Lenovo N23 Yoga Chromebook

Lenovo N23 Yoga Chromebook

A few weeks ago, when our daughter's ten-year-old DEL laptop had a fall and met an untimely end, our three-year-old Acer Chromebook got moved on and a new Chromebook took its place - the Lenovo N23 Yoga.

At NZ$481, the N23 Yoga isn't the cheapest Chromebook around though it was cheaper than our old Acer Chromebook had cost three years ago. We chose the Lenovo, based upon its excellent reviews, physical flexibility (it is a Yoga, after all), ability to run Android apps and its price. We have not been disappointed.

Chromebooks make great family computers. As I write this, I have another family member's Windows 10 laptop sitting on the table. It is only a few weeks old and was driving the user crazy because it had slowed to a crawl. On inspection, it seemed to have slowed because it had started a Windows update. I let it run its course and the update eventually took about six hours - this is not a problem Chromebook users experience.

Having a Chromebook that can run Android apps is a huge advantage. No longer are users limited to a relatively small number of Chrome apps and cloud services, but a vast array of Android apps can be installed and used locally just as you would on a phone or tablet. Nearly all my photo editing is done on a desktop, but, when not in the office, it was great to be able to edit pictures on the Yoga using the Android app "Snapseed" rather than having to upload the picture to a web service and edit it in the cloud.

The Lenovo comes with an ARM processor (as did the Acer). Booting from cold in the morning takes less than 10 seconds and during the day it is instantly 'on' from standby. The battery lasts about 8-10 hours of actual use. Fold the touch screen into tablet mode and it effectively becomes an 11.6inch Android tablet (though a rather heavy and thick tablet). With 4Gb of RAM and 32Gb storage, the Lenovo is no slouch either - even with several Chrome tabs open, it flys along at a more than acceptable pace. The keyboard is a typical chicklet 'button' type, though it is good and responsive and I can keep up a good typing pace.

Chromebooks are great for non-technical users or as a spare device and the Lenovo N23 Yoga is a great Chromebook at a reasonable price.

Baby Seal saves the day ...

This baby seal saved two laptops and a netbook from certain death.

The two laptops were a couple of Dell Studio 1535’s stuck running Microsoft Vista with no prospect of an upgrade to a later operating system. Built like tanks and in perfect working order, it seemed a shame to throw them away just because the software was obsolete. The netbook was a similarly robust ASUS which was labouring under the weight of Windows 7 Starter edition - so slow it was unusable.

I had tried upgrading the Dells to Linux with no success, as I couldn’t find drivers for Dell’s wireless card. Then, last week I saw a YouTube video about “Cloud Ready” at www.neverwear.com.  Cloud Ready is a repackaging of the Chromium OS (the open-source version of Google’s Chrome OS). It effectively turns an old laptop into a Chromebook device. It is free for home use and is supported for OS upgrades through Cloud Ready’s servers in the same automatic way that Google upgrades Chrome OS. Read about the company here: https://www.neverware.com/about

I tried the ASUS netbook first with a do or die overwrite of Windows. Half an hour later I had a fully functional Chromebook, working exactly like the actual Chromebook we brought last year. I tried to be a little more circumspect with the Dells and set them up as dual-boot with Vista as a fall-back. Unfortunately, the Dells didn’t like this and forced me into an all or nothing conversion. I need not have worried, Cloud Ready installed perfectly (even though the Dells were not on their tested and approved hardware list). Everything on the Dells work, even down to the media soft buttons.

I am really impressed with this implementation of Chromium; the setup is easy and the Cloud Ready site has the most comprehensive set of installation instructions I have ever seen. Battery life on all three machines is massively improved from what it was under Windows (though still not up to modern day standards). There seems little not to like here; if a Chromebook can meet your needs, then this is a free way of breathing life back into an old laptop or netbook.

The cute baby seal? Oh, he was $5 in a bargin bin at Farmers. Rip his head off and he becomes an 8GB USB stick - just the right size for holding the Cloud Ready installer.

Enter a Chromebook

I have been a slow convert to “the cloud” and reluctant to commit my precious data to it. It’s a suspicion born of an age where shared computing resources were notoriously unreliable and data loss a constant worry. Nevertheless, I am not anti-cloud; in many cases the benefits of cloud based computing do outweigh the risks - I just prefer to be in charge of my own destiny when it comes to the really important stuff. However, when a family member’s ageing laptop came due for renewal, a Chromebook looked like a reasonable option. And, after weighing the pros and cons, we decided to give it a go.

There is nothing like trying something before buying and, in this context, running the Chrome browser on a normal (Windows/Mac/Linux) desktop and exploring the Chrome Store with its  various apps, provided a good idea of what a Chromebook experience might feel like. If you are considering a Chromebook purchase then I would certainly recommend trying this out before you buy. You will need a free Google account of course but this is a useful thing to have as it gives you access to all the Google services. You will also need an account should you ever decide to purchase a Chromebook.

The Acer Chromebook 13, running Gingko - used to write this review

If you find you can live with the range of apps provided in the Chrome store then  your Chromebook purchase will add some great extras to the computing experience:

• Firstly, compared to a Windows or Mac computer you will get almost instant start up when you turn on your Chromebook. Ours is ready to use in under ten seconds from off or instantly from standby. More like an iOS or Android tablet experience.
• Secondly, and depending on model, you should get excellent battery life. Ours is rated for 11 hours so, unlike a Windows laptop, the normal mode of use is likely to be on battery rather than plugged in to a power outlet. Much more convenient.

With those two differences out the way, the rest of the Chromebook experience will be very familiar to any Windows or Mac user; not exactly the same but similar enough that the learning curve is light and easy. Like a desktop or laptop, a Chromebook is a multi user device, and each user can access their own data and services attached to their Google account. If someone steals your Chromebook, they haven't got your data as well - it's all in the cloud.

Once you have mastered the Chromebook experience everything else is down to the apps that you can find in the Chrome Store. There are the staples like Google drive, Docs, Sheets etc. Free storage for 50,000 of your music tracks on Google Play Music and for your photos on Google+. After that it’s a case of ‘seek and ye shall find’ in the Chrome Store. There is plenty on offer of a general nature and more being added all the time. If you really must have all the features of Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint, even Outlook, then these are all available from Microsoft as free online versions - very usable.

Conclusion

The Chromebook experience has come a long way since it was introduced. It is now a very viable alternative for general use usually at a reasonable price. Unlike the old Netbooks, inexpensive doesn’t necessarily equate to a slow and crippled experience (not all Chromebooks are created equal however) and provided you usually have a good wifi connection to the internet you should feel as though you are on cloud nine.