Are Google’s Chromebooks a good fit as a laptop for college? Dublin City University thinks so, they have become the first European school to enter into an agreement with Google to purchase Chromebooks for students. The school will be handing out the Chromebooks, free of charge, to students in a “a small number of selected programmes” according to a news release by the University. No indication was given as to how many Chromebooks that is exactly or which Chromebook will be used as part of this program. Google earlier in the year touted the Chromebooks for Education program but since that time it’s been fairly quiet in regards to announcements of schools that have decided to participate.
Acer and Samsung are so far the only manufacturers producing Chromebooks that can be purchased. I recently reviewed the Acer AC700 Chromebook and found it to be a great way to quickly get on the web, but also fraught with roadblocks for doing other normal computing tasks. Printing is a challenge and you’re out of luck if you can’t find a web based app to replace a desktop app that you use on a regular PC or Mac. As an example, if you’re an Adobe Photoshop user, there’s just no way to replicate the functionality of that program using a web app. And if there’s no Internet available, the Chromebook essentially becomes a paper weight. Frankly, there’s no way I’d recommend a Chromebook as a single solution for a school laptop, although it can make for a good “companion device” in which it supplements a more capable Windows or Mac OS X laptop. Using light weight Chromebook such as the Acer AC700 while on campus to simply get on the web while leaving a bigger 15” laptop at home on the desk is a sensible solution for instance.
Either way, it will be interesting to see how the program works out for Dublin City University, it seems like they’re making it a small trial so I’d imagine involves not much more than 100 Chromebooks. If you’re not lucky enough to be a student at Dublin City University getting a free Chromebook, you can purchase them online via Amazon.com for a starting price of $349 for the Acer AC700.
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