Control/Dimming Thoughts on the Chromebook

[wolfman005]

Does anyone have any experience with Chromebooks? The price is attractive as well as the very low boot time. I'm considering purchasing one to run Chamsys Magic Q PC for small bands and DJ lighting. Right now I'm using a 4 year old ASUS which does the job but it takes longer than I would like to boot and it's form factor isn't great.

Pros I see:
-Cheap (college kid on a budget here)
-low boot time
-SSD
-long battery life (Not that I plan on using battery alone for a gig)
-the new Pixel model has a touchscreen which is what I would be considering

Cons I see:
-I haven't found a lot of people who have used a chromebook
-It's marketed as tablet/laptop hybrid. Things built to do two jobs rarely work well...
-Compatability with apps/drivers (I can't tell if the OS lets you do anything other than the installed google products)
-It doesn't seem very well in terms of stability just by looking at the pics. This would be for a weekend warrior use so...

I suppose my next step is to email Chamsys and see if they suggest it. If they say yes I'll go find a retailer and play around with one.

Thanks for the help!
-Aaron

 

[techieman33]

I highly doubt magicQ will run on a chrome book. It's designed to browse the internet and run web apps, and that's it.

 

[arexlame]

I highly doubt magicQ will run on a chrome book. It's designed to browse the internet and run web apps, and that's it.

Chromebooks won't run .exe files, which are your windows applications. Only applications available on the Google Chrome store are able to be run on a Chromebook. I do also highly doubt (but don't quote me) that there is a magicQ version in the Chrome Store.

FYI If you're looking for a really decent Lighting PC on a budget, see if you can pick up a second hand Intel NUC. They retail for about $500, but I picked up one second hand for $150. Have a read of their website http://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/nuc/overview.html and see what they're all about. But they've got SSD's and dual graphics out of the box, install Windows, pair it with a cheap monitor and some lighting software (I use Martin MPC) and you've got yourself (whats proved so far for me to be) a reliable, lightweight, budget lighting control solution.

 

[StradivariusBone]

It is possible to wipe a chromebook and install Windows on it. Certain ones work better than others for this purpose, if I recall correctly there are a few that are mostly "cloud-based" meaning there's not much local storage. You get a decent laptop for like $200 and then $100 more for the OS. Still ahead of the game in that regard.

 

[wolfman005]

Shortly posting this I did some more research and discovered what you all have said, that it will only run apps in the google store.

James from Chamsys emailed me and further explained that the smaller ARM processors that the chromebooks use aren't supported by Chamsys. He suggested a XPS 11 Ultrabook. I'll be looking into that and a Intel NUC.

Thanks for the help guys.