I am looking to get a Chromebook as I mainly study, watch videos on Youtube and write stories on my laptop but that's getting to be nearly 10 years old and kind of slow. I want to take this with me so I can do that on the road better than from a phone and faster than a 10 year old laptop. I was wondering where I can get maybe refurbished ones? I seen some deals on some sites, but they seem to good to be true.

I have a less than 2-year-old Acer 714 Spin that, as of this week, will not charge. I have reset the hardware, powerwashed, and taken out the battery and put it back in. Nothing helps. Does anyone have any suggestions? It works fine while plugged in but it shuts down if I unplug it. I did let it run all the way down thinking that would reset the software somehow- didn't work. Now it won't work without being plugged in. The battery icon shows that it is plugged in and at 1% and "calculating". Not sure what else to do. I really don't want to buy another computer right now.

This is relating to ARM based Chromebooks as those are what I'm interested in. I'm finding it hard to search due to complete unfamiliarity and the split of Intel and ARM. Also I hope I flaired this correctly, please let me know if not so I can change it.

I've never had a Chromebook, but I think it would be a cool thing to try out and I know ARM based Chromebooks can run android games and have access to the Google play store. So it could be a nice replacement for my current tablet.

My question is, how much access do I actually have to the play store in relation to my phone/tablet, like can I just install anything as if this Chromebook was a regular android phone or tablet?

For example, on my phone I bought Minecraft. I can also play this on my tablet and use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and it works perfectly. But - I see it has a "chrome OS version sold separately" on the page. Does this mean I cannot install the regular phone version onto a Chromebook? Or is this "chrome OS version" actually for x86 Intel Chromebooks, and that is why it is split? (Which is why I'm specifying my want for ARM based, because I don't know if this makes a difference.)

Also when it comes to Chromebooks, if it works on a phone can I assume it will also work on an ARM chip Chromebook no problem? Or is there compatibility issues? I know the chips are the same (I think?) but I'm just wondering if there's any issues because the OS is obviously different.

And is there any compatibility problems like with phones and tablets? For example I have on my phone a game which works perfectly fine, but if I find it in the play store on my computer it says it's not compatible with my android version (which I always assume is some sort of arbitrary thing. It's literally working right now, what gives? is it a vulnerability thing?) is that also present on Chromebooks?

Thank you! :)

When I'm typing in Docs or Gmail, a small lozenge-shaped pop up that says "Summarize" appears. Is this from Google, or possibly a Chat GPT extension? Whatever. It's annoying. How do I get rid of it?

Hi! I’m new to Chromebooks so looking for app and extension advice. We bought for educational purposes for our homeschooled littles (lower grade school). I’m in the process of setting them up and would love app or extension (or even website) suggestions to install if anybody here uses them for that purpose. Anybody got any hidden gems? Thank you for your time.

I am running an HP Chromebook X2 dockable with the Intel M3 chip from 2020. For the most part, I've been having very good luck with it, running a lot of Crostini and Android apps.

Several months ago, right about when the customizable keyboard shortcuts update came out, I ran into a problem. I've used Alt-up arrow and Alt-down arrow constantly to jump up and down pages on the web browser, as well as in Crostini for various Linux applications. Suddenly that stopped working.

I eventually found out about the new customizable keyboard shortcuts, but they don't seem to be here on this model. I found a page that lists all the keyboard shortcuts and the page up/page down shortcuts are no longer defined. They simply don't exist!

After waiting for several updates and not having any lucky, I did a Powerwash to reset the Chromebook. This didn't fix the issue. I figured it might be an issue with my login/account, so I used the Guest account. This also doesn't help. the issue is still there.

I can't understand what went wrong. Was there a bad update? It looks like everything else is working properly. I used the keyboard test utility. All the physical keys work. I simply don't have the keyboard shortcuts I need and there seems to be no way to enable them.

Has anyone else encountered this or have an idea of how to solve it?

Thanks!

When in the file manager, how can I have my current location show in the left sidebar. I'd like to see the "tree" view where I can understand where I am in my files. For example, in the attached image, the folder "TAXES" is a pinned folder from my Google Drive. When I enter this folder, and a sub-folder therein, how can I ChromeOS to expand Google Drive and show me where I am in the hierarchy of folders? I realize I can tap the 3 dots up top, but I'd like it to expand so I can more easily move things.

https://preview.redd.it/7gv6gjo96gtc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=3498ecf98ae231a7000f0f6426d62e799a17b410

So... I am a Windows user but my sister has an Acer Chromebook R11 and she wants to start gaming but her laptop is soooo laggy that she has like 11fps. Is there any Graphics Card or something we could buy? Again, Im a Windows guy so I don't really know much about ChromeOS lol.

I just got a Epomaker Galaxy 80 keyboard for my chromebook set up because I was sick of the poor ergonomics that came from primarily using my extra monitor. The keyboard works fine as far as typing and the basics. The only issue I have is that I want to map the F keys and other "blank keys" to things other than the volume, screen brightness, and log out that naturally occur when I press them currently.

Is there a way to map the keys? or install the window driver for the keyboard?

I have the use Function keys setting toggled on under bluetooth keyboard but im not noticing any difference

Steam gives me the option to select a account, as normal but once it loads, it is completely black. There is no store or library tab to choose from, it's just black. What's interesting is that I can still navigate Steam, but I can't see anything. I can close Steam with an invisible X and when I move my mouse around the screen I can see the sub-tabs like features, but when I click on them it's still just black. How can I fix it? I have reinstalled it and go to beta.

I have installed Google Docs, Microsoft Office (PWA), Only Office and Collabora Office:

• Google Docs (PWA) seems to work good, and it works offline so no complains. It doesn't seem to work with local files though.
• Microsoft Office (PWA). I love it but I don't like it requires an Internet connection to work.
• Only Office (Android) works good and has cloud storage (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc) but I don't like there is no permanent toolbar visible while editing a document.
• Collabora Office (Android) is based in LibreOffice (it doesn't even look like an Android but desktop app!) and works good with local files and seems very complete despite it doesn't have cloudsync

I've tried others but haven't kept them installed, like Polaris which was great but it was literally a walking ad. I liked WPS a lot but since it's Chinese I don't trust it because they use to have a lot of spyware. Also I don't like using Linux within ChromeOS at all, and I prefer using Android + my Chromebook is ARM, so LibreOffice isn't even an option to me.

I'd love that Microsoft Office was available in the PlayStore for ChromeOS but I read it requires a paid 365 subscription in devices of more than 10 inches so no big deal anyway.

Which ones do you use?

Looking for a small Chromebook with

• 10-11.6" size

Full hd display Usb 3.x

Thank you for recommendation!

For anyone who may come across this issue, I have a Samsung Odyssey G5 (HDR support enabled) external monitor and was having a very frustrating issue happen with some images and video (apparently containing HDR metadata) causing the display to disconnect. Additionally, if the image/video remained on the display it would cause ChromeOS to crash to the point of having to recover tabs/apps. I could open the same images/videos on the built-in display without a problem.

I systematically went through any flag (os://flags) related to displays/video/images and finally narrowed it down to the #use-hdr-transfer-function flag, I disabled this and the problem went away.

So for anyone else having this issue (I could not find other posts) - here is a possible solution! For what its worth disabling the HDR options on the monitor did not seem to make a difference. OS Version 123.0.6312.94 (Official Build) (64-bit)

I bought a new chromebook and its always over 100 degrees even when nothing is on. dont know why but its making it very slow. Is there any fixes to this issue or should i just return it?

I decided to report this issue every week to Google Chromebook help

Is anyone who can help me send this issue or support me do this on report page:

https://support.google.com/chromebook/thread/268210194?hl=en&sjid=5440577513140917692-AP

Last year I went all-in on Apple with an iPhone 15 Pro and a base 14" MacBook Pro.

Especially underwhelmed with the iPhone. I came off of a Pixel 4a and while the photos and battery are better, I really miss Android.

I also don't like icloud at all. Very cumbersome and annoying to use, much prefer the Google apps.

So I'm thinking of selling the iPhone and getting Pixel 8 (or maybe 8a). Just hope the battery is decent.

And while I'm at it... The MBP is massive overkill for my workout. I bought so I could be "future proof" but really all I do is work from Chrome, haha. I'm a trainer and coach so it's all Google Workspace for me.

Could I safely sell the MBP and enjoy a Chromebook? If so, is there a really premium Chromebook that will last me a few years?

Thanks!

how to I use crostini to acess / (crossposted to r/Crostini)

Just wanted to post my experience with reviving my Asus C302 Chromebook to save folks some time trying to figure out OS alternatives after ChromeOS support expires.

I followed the process on MrChromebox.tech for a boot menu to load a new OS. I've tried a bunch of different Linux distros on the Asus C302 and finally settled on Fedora Linux. Performance is snappy, tablet mode works with screen rotation, and sound can be enabled using the following steps.

git clone https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chromebook-linux-audio.git

cd chromebook-linux-audio

./setup-audio

Takes a little getting used to the desktop layout and features, but it has definitely revived my interest and use of this old Chromebook hardware. Great for web and streaming media stuff. I also loaded MAME to play some old school games with it. I plan to try out some cloud gaming to see how it performs.

So I've been using Ubuntu on my Chromebook for a while now and I really like it. However i'm thinking about switching back to ChromeOS. I always use the Canary Channel for the latest Updates so could anyone convince me if there is anything new in ChromeOS 125 Canary?

hellor, im not sure if my keyboard is just faulty or i enabled some weird macro, but everything i type enters a different character. ive tried keyboard settings. my keyboard is still set to english extended and the digital keyboard still works. but i think my regular keyboard is inverted somehow

the right control key lowers my brightness.

Hi all, as the title suggest I was just wondering what the logic behind the behaviour of ChromeOS deciding to Powerwash a system, deleting all local data, when it senses a problem And more specifically why it does this without explicitly warning the user of what will happen?

As you may surmise I have just run into this issue for the first time when I opened up my Chromebook this morning. I turned on the system like normal, logged in with my passcode and everything seemed fine. After a couple minutes I received a notification saying something along the lines of needing to resign into in order re-verify my account. I'd never seen this before, but I thought fair enough let me just do that.

So I click on the notification to sign out, and then resign in with two factor authentication. At this point I'm greeted with the default chromeOS wallpaper in light mode. On closer inspection I find that all my local documents have been deleted. Now, I'm not worried about those documents personally. Even though I've had this Chromebook for a couple years now, I don't have any files saved on it that I'm particularly attached. I mainly just open documents from my OneDrive in read-only if I need to.

What I'm more annoyed about is the loss of my Android apps and my entire Crostini/ Linux Debian installation. I got my Chromebook two years ago to replace an ancient windows laptop I used to have. At the time I only needed a laptop for light internet browsing, remote desktop work and reading emails. I got a "Premium" Chromebook with the selling points that was it cheap and I could dabble around with Linux via Crostini. Since then, Linux programs have been the backbone of my user experience filling in the gaps of the fairly limited ChromeOS.

If I had known ChromeOS could and would arbitrarily decide to effectively factory reset my device without proper warning, I would never have considered buying one. I've browsed around this subreddit today, and have found numerous threads of people who have had been in similar situations. The responses in the comments always seems to be something like "You should never trust and save anything locally on Chromebook" or "ChromeOS is working as intended". At this point I'm not going to ask how to recover my stuff, since invariably I can't. What I want to discuss is why a Powerwash is necessary or the best course of action from ChromeOS' perspective? And why is the user not properly warned of what is about to happen ahead of time? Why, when the device is about to effectively factory reset, am I given only a small notification asking me to reverify my account? It just seems baffling.

I'm apparently now in charge of doing the music at a wedding next week, not the reception itself, but controlling the background music and specific songs and specific points. I'm using Spotify (app) on a chromebook with wifi turned off (playlists downloaded) to avoid any hiccups. We had a practice today and it worked well, I plugged in a USB mouse and managed to fade in and out and cue tracks successfully.

The main problem I had was volume, the output through the headphone socket on my chromebook was a bit too quiet, quieter than phones etc that I also tried on the same input. The quality was fine, just the volume that was a problem, with everything maxed out.

How can I get 10-20% more volume from this chromebook for next weekend? At the moment the only thing I can think of is using a headphone amp to boost the signal in line between the chromebook and the soundsystem input at the venue.

Any advice welcome.

Primary purpose is writing in Google docs and having a split window open in an internet browser for research. Occasional youtube/movies

I know I want it in black color, full HD display, and under $250 USD.

Aside from that? Don't know. I found this Asus cx1 for that price but people said not to buy it because it has Intel Celeron 4500 processor so now I'm lost.

Don't need a whole lot for my use but also want it to last long and be snappy for what I do.

3 consecutive keys are not working on my chromebook and they’re pretty important keys. I think it’s because I wiped my keyboard down with a Clorox wipe. I tried turning it off and on and that didn’t work. Help

Currently using "AdBlock — best ad blocker" , now it's almost perfect and blocks 90% of ads, but it's using a lot of memory. Is there any other adblockers which are just as good, if not better, but use much less ram?

I’m looking for a Chromebook for work around the $350 range. All of my tasks are web based, with the occasional photoshop edit.

I would also love to use it to read comics when I’m not working so a better screen would be ideal.

Sub 14” profile.

I’ve been looking at the duet 5 but am concerned due to its age.

every single website is using so much memory. this current page is using 523 MB memory usage as I'm typing this. is there any way I can reduce the memory used at all, or any extensions or apps which will reduce it?

Need a new stylus for my Acer Spin 714, the 2022 version. I want one that fits in the stylus garage on the unit. Prefer usi 2.0.

Any suggestions?