More than a glorified browser – A week with Chrome OS

Most Users work with Windows, macOS is used here and there and Linux is also represented. Chrome OS, technically also a Linux distribution, is not used by anyone in the workplace, while the operating system has undergone significant development in recent years. I therefore put it to the test, leave Windows and macOS behind for a week, and start working with Chrome OS. I’m going to see if the operating system, which is actually intended for simple hardware, offers enough in 2017 to perform my work as a laptop reviewer.

login

The first step in using Chrome OS is to sign in with your Google account. As befits an internet user in 2017, my password consists of 24 random characters and is stored in a password manager. Logging in for the first time is therefore a matter of carefully entering your password. Since Chrome OS 40, except for that first login, you can use your Android phone, which authenticates you via Bluetooth. That’s a top solution, because now you only have to unlock your phone to use your Chromebook. Bluetooth must be on for this, but the minimal impact on the battery life is less than typing that long password.

The system did not always work very well; in my case it went wrong when I had two Chrome OS devices next to each other, so I had to enter my password again. That happened a few times and by the end of the week, I knew all 24 password characters by heart. The system will undoubtedly be improved because it is currently still in the beta phase.

Once you’re logged in, Chrome OS presents you with a tidy desktop, with the ‘shelf’, or taskbar in Windows jargon, at the bottom. The whole thing looks very simple and at that moment, just after logging in, I wonder whether I can last a day, let alone a week on this stripped-down operating system. However, the fact that it’s light and simple is Chrome OS’s whole raison d’être. Moreover, the operating system has been in development since 2009 and the very first version of Chrome OS was really nothing more than a web browser. There was no desktop or shelf yet, let alone some form of file management.

The desktop and file manager were added fairly quickly in updates, and the operating system continues to evolve. For example, it may happen that you restart because an update is ready and the login screen and the app drawer have suddenly changed. The new app drawer, if you have a touchscreen, can be pulled up from the bottom, just like with Google’s launcher on Android devices. If, like me, you don’t have a touchscreen, then essentially little has changed. Your most used apps will still appear first on the screen, while you can open the entire application drawer at the touch of a button. Only your apps now appear at the bottom of the screen, instead of in the middle.

More important than the visual updates that keep Chrome OS feeling fresh are the updates that add functionality. The most important of recent times is the addition of the Play Store so that you can run Android apps. New Chrome devices get that support included, but older ones don’t and that’s a loss.

To work

The activities initially consist of typing a review, chatting via Slack and listening to music via Spotify, and that works just like in any other Chrome browser on any operating system. Yet I am drawn back to the Play Store, from which I had initially only downloaded my password manager. The web apps of Spotify, Amazon Prime and Netflix work fine in themselves, but do not offer the option to download movies or music to continue watching offline later. If you use your Chromebook on the train or plane, for example, then that is desirable and the Android app offers solace for that, because it makes it possible.

Of course, that takes up the necessary space on your usually cramped Chromebook, but in the week that I used it, the ‘generous’ 32GB (the entry-level models have to make do with 16GB) was enough. Android apps, and downloaded movies and music can take up quite a bit of space, as shown by Android smartphones that can already be supplied with 256GB of storage. That could well be the reason why Google supplies its flagship Chromebook, the Pixelbook, with an SSD of up to 512GB.

Chrome OS is a cloud-based operating system, which means that a lot happens on the Google servers. As a result, the operating system has acquired the image that it is worthless as soon as you have no connection. On the one hand, having a connection is important, on the other hand, there is no man overboard if you don’t have one, and that again has to do with the Play Store. For example, Docs, Sheets, and Slides simply function offline and you can work on a document that will be synced to Google Drive when you come back online. If you want certain files from your Drive to be available offline, you can check that and they will be saved on your Chromebook. On the other hand, you can’t just look up an email or an appointment offline, because Gmail and Calendar do require an internet connection.

I must admit I haven’t been offline much, but can imagine situations where people are regularly and then a Chromebook seems impractical. Even then, however, there is a solution and that comes from the Play Store; you can install the Gmail and Calendar Android apps, which can be consulted offline. You can install Word if you don’t like Docs and you can even install OneDrive if you don’t like Google Drive. It goes against the philosophy of Chrome OS, because instead of fast web apps from Google itself, you can get started with cumbersome third-party Android apps, but on the other hand, it’s exactly what you sometimes need to not depend on are of your internet connection.

Not all Android apps are made to run on Chrome OS. In the Play Store you will see that the app is not optimized for the device you are using. In the worst case, it means that you can only use the app in portrait mode, so with two thick bars on the side. Sometimes there are apps in the Play Store that don’t work at all. That was, incorrectly, the case when I wanted to install the Netflix app. “Your device isn’t compatible with this version,” the Play Store reported. In the case of the Netflix app, it turned out to be a bug that was fixed a day later, but by then I had already put my Chromebook in developer mode and downloaded the .apk file outside the Play Store, and I was watching Netflix. to look.

Editing picture’s

The biggest challenge for Chrome OS this week was photo editing. For reviews, we shoot photos with an SLR camera in raw format, and then edit them with Lightroom. Editing photos on Chrome OS is a bit cumbersome, as most Chromebooks come with little storage. It is therefore best to upload your photos to Google Drive first, which can take some time with raw files of 25MB each. The photo editing software can then fish them back in from Google Drive.

One of the best-known online photo editors is Polarr, which lets you load a bunch of photos via Google Drive, which also takes a while, and then edit them. Fortunately, the software can handle the raw files from our Canon EOS 80D and then you can work with filters à la Instagram, or use a whole series of sliders, as I am used to from Lightroom. The software automatically applies a lens profile and then it takes a while to find which submenu contains certain functions, but I did not miss any functions in Polarr that I use in Lightroom. The only inconvenient thing is that Chrome is a cloud based operating system and after copying the photos to Google Drive you have to import them into Polarr and in my case I had to download them and then upload them back to the laptop review I was working on.

Thanks to the Play Store, this can also be done a little less cumbersome by using the Lightroom CC Android app. That app can also work via Google Drive, but you can also edit your photos locally and then upload them. The app seemed to work less smoothly than Polarr and was clearly made for small screens and touchscreens. Many sliders are hidden under submenus, while the interface still has plenty of empty space. So it takes a few extra clicks to do the same operations, but the result doesn’t seem to be inferior to the Windows version.

Problems, solutions and games

During my week with Chrome OS, there was only one time when I couldn’t continue with Chrome and had to switch to another operating system, and that was on a conference call, which was conducted through Adobe Connect. That software requires Adobe Flash, which shouldn’t be a problem because Google ships the Flash plug-in with Chrome as standard. Adobe Connect thought otherwise and kept sending me the Flash download link, only to get a message saying that there was no problem because the Flash player is integrated into Chrome. I was sent from pillar to post and had to fall back on another system in order not to miss the call.

I had not expected the Adobe Connect problem and where I did expect obstacles, they actually turned out not to be. I expected that accessing an smb share, which we use to store test results, would cause problems. However, Chrome OS has been shown to support services in its Files app for some time now. This allows you to install plug-ins from the Chrome Web Store, allowing you to access smb, nfs, or sftp shares, for example. In addition, there are plug-ins for Google Drive competitors such as Dropbox and OneDrive.

Finally, I like to play games and the genre can vary from online shooters and racing games to simple 2d games that run on a laptop with ease. With Chrome OS you are sentenced to simple games that you also know from your smartphone. The Chrome Web Store is full of games like Cut the rope, 2048, and about seventy variants of sudoku. The Play Store adds even more such apps. Especially with games that involve dexterity, you notice that they are made for a touchscreen, which my Chromebook does not have. Super Mario Run on your touchpad is no fun, but I’ve had a great time playing slower games, like Stranger Things, which works fine on a Chromebook with a touchpad.

A week later

The first time I worked on a Chromebook was over four years ago and I’ve reviewed quite a few since then, but those reviews are mainly about the laptop itself and not the software that runs on it. Saddling myself with Chrome OS for a week meant that I spent all day working on that software, and it ended up not even being that hard of a task. The operating system has matured in recent years and is more than a glorified browser.

This is largely due to the support of the Play Store, but also due to tricks in the operating system, such as the support of network shares and cloud services in the Files app, or the quick login using your smartphone. Android apps that aren’t optimized for large screens can be a bit cumbersome, and low storage space can become a problem if you install a lot of apps or download movies and music. However, the functionality that the Play Store adds is huge, and actually indispensable if you’re not always connected to the internet and want to play a game offline or check something in your Google Calendar.

For my (review) work, Chrome OS turned out to be just as functional as macOS or Windows and there appeared to be enough software alternatives available. In fact, you can assume that anything that works in a browser or on a smartphone can also be done on a Chromebook. In the end, what I mostly missed was Steam and I was happy to leave the Android games behind after a week and be able to play Factorio and Civ:V again.