If you're a white-collar worker, chances are -- thanks to thecoronavirus pandemic-- you've beenworking from home. And many of you may haveturned to Chromebooks for work. They're cheap and require almost no maintenance.
But the weeks of working from home have turned to months. for many of us, we maynever return to the office for work. In that case, you upgrade from the old Chromebook you already have at home or the first one that came to hand at Best Buy when the shutdown started to a true business-class Chromebook.
With that goal in mind, I looked for the best Chromebooks available for work. These are not one-size-fits-all machines. Each has its strong points for different users.
Chromebook laptops are very flexible. They are not just a web browser in a box. Sure, you need the internet to get the most from a Chromebook. But, tell me, when was the last time you did any serious work with a Mac or Windows PC without an internet connection? Back in the 2000s. Sure, if you're doing video editing, you need a powerful PC. But, for most of us, our work lives and dies with the internet.
Modern high-end Chromebooks, as tech expert Mike Elgan points out, "run more apps without dual- or multi-booting than any other computing platform.Chromebooks can run apps from Android, Linux, and Windows concurrentlyin the same session."
Most of you may never need those alternatives.Google's G Suitemay be all the office you need. If you're wedded to Microsoft Office,Microsoft now supports Office and Microsoft 365 on Chromebook. Need Quickbooks? Run Quickbooks Online. It's 2020; the vast majority of office applications are now available on the cloud as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
I also like that Chromebooks update frequently and transparently. UnlikeWindows 10 PCs, where lately it seems like every upgrade is an adventure, Chromebooks just take their patches and, when you want them to, reboot in a few seconds and just keep on working.
Another advantage is that if something goes wrong with your Windows PC, restoring your data to a new PC can be a real pain. It's especially annoying when you're stuck at home and your backup is somewhere at the office. With a Chromebook, if you pour a cup of coffee on its keyboard and it goes to that great bityard in the sky, who cares? You just buy a new Chromebook, enter your ID and password and you're back in business again. No-fuss, no muss.
If you need IT help Google offersChrome Enterprise. With it, for $50 a device per year, your IT crew gets access toManaged Google Playvia an approvedEnterprise Mobility Manager EMMfor Cisco Meraki; Citrix XenMobile; IBM MaaS360; ManageEngine Mobile Device Manager Plus; or VMware Workspace ONE. It also includes Active Directory (AD) integration.
You can also useChromebooks with Citrix Workplace. If you're a VMware shopper, VMware's equivalent offerings areHorizon Client for Chrome OSandHorizon 7.
Besides using Chromebooks for my own work, I benchmark them usingPrincipled Technologies' Chromebook-specific, second-generationCrXRPT benchmark. Principled Technologies, a descendant of Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operations, is one of the best private benchmarking and testing companies on the planet.
This test tells you how fast a Chromebook handles things you do every day. This includes doing work and more fun activities such as playing video games, watching movies, and editing pictures.
This benchmark consists of six scenario tests:
The performance test gives you an overall score. With this benchmark, the higher the score, the better.
CrXPRT includes a battery test. In this test, all six workloads from the performance benchmarks are run, plus realistic periods of wait time and three additional scenarios:
All tests were run on the above enterprise Chromebook laptop using the latest version of ChromeOS (ChromeOS 83). Wi-Fi was on, but Bluetooth was disabled during the benchmarking.
Yes, you can use any old Chromebook to get work done. But, for business purposes, you want more than an adequate machine. You want one that will fit your needs. Here's your decision tree:
Chromebooks are not just for schools. They're for serious work as well.
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