You Can See More: Is a Chromebook a good business laptop?

The following article Is a Chromebook a good business laptop? is courtesy of Android Central - Android Forums, News, Reviews, Help and Android Wallpapers

Best answer: Yes! There are a lot of applications that just work in a web browser, and Chromebooks are more secure than other platforms.

Amazon: Dell Chromebook 3380 ($283)

What can you do on a Chromebook?

The big controversy with Chromebooks in the early days was that they couldn't be used to run "real" programs that Windows and macOS machines can run. But it's been 7 years, and the web has grown a lot. Chromebooks have grown a lot, too. They've gotten more robust extensions. They've gotten support for millions of Android apps through Google Play. And even if you lose internet, Google's Drive suite — and many productivity services and apps — will let you keep working offline on your Chromebook, then sync your data back to the cloud once it finds Wi-Fi again.

Collaboration on Chromebooks and Google Drive is the best in the industry.

There are still some advanced features the Drive suite doesn't have, but for 99% of use cases, Google's productivity tools are as good or better than Microsoft's, especially for collaboration. Google was the first company to really do collaboration well with productivity applications, and that still shows: having multiple users type in the same Google Doc still works much better than doing the same with competitors' products.

Newer Chromebooks support downloading applications from the Google Play Store, so you're not completely limited to using the web. Most Android apps on Chromebooks are a bit funky since they're designed to work on a phone, but it's getting better and better all the time. And if you don't want the Google Play Store on the company laptops your employees use, it takes just one click to block it for all company-managed Chromebooks.

Easy maintenance

In a previous life, I administered Windows laptops and desktops, as well as Chromebooks and Chromeboxes (the desktop version of Chromebooks). About 80% of our users were on Chrome devices, with the remaining 20% being users who needed Windows-specific tools. But a vast majority of my time was spent with the Windows laptops, because the Chromebooks require so little effort to keep running.

When major problems did arise, getting a user up and running again was as easy as having them sign into a new Chromebook. All of their bookmarks and login information would sync right over, and they were back to being productive. Fixing their old machine usually just required a factory reset, and after thirty minutes the bad machine was working perfectly again.

Chromebooks are built for enterprise: easy to use and easier to manage.

One of the upsides of Chromebooks not supporting the same programs as Windows and macOS is they also can't get malware from a bad download. A good IT administrator will have the machine locked down to prevent this, but there's no stronger way to keep attacks from happening than for the laptop to just not support that kind of software. That's not to say that the Chrome Web Store and other parts of the web are perfectly safe, but not supporting a giant attack vector makes Chromebooks much more secure than other laptops.

Back in business

Dell 3380 Chromebook

$283 at Amazon

Decently rugged with a long battery

The Dell Chromebook 3380 features a sturdy plastic build, Google Play Store support, and and 12+ hour battery life.

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