited with the baggage space and weight. We didn’t really want to carry much as we were travelling by public transport so we opted to just fly with cabin bags and then buy a larger suitcase if we needed more space on the other end.

As I enjoy the typing experience on the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360, as well as the ease of using a desktop browser, I decided to go with that and it was a pretty good decision.

Here’s why…

Better Desktop experience

One of the main reasons I decided to take the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 with me is the fact that I feel it has a much better desktop experience than the iPad. I mean it’s effectively a mini laptop! 

I also like the fact that the Chrome Browser provides a full desktop experience and is generally much better than the iPadOS version of the app.

This is especially true when using Google Docs. I draft out all of my blog posts on Google Docs and I find that the mobile app versions of the app are nowhere near as good as the web versions. I mean don’t get me wrong, they’re a lot better than they used to be, but I still find that they lack many features which the web version has.

I also find it much easier to edit and transfer the draft blog post to WordPress on a desktop browser.

Speaking about writing blog posts, I’ve recently shared an article about the top 10 apps I use for blogging, you can check it out here.

But as a whole, I tend to enjoy the full desktop experience of browsing the internet much more than the mobile experience.

It’s a 360 Chromebook!

The second reason I decided to take the Chromebook is that I can easily convert it into a tablet I could use to watch YouTube and Netflix in the evenings. 

The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 is compatible with the Google Play Store meaning I could download many Android apps to it and literally use the Chromebook as an Android tablet which was pretty useful.

It’s also the reason I was faced with a dilemma before the trip. I guess I didn’t see the need of taking two devices with me that could literally do the same thing. 

So how was my overall experience with the Chromebook?

The whole purpose of the trip was to have a break from everything, especially the computer screen which as a content creator and IT Engineer, I seriously needed.

But that wasn’t to say that I wasn’t going to be responding to emails and drafting out blog posts on some evenings. 

The Chromebook actually proved to be very useful throughout my trip, I used it to further research places I wanted to visit, and I used it for managing the trip as well as my side hustle with the help of Notion.  

I even used it to transfer photos from my camera to my portable hard drive and Google Photos.

Are Chromebooks Worth It in 2023?

The experience was surprising! 

In all fairness, I was already using the Chromebook as a secondary device, but I was mainly using it for writing YouTube scripts and blog posts using Google Docs when I was away from my desk. I never used the Chromebook to its full potential.  

For most of my other things, I would use my custom-built PC. But with that not being available to me, I was stuck with the Chromebook and it taught me a lot about how underrated the platform really is.

For starters, I didn’t face any performance-related issues which is something that is talked a lot about online. I think a lot of people misunderstand the whole concept of Chromebooks and when they look at the specs and see that they are low compared to other laptops, they automatically think that they are slow, which just isn’t the case.

I mean don’t get me wrong, you can’t expect to play any heavy games on a Chromebook or do any heavy editing work, but as a device for basic computing needs, a Chromebook is ideal.

As a whole, I was able to easily do everything I needed to on the Chromebook without any issues, therefore it served its purpose well.

The battery life was pretty decent. Throughout the entire trip, I only charged the device a couple of times and I was able to enjoy the long battery life this and many other Chromebooks have to offer.

I was able to work on the train, on the balcony and in the garden without having to plug the Chromebook in to charge. 

My only complaint!

This brings me to my only complaint, and that’s the screen, as the photo above shows, the screen was pretty dim. In all fairness, the photo does make it seem worse than it was and I was able to work on it perfectly fine.

But, I do wish it was brighter than that. 

This is something I find many laptops don’t get right but at that sort of price range (£499 at the time of writing this blog post), I really can’t complain as the screen was better than many more expensive laptops I’ve used in the past.

The Verdict

At this stage, you’re probably wondering whether it was worth taking the Chromebook or whether I should have taken the iPad instead.

I think that taking the Chromebook was the right decision, especially since I was able to comfortably write blog posts on it and turn it into a tablet when I needed to.

I think the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 is a great device for travel that has already proved itself to be useful even before I went on the trip as I’ve been using it whilst commuting to and from work by train.

As a whole, I seriously think that Chromebooks need more attention as they seriously are underrated devices that not only perform well but also have some pretty cool features depending on what model you decide to go with.

That’s why I decided to start using my Chromebook more often and I will be trying more demanding tasks on it in the coming weeks such as video editing.

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