I really want to try a chromebook. There’s something about them which really appeals to me. It’s probably because 90% of my day job is Chrome based applications (and the other 10% is creating silly graphics of my colleagues).

There are, however, a couple of things that really put me off.

  1. Google
  2. I basically have one already

Google is one of those companies that I wish I could trust but every moment they seem to move towards some better privacy standard, their underlying business model prevents that. When you don’t pay a company directly, their incentives to do the best thing for you will always be limited.

My Macbook (and iPad pro with iOS 13?) can basically serve as a chromebook already. When I need to access a website that requires chrome–or in effect requires chrome–I can open a chrome window and get to work. The downside is that I might as well just be using a chromebook anyway. Perhaps with the improvements in iOS 13 I may even been able to access and use these services on my iPad.

So when the Pixelbook or HP Chromebook X2 (both tablet hybrids with pen support and a firm base) pop up on social media or in some news publication, I always stop for a minute and wonder: What would it be like to use one?