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Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:

I just noticed this post and thought of your comment above.
Thanks, I saw this too and that was the solution so all sorted now :).

In other news, I'm looking to replace my dad's Toshiba Chromebook 2 (2014, the Celeron one) with something similar that runs Android apps. He mostly just wants to play Zen Pinball so nothing too taxing.

So ~13in, 1080p, and Android apps. Ideally ~£350ish but not sure if that's realistic. Chromebooks seem to much more expensive than they used to be.

Acer R13? How's the MediaTek CPU?

Tunga fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Jul 9, 2018

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Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

i have an android tablet running what i think is a simialr mediatek processor and i find it to be somewhat underwhelming if that helps :shrug:


https://www.gsmarena.com/asus_zenpad_3s_10_z500m-8218.php

quote:

Mediatek MT8176

ThermoPhysical
Dec 26, 2007



Returned my Chromebook Pro after the screen decided it wanted to go all fucky.

Anyone know how good Acer Chromebooks are? I'm thinking about the Spin 15.

you ate my cat
Jul 1, 2007

I have an R11 and like it, but every third or fourth touch is interpreted as a right click which can be annoying. My guess is that not all of them do that, but YMMV?

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



Tunga posted:

Thanks, I saw this too and that was the solution so all sorted now :).

In other news, I'm looking to replace my dad's Toshiba Chromebook 2 (2014, the Celeron one) with something similar that runs Android apps. He mostly just wants to play Zen Pinball so nothing too taxing.

So ~13in, 1080p, and Android apps. Ideally ~£350ish but not sure if that's realistic. Chromebooks seem to much more expensive than they used to be.

Acer R13? How's the MediaTek CPU?

The 2014 Toshiba CB2 has the CPU on my "avoid at all costs" list; I found the MediaTek in the R13 (and Flip C101, etc.) to be quite snappy by comparison. A used/refurb'd R13 should be $200-300 on eBay.

ThermoPhysical posted:

Returned my Chromebook Pro after the screen decided it wanted to go all fucky.

Anyone know how good Acer Chromebooks are? I'm thinking about the Spin 15.

That was probably just a single bad device; the display in the Pro is one of the better ones, and it's if I'm not mistaken the one in the Pixelbook. You should've just exchanged it.

Acer's fine in general, and I recommend several of their CBs. The newest Spin devices look promising but I haven't used them or seen reviews myself.

you ate my cat posted:

I have an R11 and like it, but every third or fourth touch is interpreted as a right click which can be annoying. My guess is that not all of them do that, but YMMV?

Correct, my R11's touchscreen works perfectly. When touchscreen issues do occur a hardware reset fixes them: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/3227606?hl=en

ThermoPhysical
Dec 26, 2007



Atomizer posted:

That was probably just a single bad device; the display in the Pro is one of the better ones, and it's if I'm not mistaken the one in the Pixelbook. You should've just exchanged it.

Acer's fine in general, and I recommend several of their CBs. The newest Spin devices look promising but I haven't used them or seen reviews myself.

I've noticed there's a ton of people saying that the Pro has issues with the display's touchscreen going wonky from a week to about 6 months after usage. When it's RMA'd to Samsung, they replace the display and then it can sometimes crop up again.

The issues range from phantom touches to it just not responding to anything but the pen anymore.

Mine had problems with the touch and tapping where I didn't mean to tap.

Thermopyle
Jul 1, 2003

...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. —Bertrand Russell

ThermoPhysical posted:

I've noticed there's a ton of people saying that the Pro has issues with the display's touchscreen going wonky from a week to about 6 months after usage. When it's RMA'd to Samsung, they replace the display and then it can sometimes crop up again.

The issues range from phantom touches to it just not responding to anything but the pen anymore.

Mine had problems with the touch and tapping where I didn't mean to tap.

I mean, it's just anecdotes, but I've heard of this multiple times.

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


Mine did it as well.

The SCREEN is great, the panel is likely the same one that's in use in the Pixelbook. But there's definitely some sort of engineering flaw in them with the connection to the digitizer, some have had the screen replaced like 3 times and it keeps coming back.

It may have something to do with the loosey goosey tolerances in the drat thing. Bottom panel of mine was clicking within a month.

One of the biggest hardware disappointments I've had. I went Pixelbook and never looked back. Now that is the best drat hardware purchase I've ever made.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

The i5 256GB Pixelbook is reportedly on sale at Best Buy for $719. You have to go into a store and ask someone to order it shipped to you, in order to get that price; it still shows up full price online. Some people on the pixelbook subreddit have also been able to get it to stack with the 10% off student discount coupon.

ThermoPhysical
Dec 26, 2007



kitten smoothie posted:

The i5 256GB Pixelbook is reportedly on sale at Best Buy for $719. You have to go into a store and ask someone to order it shipped to you, in order to get that price; it still shows up full price online. Some people on the pixelbook subreddit have also been able to get it to stack with the 10% off student discount coupon.

There are four Best Buys in my area and I will see which one is doing this. They're kinda weird.

Thank you!

Also, this explains why Geek Squad kept saying "You know...we could just order you a Pixelbook" when they were hunting in storage for the Chromebook Pro. Though they failed mention it wasn't still $1000+ or I would've just bought one of those.

you ate my cat
Jul 1, 2007

Atomizer posted:


Correct, my R11's touchscreen works perfectly. When touchscreen issues do occur a hardware reset fixes them: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/3227606?hl=en

Well hot drat, that seems to have worked. Thanks!

Rubicon
Dec 16, 2005
Al bisogno si conosce l'amico

ThermoPhysical posted:

Returned my Chromebook Pro after the screen decided it wanted to go all fucky.

Anyone know how good Acer Chromebooks are? I'm thinking about the Spin 15.

I bought one and returned it because of Phantom touch issues. I'd open it and it'd constantly act like I was pushing on the bottom right of my screen in multiple places.

Went to an Asus C302C and it's great.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

ThermoPhysical posted:

There are four Best Buys in my area and I will see which one is doing this. They're kinda weird.

Thank you!

Also, this explains why Geek Squad kept saying "You know...we could just order you a Pixelbook" when they were hunting in storage for the Chromebook Pro. Though they failed mention it wasn't still $1000+ or I would've just bought one of those.

Good luck! Here's where I saw it. Sounds like even the sales staff at BBY didn't even know about it until they tried to ring it up for delivery.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelBook/comments/8x3awp/huge_discount_on_123i5256gb_pixelbook_at_best_buy/

I've had the i5/256 Pixelbook for the last three weeks or so, and it's quite wonderful.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:

The 2014 Toshiba CB2 has the CPU on my "avoid at all costs" list; I found the MediaTek in the R13 (and Flip C101, etc.) to be quite snappy by comparison. A used/refurb'd R13 should be $200-300 on eBay.
Thanks, though I'm not buying my dad a thing from eBay, too much hassle if there's a problem.

There are C302 refurbs direct from Asus for £370 which is an option.

The problem I have is that everything just seems a bit meh compared to the Toshiba given the prices. All I really want is Android apps on that device.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

Could you enumerate for me how/why Ebay is more of a hassle than buying direct from a company, in particular asus

As somebody that's trying to get a refurb himself

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer
Consumer rights are stronger when dealing with a business rather than an individual, I get an actual warranty, the item is definitely going to be what it says it is, and the person/company won't disappear after I buy it and ignore my emails if I need to send it back for some reason.

MrNemo
Aug 26, 2010

"I just love beeting off"

Having a C302 it's pretty great. Solid construction, zippy enough and good size/weight combo. I had an issue with the battery on mine suddenly not charging and it sometimes doesn't play nicely with my Bluetooth headphones but Asus were good on offering a repair for free and the headphones thing is copeable.

Android apps seem to work pretty solidly, doing things like watching downloaded movies in then can be a bit janky but streaming is fine.

LionArcher
Mar 29, 2010


Where the hell are the new Acer 13 Chromebooks? I want one already!

ThermoPhysical
Dec 26, 2007



kitten smoothie posted:

The i5 256GB Pixelbook is reportedly on sale at Best Buy for $719. You have to go into a store and ask someone to order it shipped to you, in order to get that price; it still shows up full price online. Some people on the pixelbook subreddit have also been able to get it to stack with the 10% off student discount coupon.

This worked! Coming to my place in the 12th (day after my birthday!) for $693. It let me stack my student discount and it was only $130 more than the Chromebook Pro was.

Thanks a lot. :)

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



Tunga posted:

Consumer rights are stronger when dealing with a business rather than an individual, I get an actual warranty, the item is definitely going to be what it says it is, and the person/company won't disappear after I buy it and ignore my emails if I need to send it back for some reason.

eBay is much more buyer-friendly nowadays, with a no-hassle return policy (like a lot of etailers, actually) and if you buy with a CC via PayPal you have multiple layers of protection if something doesn't work right, at least for a reasonable period of time. You can also usually get an aftermarket warranty if you're really concerned. That being said, it's your money and you should certainly spend it only where you are comfortable doing so. I just wanted to reiterate that I've never had an issue with something used/refurb'd from eBay or elsewhere that wasn't resolved quickly and easily due to the protections & policies already in-place.

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



For the next ~day or so there's a couple notable sales on CBs during Prime Day: the Asus C101 Flip (the newer one) is $230 for 16 GB of storage, and more significantly all 3 versions of the Pixelbook are $250 off which is the greatest discount I've seen yet.

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



Woot has some more CB refurbs for sale. Notable are the Samsung Plus & Pro, the HP 13, and the base model of the Acer for Work. Unfortunately the latter has the crappy HD display, which disappoints me at 14". :saddowns:

Stevie Lee
Oct 8, 2007
the only difference between this year's samsung CB pro is the backlit keyboard, right? $399 seems like a good deal...maybe I should make it my first chromebook

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

FWIW if you type in bed or with the lights out with any regularity a backlight KB is a no poo poo difference maker imo

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Statutory Ape posted:

FWIW if you type in bed or with the lights out with any regularity a backlight KB is a no poo poo difference maker imo

This for real. It's really hard to go back to a "standard" keyboard after having a backlit one.

USB C, good display, backlit keyboard might push that in to "recommend" territory

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Does the active stylus on a Chromebook use BTLE and is there any good scanner app to try to find it if you've lost it?

I was using one of the Lenovo pens with my Pixelbook. I set it somewhere in the house at one point. I have a 3 month old right now and the lack of sleep means I have about the memory of a goldfish, now I can't find where I put the pen.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

Anybody messed with that chromeOS tablet

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



The Acer "Chromebook" Tab 10. I've been waiting forever for it to become available. I know it's supposed to be an Edu model, and it looks like it's slowly filtering into the retail sector. I'll probably wait for a good deal on a refurb.

I may be in the minority in that I'm not sure why anyone's even making tablets or detachables running ChromeOS (especially the former.) I mean I get the desire to run Android apps, but the advantage of ChromeOS is that it's a full desktop OS, with the full desktop Chrome, so you can get some actual work done with it like how I use it. If you remove the keyboard then you reduce your ability to be productive, and if you just want to run Android apps you can just get an Android tablet and have better compatibility. I mean I mostly type on my CB, so I can see why the detachable would be the ideal form factor as opposed to just the tablet. If anything, better Linux application support will increase the value of a physical keyboard.

Tunga
May 7, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Atomizer posted:

you can just get an Android tablet
You sort of can't these days. Outside of cheap Chinese no-brand garbage there isn't much showing up. I assume Samsung are still making them but everybody else seems to have left the building. The fact that Google now have no supported first-party tablet for the first time since 2012 says it all about the future of Android tablets.

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



There's definitely a feeling that Android tablets are deprecated, but you can still buy new Samsung 8" & 10" tablets. I'm pretty sure it's the proliferation of large ~6" smartphones that doomed the market for smaller (~7") tablets. It's just a little nonsensical that most have stopped making large Android tablets but then they started making large ChromeOS tablets to replace them.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

I like my asus android tablet well enough. I like that one charger does my laptop/phone/tablet without adapter or foolery

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

I've seen new Samsung Android tablets at Costco, but I also get pretty repulsed when I see the price and that they're running 6.0 or 7.0 at best.

From the perspective of an Android developer, there've been some pretty great strides in the SDK in the past couple years that would've made it easier to do tablet UIs. If that stuff existed back then, maybe we wouldn't have wound up in the vicious circle of

code:
1. no good tablet-optimized apps
2. no reason to buy a tablet 
3. nobody buys tablets 
4. my (and everyone else's) product manager doesn't want to optimize for tablets because no ROI
5. no good tablet-optimized apps
I feel like my Pixelbook is like the best "tablet" device I've had in this realm, because I can run a few phone-optimized Android apps at once and still browse the web and whatever.

Doctor Party
Jan 3, 2004

Doctor Party Woohoo!
Hey Atomizer do you know if ASUS is going to release an upgrade to the c101 flip? I've been using it since my last one (c100) broke and love it. But it is maybe a little slower now. It's basically my every day, do everything computer, tablet, device.

Or do you know anything about the slightly bigger versions of their flip chromebooks?

In your original post I just reread you say the keyboard is cramped, ad that may be true. But I actually prefer typing on it now over other larger keyboards, especially say a macbook keyboard for example.

Doctor Party fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Jul 23, 2018

Atomizer
Jun 24, 2007



Doctor Party posted:

Hey Atomizer do you know if ASUS is going to release an upgrade to the c101 flip? I've been using it since my last one (c100) broke and love it. But it is maybe a little slower now. It's basically my every day, do everything computer, tablet, device.

Or do you know anything about the slightly bigger versions of their flip chromebooks?

In your original post I just reread you say the keyboard is cramped, ad that may be true. But I actually prefer typing on it now over other larger keyboards, especially say a macbook keyboard for example.

I don't know if they're going to make a 3rd-gen 10" Flip; there was actually quite a delay between generations and I was surprised when the C101 eventually came out, because by that point they'd released the ~12" C302 and I thought that was the actual successor to the C100. That being said, it wouldn't surprise me if they eventually release another 10" Flip as long as there's still a market for it (which might very well be the EDU sector.)

That C302, however, is one of the most highly-related CBs; everybody who has one seems to love it, and it doesn't have compromises like the similar Samsung Plus/Pro (namely the non-backlit, wonky keyboard) although it has a "traditional" FHD display rather than the otherwise sweet 3:2 one that's also on the PB. If you're not quite ready to spend what the PB costs (and I wouldn't now, after that $250-off Prime Day promo is gone) then the C302 would be a fantastic, faster replacement to your current C101. Also note that there are multiple configurations of all of these CBs but the base C302 (m3, 4 GB, 64 GB) should be just fine.

kitten smoothie posted:

I've seen new Samsung Android tablets at Costco, but I also get pretty repulsed when I see the price and that they're running 6.0 or 7.0 at best.

From the perspective of an Android developer, there've been some pretty great strides in the SDK in the past couple years that would've made it easier to do tablet UIs. If that stuff existed back then, maybe we wouldn't have wound up in the vicious circle of

code:
1. no good tablet-optimized apps
2. no reason to buy a tablet 
3. nobody buys tablets 
4. my (and everyone else's) product manager doesn't want to optimize for tablets because no ROI
5. no good tablet-optimized apps
I feel like my Pixelbook is like the best "tablet" device I've had in this realm, because I can run a few phone-optimized Android apps at once and still browse the web and whatever.

That's right, the OS fragmentation is far more frustrating to me than lack of tablet-optimization as far as Android adoption is concerned.

If anything, like you point out, convertible/detachable CBs like the PB or that upcoming HP whatever are going to be the best compromise device for balancing ChromeOS productivity and Android usability compared to the pure tablet form factor.

LochNessMonster
Feb 3, 2005

I need about three fitty


I’ve been using my Acer 14” for almost 8 months now. I bring it as a lightweight easy to carry device and use crouton/debian mostly to do some software development.

I absolutely love it for this. At home/work I use heavy hardware which is not really portable but this awesome lil’ machine has almost everything I want (for portability purposes). Only thing I offload to a vps or aws/gcp is container deployment.

Only downside so far is that I can’t get blueman to work on it (yet).

el_caballo
Feb 26, 2001
Bought a Pixelbook with the intention of using it for 50% loving around on the internet, 25% endlessly fixing my Win10 fileserver with remote desktop, 25% writing work when I don't want to bring my work laptop home. The keyboard actually is great. It's true.

Now on my work Macbook, I've got Atom turned into a decent plaintext editor: autosyncs/loads from Google Drive, shows character counts, very mild Markdown formatting, semi-useful minimal mode, etc.

I was hoping Crostini would allow me to run Atom with the same Google Drive syncing, but the whole container thing made me give up on it. I got Atom running fine and I'm sure there's some way to (manually?) pass files into and out of the container but I don't have much container/linux experience, so I moved down to beta.

When or if Crostini is ready for stable, will the container/ChromeOS interface ever function in a way where my GDrive sync package in Atom can access my actual GDrive in ChromeOS? Or is there already some way to mount GDrive inside the container that I missed?

I also may have screwed up the install. My Chrome-Atom didn't have an app icon or the "Atom" name. It was just a blank container, not pin-able to the shelf.

Edit: What I'm using now is StackEdit which integrates into the GDrive site and basically does most of what I want except its Markdown formatting is aggressively HTML-like instead of the mildly spiced Atom plain text that I love so much.

el_caballo fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jul 24, 2018

Super-NintendoUser
Jan 16, 2004

COWABUNGERDER COMPADRES
Soiled Meat
Does Atom gdrive sync work by authenticating Atom directly to gdrive, or does it just right to the Google Drive folder on your mac?

el_caballo
Feb 26, 2001
I should have been clearer. There's really nothing to the Atom extension. It just saves all your notes to a single folder for syncing with Dropbox/GDrive/whatever and provides a couple handy shortcuts for making new notes and saving old ones.

I did some more Crostini research and it seemed like other people's solutions were to mount stuff over SSH, or use SFTP to get to the GDrive (locally, I assume, not the real server). That's more work than I'm going to bother with unless there's some way to have the container/app load up and mount a folder on start.

I figured there was some convoluted way of loading single files but I'm hoping there's eventually some sort of automatic file bridge out of the container. I don't know enough about containers to know whether that's realistic or not.

LochNessMonster
Feb 3, 2005

I need about three fitty


One of the few things that I haven't figured out yet is why my CB dims the screen display and goes to standby after only a minute or 2 of inactivity while running debian with xfce in crouton.

Any know how to disable that? The default xfce settings don't seem to work.

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Casu Marzu
Oct 20, 2008

Is there any particular reason to not buy one of the 2013 or 2015 Google Chromebook Pixels?

Curently using a Acer R11 and want a nicer screen and a bit more power, and the pixels always looked super appealing, just not at their MSRP. There's a a lot of manufacturer refurbished on ebay for $300-$350 and that's much more reasonable for my wallet.


Maybe one of the HP Chromebook 13s?

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