{"id":1646,"date":"2017-08-08T13:26:59","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T13:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/?p=1646"},"modified":"2017-08-08T13:26:59","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T13:26:59","slug":"top-5-chromebooks-school-anywhere-else-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/top-5-chromebooks-school-anywhere-else-2017.htm","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 Chromebooks for school or anywhere else in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2014, Apple still accounts for nearly half of the school market, but Google has an advantage in their field of vision. 2016, according to Futuresource, a financial markets research firm, Chromebooks has 58% of the education market. Despite the efforts of apple and Microsoft, Chromebooks continues to dominate the school.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/dell\/studio-1749-battery.htm\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1647\" src=\"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dell-studio-1749-laptop-battery-battaussie.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dell-studio-1749-laptop-battery-battaussie.jpg 738w, https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dell-studio-1749-laptop-battery-battaussie-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Why? Part of it is price. You can get a good Chromebook for a few hundred dollars. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/apple\/\">Apple<\/a> has nothing in its price range. Microsoft said it was competing with its new Surface Laptop and Windows 10S, but the price alone, $999, makes it a non-starter.<\/p>\n<p>Besides, Chromebooks as FutureSource pointed out, have a unique combination of virtues. These are: &#8220;The strong combination of affordable devices, productivity tools via G-Suite, easy integration with third-party platforms\/tools, task management\/distribution via Google Classroom, and easy device management remains extremely popular with US teachers and IT buyers alike.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So, as schools get into session, what should you buy? Here are the five best Chromebooks today for both your eighth grader and for your office. I&#8217;ve ranked them in price order, from the most to the least expensive.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/asus\/\">ASUS<\/a> Chromebook Flip C302<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At $469, you won&#8217;t want to send your kindergartner to school with this high-priced &#8212; for a Chromebook &#8212; laptop. But, it will be fine for you or your high-school student.<\/p>\n<p>Looking like Apple&#8217;s late lamented 11-inch MacBook Air, this is a quality Chromebook for work or school. With a 12.5-inch screen and 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution and a 360-degree display hinge, it&#8217;s a pleasure to use either as a laptop or a tablet.<\/p>\n<p>For connections to the outside world, it uses 802.11ac Wi-Fi and a pair of USB-C ports. Unfortunately, these ports don&#8217;t support the faster Thunderbolt 3 technology. Still, USB-C is more than fast enough for any task a Chromebook is likely to face.<\/p>\n<section class=\"sharethrough-top\" data-component=\"medusaContentRecommendation\" data-medusa-content-recommendation-options=\"{&quot;promo&quot;:&quot;promo_ZD_recommendation_sharethrough_top_in_article_desktop&quot;,&quot;spot&quot;:&quot;dfp-in-article&quot;}\">\n<div id=\"sharethrough-top-59894a95b2bf8\" class=\"ad-sharethrough-top\" data-ad=\"sharethrough-top\" data-google-query-id=\"CPLsiIncx9UCFcgbvAoduW4N8A\"><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>With a 2.2GHz Intel Core m3 processor, it&#8217;s no speed demon, but then Chrome OS doesn&#8217;t need a fast processor. This is also one of the first Chromebooks that comes with native Android app support.<\/p>\n<p>This laptop comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of SSD storage. Since, like any Chromebook, it relies on Google Drive for storage, 64GB is more than enough.<\/p>\n<p>If you want a good-looking Chromebook with decent performance, it&#8217;s hard to do better than the Asus Chromebook Flip.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/acer\/\">Acer<\/a> Chromebook R13<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For a bit less money, you can get the Acer Chromebook for a street price of a lick over $350.<\/p>\n<p>What you&#8217;ll get for that is a bigger, 13.3-inch touch dual-hinge display with 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution. That dual-hinge enables it to be used as a laptop or a tablet. It&#8217;s best feature though is its battery life. An ordinary Chromebook has a <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/acer\/as07b72-battery.htm\">Acer as07b72 laptop battery<\/a><\/strong> life of 8 to 10 hours. The Acer clocks in at an amazing, real-world 13 hours.<\/p>\n<p>That battery life is in part because the Acer uses a 2.1 GHz MediaTek MT8127 processor. This a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, which uses less power than its Intel rivals. It also means, unfortunately, that the Acer is a tad slower than its competition. More battery life or faster speed? The choice is up to you.<\/p>\n<p>For RAM, it has 4GB RAM. You can choose between 32GB or 64GB SSD for storage.<\/p>\n<p>For Wi-Fi, the Acer uses the now ubiquitous 802.11ac. For ports, it includes a USB-C, without Thunderbolt 3 support and a USB-3 port.<\/p>\n<p>The reason to buy this model is simple: Battery life. It&#8217;s the best in the market today.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/dell\/\">Dell<\/a> Chromebook 3189 2-in-1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This Dell model is a step down from the Asus, but at $349, it&#8217;s more affordable. Since it&#8217;s also MIL-STD 810G rated, this Chromebook can take a licking and keep on ticking. This laptop can withstand extreme temperatures, sand and dust, shock and vibration, and drops of up to 30 inches onto a wooden surface. In short, it&#8217;s kid-ready.<\/p>\n<p>The 11.6-inch touch display has a low 1,366 x 768-pixel resolution, but that&#8217;s sufficient for study or work. It also has a dual-hinge display, so it&#8217;s ready to be used in either tablet or laptop mode.<\/p>\n<p>Another nice feature is the keyboard. It has a good, solid feel to it. The laptop also comes with 802.11ac and a pair of USB-3 ports.<\/p>\n<p>The 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3060 is on the slow side, but again Chrome OS doesn&#8217;t require fast processors. This Chromebook comes with 4GB of RAM. For storage, it uses 32GB of fast SSD storage, but there are other Chromebook variants with 16GB ($329) and 64GB ($409) SSDs.<\/p>\n<p>What I like most about this model is its toughness. Schools can be hard on computers, but the Dell Chromebook 3189 is up for the job.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Acer Chromebook 15 C910-C37P<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Do you want a solid Chromebook for under $300? What about $289.99, to be exact? Then you want to check out this laptop. It&#8217;s not the best looking or the lightest, but it delivers the goods at an affordable price.<\/p>\n<p>At 15-inches, the display &#8212; with its 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution&#8211; is bigger than the others I considered. That said, it&#8217;s not a very attractive screen. You won&#8217;t want to watch Netflix on it, but for getting homework or office work done, it does just fine.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hardware for talking to the external world is a generation behind. This Chromebook has a USB 2 and a USB 3 port. For Wi-Fi, it comes with support only up to 802.11n.<\/p>\n<p>With an 1.5GHz Intel Core i5-5200u dual-core processor, an Intel HD 5500 graphics chip, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of on-board SSD storage, it has good internal hardware.<\/p>\n<p>All-in-all, the Acer Chromebook 15 is for people who like full-sized laptops at an inexpensive price.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/lenovo\/\">Lenovo<\/a> ThinkPad 13 Chromebook<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think for the first time &#8212; in the more than 20 years I&#8217;ve been using ThinkPads &#8212; I have one in front of me that&#8217;s the most inexpensive laptop in a round-up. At a street price of $223.99, you&#8217;ll never see a cheaper ThinkPad.<\/p>\n<p>This Chromebook comes with a 13.3-inch screen with either HD (1,366&#215;768) or full HD (1,920&#215;1,080) resolution. For more money, you can get this ThinkPad with a touchscreen.<\/p>\n<p>Like any ThinkPad, it has an excellent keyboard. It does not, alas, have a trackpoint. Instead, it uses a standard touchpad.<\/p>\n<p>Another nice feature is that it comes with an abundance of USB ports: two USB 3.0s and two USB-Cs. For networking, it uses 802.11ac.<\/p>\n<p>To keep the price down, it comes with an 1.60GHz Intel Celeron 3855U processor and 4GB of DDR3 RAM and 16GB in the SSD.<\/p>\n<p>The ThinkPad isn&#8217;t, with its low-end components, isn&#8217;t the best around. You can upgrade it, but then you lose its chief virtue: A great price for a solid Chromebook.<\/p>\n<p>So, which one is best for you? Well, if you&#8217;ve been reading along, you&#8217;ll see that each has its good features. To sum up: Best in the field is the Asus Flip; Best battery life is the Acer R13; Toughest against wear and tear is Dell; Acer 15 has the biggest screen; and Lenovo is the cheapest. That said, any of them will work well for work in the classroom, home, or office.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>PREVIOUS AND RELATED COVERAGE<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>How to pick the best Chromebook for school<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Chromebooks are cheap, fast, secure, work well, and can fit in your eighth grader&#8217;s backpack. Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on with Chromebooks in education today and how to pick the right one for you and the students in your life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The new Surface Laptop is no Chromebook<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What were you thinking, Microsoft? The company&#8217;s just-released Surface Laptop is meant to challenge Chromebooks, but at a starting price of $999, who the heck will buy it? It sure won&#8217;t be schools, which Chromebook dominates now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2014, Apple still accounts for nearly half of the school market, but Google has an advantage in their field of vision. 2016, according to Futuresource, a financial markets research firm, Chromebooks has 58% of the education market. Despite the efforts of apple and Microsoft, Chromebooks continues to dominate the school. Why? Part of it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[691,839],"class_list":["post-1646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battery-knowledge-base","category-laptop-batteries-tips","tag-acer-as07b72-laptop-battery","tag-dell-studio-1749-laptop-battery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1648,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions\/1648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}