Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My title at work is Technology Architect. I have experience with Apple Mac, Windows PC, Android, Linux PC, Chromebook, Solaris PC, and various enterprise computer solutions. This may be more technical than most people want. TL;DR/BLUF This thing will do everything your PC will do. And the battery lasts longer. Details * The body of this device is well built, the case is all metal. The only plastic is surrounding the hinge. * I forget to plug this in all the time. I am using it all the time and it will easily last a work day for me. * The Keyboard is a chiclet style which I love. It is a bit small for my fingers, but not overly uncomfortable. When it is in tablet mode it is disabled which is a nice feature. And an onscreen keyboard is available. the key presses are the right depth and response. It is not easy to get hair in between the keys. * The screen is glass. I can see the screen all the way to 180 degrees. I have hairy pets and the screen collects fur almost as much as my couch. It also collects fingerprints because it is a capacitive touch screen. The touch screen has been very responsive. However, hitting the small little X to close a tab in chrome with my big fingers does not always work. * Touchpad is responsive, but not too responsive. On the ASUS T100 hovering my thumbs over the keyboard caused mouse movements. That does not happen with this device. The multifunctions work well. Duel fingers for right clicking etc. * I rarely use this as a tablet, but the function is there and the OS flips smoothly. * Office tools I use the google tools found in the store. While on the plane or in places with not internet I use the offline mode which allows me to continue to work. And then I can share the documents easily with drive. Once I got used to this workflow I never want to go back to endlessly emailing documents back and forth. * Citrix is able to be installed and I am able to use both Virtual Applications and Virtual Desktops. This means I can access all the applications and desktops that my company and the companies I advise provide me to work in their environments. * VMware I have not tested this fully. I have just gotten it installed and will be testing with the new client that uses VMWare for virtualization * Azure. Haven't test. I will for Ignite in the Spring. * Kindle Since I travel a lot I like to read on the flights. I usually get a book for the trip. And the Kindle app works great even when there is no wifi on the flight. I haven't tested the google books app yet, because I really like Amazon's book system. * ChromeOS The Chrome OS is simple to get used too. They have kept it similar to Windows. One thing I'm not sure I like or understand is only having apps on the taskbar and not on the desktop screen. I firmly believe this OS is one to watch. Most likely the new OS for Enterprise environments. Oh yeah I am on the google canary versions so I get to play with the latest OS versions. It is easy to setup. And I don't experience too many crashes. * I have a network cable to USB adapter that I use to connect to wired internet access. Works great. * I have a USB to serial adapter that I use to connect to console ports on Cisco routers and switches that works great with the Beagle app to administer network devices. * I have google fiber and the built in AC wifi card will not give me full speed. I think this is a software restriction. Ping is 2mbs down is 155mbs up is 160mbs. On 5 ghz its range is about 15 ft. on 2.4 ghz it is considerably more. It is easy to proxy many easy to access features in the WIfi interface. I haven't tried changing the MAC address yet. May have to do that. * I use google music with a bluetooth headset to listen to music and books to drown out the other cubes at work. I also connect my phone and my phones headset. I use Airdroid to control the phone and make phone calls. The pairing is easy to do. takes a couple of clicks to turn on and off. I keep it off when not in use for security reasons. The range is around 50 meters. * Since my old profession as Photographer is now my hobby, I want to be able to edit photos. The built in gallery tool is OK. But the Polarr app is very very good. It can do almost the same as photoshop and gimp. There is also Pixl webversion. But I'm not as big of a fan. It is missing software that works like Lightroom. I am still learning things. It may be able to do it. * Since I really like linux, I setup Kali Linux on Crouton on a micro-sdcard in the built in micro-sdcard slot. TF-card for those outside the US. The first time I did it, I used a slower 64gb card. It worked, but it had weird delays. The Lexar micro-sdcard 10 with the faster read writes fixed that.I also used the crouton extension and switching from chromeos to Kali is easy. One problem I did run into was adding external wifi cards. The Alfa AWUSO36NHA and the TP722 are not recognized. I haven't solved that problem yet. * Chromecasting does work. Both on the new and old chromecast. But don't use those regularly. add the extension for the browser and away you go. * an add on for ssh is there. * ctl+alt+t gets a crosh shell which is good only to get to shell which is enabled in developer mode. Google developer mode to see if you want that. * The Rockchip cpu is great. I've used it in the past. * HDMI to VGA adapter works great with external montiors, projectors, and TV's. * I highly recommend the 4 gb ram version. * One drawback to the keyboard is that it is not backlit and that sucks surfing the web at night * One really nice thing, is that once things are signed in all the google stuff integrates and pulls everything you setup with google. You don't have to spend days installing things that were setup on old workstations. Google takes care of that for you. Granted there is a price for that. The price is privacy. Google keeps track of everything. So far Google has a been a good steward of our data; so I am trusting. * Mentioned a lot of technical stuff that this Chromebook can do because people think that is only able to connect to the internet and good for surfing the web. It does that ,and does that extremely well. But I wanted to point out that it is a fully functioning PC that can replace any PC out there. As a matter of fact, it will replace most PC's eventually.