For personal use the Chromebook can or cannot become your main computer. It depends on what you do with your computer. In my case I am a marketer/writer internet preacher (politics and religion in equal measure) so the Chromebook is ideal for me and has become, as a matter of fact, my primary computer, the Desktop having been retired to a corner under my bed.

Professors may require documents in Word? Google Docs exports to Word. I have a Google Apps account for my business and do ALL of my document work with Docs and export them to Word, Excel etc. I have had no problems. Still don’t trust it? Microsoft Office has a similar online service.

You can’t compile programs on this but who said all languages are compiled? There are now web based editors for PHP and some other languages. And second who said the student was a CS major?

Who said the student was looking for a gaming machine? I highly doubt they are doing to buy a 300 or 400 dollar laptop for gaming if they are serious. For what you can play on these you might as well play the web based counterparts.

Honestly I take the assumption statement back. Your post is really just full of ignorance of the state of tech. You do realize many of the Metro apps being built are just HTML 5 and Javascript right? The same thing runs on this Chromebook. There are reasons I’d tell a college student to be cautious with a Chromebook at least for now. But it wouldn’t be any of these.

If anything, I can use Chrome Remote Desktop to access my windows computer at home.

“It cannot install itunes or sync with their ipod/iphone”

So a piece of bloatware and lock in to an apple ecosystem is a defining factor? I thought the advent of iCloud was supposed to eliminate the need for proprietary software. This is not an apple product. If you want you can upload your itunes music to google music and your iphone/ipod no longer need to be physically connected to a pc.

“It cannot install their college department’s required software”

This is a legitimate argument but only for a low percentage. It is extremely rare for the average student that the university is insistent on proprietary software. In fact, the only time I have ever seen this actually come up is in lab sessions where they provide the computers anyways. Schools are starting to acknowledge that we are entering a new period for computing. Not everyone is on mac or windows or linux with the advent of mobile technologies. That is why you see a lot of school sites these days like blackboard collaborate and Desire2Learn.

“One of their professors may require them to submit their assignments in Microsoft Word, which cannot be installed on this”

Clearly never used google docs. You can easily output to a .doc file in google docs. You can also use Office 365 on here or, open office in the cloud or a million other office programs available in the chrome web store that can all output to .doc format. Did you really think that people would make office software that isn’t compatible with the industry standard?

“You cannot write programs on this, or compile anything”

Again, maybe 2% of the average student population. However, if you are a web developer you will do just fine with this.

“You cannot run steam on this, or play any PC games (you can play web games)”

I am starting to sound like a broken record here. This seriously represents less than 10% of the student population. How many girls taking a marketing degree do you think are playing hardcore gamer games on steam? Or, for that matter, how many law school students, med school, business, communications, etc.

“The writer should have clarified that this is not an OS AND and web browser, this is an OS that is just a web browser”

I don’t think this needs clarification. This is something google makes very clear. The OS IS the web browser yes, but it also has some native functionality and suits the “just works” model better than most computers in that segment. Look at the alternatives in this price range instead of comparing it to $600-$700 laptops. The only comparable product in this segment is a stripped down windows netbook which is an inferior product. Windows isn’t as well suited to a small screen and updates/patches/virus’s/system issues are all prevalent. In a chrome book, all of this is automatic. For the average computer user who simply uses office/email/browsing, this is a painless and extremely user friendly experience comparatively. Updates happen in the background not only for your programs but for your OS as well. You will never get an annoying pop up window about either antivirus or system updates, no bsod, etc.

” It will be unable to do anything that cannot be done inside of a browser window today.”

This is 100% true. However, in order to get that browser window you speak of, you need to spend significantly more on a windows or mac pc.

Bottom line is, would I recommend this for everyone? No. But, for the vast majority of the AVERAGE student population, this is more than enough. Google docs is already quite popular in universities and colleges and this provides a simple platform for students to work with without breaking the bank. The only special use cases are engineering, computer,graphics, and some sciences that would need more.

In education, ask your College or University what their requirements are and follow their suggestions. They may have develop their curriculum around a given system/pc type.

There is no such tablet, so it is a silly comparison.

Really, why not?

Since this will not likely have a locked bootloader, it will be easy to install a Linux distro onto it (once they become available).

By the way, a normal Linux desktop like Ubuntu will run Java as well, not only web applications.

it is a purely original samsung design.