will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2015-04-03 19:41 (#6CBE) I read the linked article but it didn't answer my question. I have a nice older IBM ThinkPad T40 with a great keyboard, touchpoint (pointing device) and screen. The processor is slow and whatever has messed up the WinXP installation makes it even slower--to the point that it is effectively unusable.Will the Chromebit stick be able to "take over" and utilize the ThinkPad hardware? Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 2, Informative) by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-04-03 20:40 (#6CDT) Nope. Not unless your laptop has HDMI inputs, and the rest of hardware (keyboard, mouse, etc), can be plugged-in to a USB hub... The Chromebit is designed to plug-in to HDTV & computer monitors, taking over for a tower PC.Besides, a Chromebook is only $50 more than the Chromebit... so if you want the laptop form-factor, you should spend the extra $50 and get the former, ready to go out-of-the-box. Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2015-04-05 03:00 (#6EAF) Thanks for the answer, too bad this won't work. Economically, I agree that an extra $50 is not a problem. But I think there will be a *huge* difference in keyboard quality between my ThinkPad T40 and any low priced Chromebook. Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 1) by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-04-05 08:22 (#6EMP) You've got to imagine a troop of 10 year old kids going down to the computer lab. Your school can now have a lab that consists of nothing but HDMI monitors. Each kid gets a stick from the teacher, and they do whatever they do using web services available through ChromeOS (which is basically just a bit more complex than a Chrome browser and a tiny bit of desktop).From the point of the school, the maintenance and systems admin burden of running a computer lab this way is hugely more efficient and inexpensive than a lab full of, say, Win10 desktops that need basically full-time administration. This hardware might put a dent in the futures of projects like Edubuntu, which reconfigs desktop hardware into thin clients. That's unfortunate. But it will have a powerful impact on schools that will stop buying Windows desktops, and that in turn will affect how many kids coming out of schools thinking that "computer = windows." As for keyboard quality you are absolutely right - these guys aren't focused on hardware quality. My HP Chromebook has a chiclet keyboard, and I'm not a fan of it (it's no worse than any other modern HP laptop though). If you want a good keyboard, buy a Chromebox and stick whatever USB you like into it - even a Model M! For me, despite the ubiquity of laptops, this is the advantage of a 'desktop computer' no matter which OS it happens to be running: the peripherals I want/need/love, from trackballs to fancy ergo keyboards etc.
Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 2, Informative) by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-04-03 20:40 (#6CDT) Nope. Not unless your laptop has HDMI inputs, and the rest of hardware (keyboard, mouse, etc), can be plugged-in to a USB hub... The Chromebit is designed to plug-in to HDTV & computer monitors, taking over for a tower PC.Besides, a Chromebook is only $50 more than the Chromebit... so if you want the laptop form-factor, you should spend the extra $50 and get the former, ready to go out-of-the-box. Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2015-04-05 03:00 (#6EAF) Thanks for the answer, too bad this won't work. Economically, I agree that an extra $50 is not a problem. But I think there will be a *huge* difference in keyboard quality between my ThinkPad T40 and any low priced Chromebook. Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 1) by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-04-05 08:22 (#6EMP) You've got to imagine a troop of 10 year old kids going down to the computer lab. Your school can now have a lab that consists of nothing but HDMI monitors. Each kid gets a stick from the teacher, and they do whatever they do using web services available through ChromeOS (which is basically just a bit more complex than a Chrome browser and a tiny bit of desktop).From the point of the school, the maintenance and systems admin burden of running a computer lab this way is hugely more efficient and inexpensive than a lab full of, say, Win10 desktops that need basically full-time administration. This hardware might put a dent in the futures of projects like Edubuntu, which reconfigs desktop hardware into thin clients. That's unfortunate. But it will have a powerful impact on schools that will stop buying Windows desktops, and that in turn will affect how many kids coming out of schools thinking that "computer = windows." As for keyboard quality you are absolutely right - these guys aren't focused on hardware quality. My HP Chromebook has a chiclet keyboard, and I'm not a fan of it (it's no worse than any other modern HP laptop though). If you want a good keyboard, buy a Chromebox and stick whatever USB you like into it - even a Model M! For me, despite the ubiquity of laptops, this is the advantage of a 'desktop computer' no matter which OS it happens to be running: the peripherals I want/need/love, from trackballs to fancy ergo keyboards etc.
Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2015-04-05 03:00 (#6EAF) Thanks for the answer, too bad this won't work. Economically, I agree that an extra $50 is not a problem. But I think there will be a *huge* difference in keyboard quality between my ThinkPad T40 and any low priced Chromebook. Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 1) by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-04-05 08:22 (#6EMP) You've got to imagine a troop of 10 year old kids going down to the computer lab. Your school can now have a lab that consists of nothing but HDMI monitors. Each kid gets a stick from the teacher, and they do whatever they do using web services available through ChromeOS (which is basically just a bit more complex than a Chrome browser and a tiny bit of desktop).From the point of the school, the maintenance and systems admin burden of running a computer lab this way is hugely more efficient and inexpensive than a lab full of, say, Win10 desktops that need basically full-time administration. This hardware might put a dent in the futures of projects like Edubuntu, which reconfigs desktop hardware into thin clients. That's unfortunate. But it will have a powerful impact on schools that will stop buying Windows desktops, and that in turn will affect how many kids coming out of schools thinking that "computer = windows." As for keyboard quality you are absolutely right - these guys aren't focused on hardware quality. My HP Chromebook has a chiclet keyboard, and I'm not a fan of it (it's no worse than any other modern HP laptop though). If you want a good keyboard, buy a Chromebox and stick whatever USB you like into it - even a Model M! For me, despite the ubiquity of laptops, this is the advantage of a 'desktop computer' no matter which OS it happens to be running: the peripherals I want/need/love, from trackballs to fancy ergo keyboards etc.
Re: will the stick work with an old laptop? (Score: 1) by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-04-05 08:22 (#6EMP) You've got to imagine a troop of 10 year old kids going down to the computer lab. Your school can now have a lab that consists of nothing but HDMI monitors. Each kid gets a stick from the teacher, and they do whatever they do using web services available through ChromeOS (which is basically just a bit more complex than a Chrome browser and a tiny bit of desktop).From the point of the school, the maintenance and systems admin burden of running a computer lab this way is hugely more efficient and inexpensive than a lab full of, say, Win10 desktops that need basically full-time administration. This hardware might put a dent in the futures of projects like Edubuntu, which reconfigs desktop hardware into thin clients. That's unfortunate. But it will have a powerful impact on schools that will stop buying Windows desktops, and that in turn will affect how many kids coming out of schools thinking that "computer = windows." As for keyboard quality you are absolutely right - these guys aren't focused on hardware quality. My HP Chromebook has a chiclet keyboard, and I'm not a fan of it (it's no worse than any other modern HP laptop though). If you want a good keyboard, buy a Chromebox and stick whatever USB you like into it - even a Model M! For me, despite the ubiquity of laptops, this is the advantage of a 'desktop computer' no matter which OS it happens to be running: the peripherals I want/need/love, from trackballs to fancy ergo keyboards etc.