So I went through this issue with an eBay seller taking forever to get my laptop to me and it finally arrived.

It's an HP Stream 11, a little tiny thing with a 11" screen, 32GB SSD drive and 4GB RAM, Celeron proc and Win10. It's a nice concept (was designed as a competitor to Chromebooks) but the danged thing is just way too under-powered for Windows 10. It actually seems slower than the falling-apart-piece-of-crap 8 year old HP laptop it's replacing!

I plan to get rid of it shortly but wanted to know if a Chromebook would suit us better? We just need the thing for basic web use, some printing, some documents, etc. Nothing heavy-duty or intensive and I thought the HP Stream was suited for that, but it's just not.

It's my understanding that since everything is done within the Chrome browser and in the cloud, that these laptops run fast even on the specs I listed above for the Win10 laptop?

Does anyone have a Chromebook? We really use our iPhones anymore 90% of the time anyway and only need a very basic laptop for occasionally use.

Brecaidra and I have been using Chromebooks for several years now. They're great for web surfing and watching videos or movies from Nexflix / Amazon prime. It's great not having to worry about virus updates or other software.

Considerations: If you want to watch videos regularly, get a Chromebook with enough speed to support that. If possible, try out some brands of Chromebooks to see if you like the screen, viewing angles, and the keyboard. You can get a nice one for under $300.

You may not have to buy anything at all by putting ChromeOS on your old hardware.

Here's another implementation.

And another.

Are you using the built in Edge browser on the HP Stream, or are you trying to use Chrome on it?

Chrome, as an application running on a Windows Computer, is very resource heavy. Chrome these days is essentially trying to run its own OS on top of Windows--it does this so that it can integrate all the different applications that Chrome offers seamlessly across browser windows.

My (rather old and underpowered) work desktop has only 3gb of ram and an Intel i3 processor, and will struggle with Chrome after it gets bloated down with a few browser windows that are resource heavy--a Facebook page, a gmail page, Google drive, and a few Google Hangouts windows is enough to bring my work computer to its knees. Closing the Chrome browser window is not enough, you have to open up Chrome's task manager and kill off applications as Chrome will allow tasks to run in the background. My home computer with an i7 and 32gb of RAM has plenty of overhead and Chrome has no effect on performance.

If you are running Google based products, I imagine a Chromebook would do it more efficiently than a Windows machine running Chrome on top of it.

I've been teaching a elderly Veteran how to navigate his. They are a nice little device and so far not a single issue. I got him to buy a laser mouse. He shows up days later with a wireless printer and blue tooth head phones. He has become the most advanced 85 year old I know. He's also up to speed now on his tablet and navigates his phone well.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
Are you using the built in Edge browser on the HP Stream, or are you trying to use Chrome on it?

I was using Chrome and not Edge.

It wasn't just the browsing that was the issue though. It seemed like this laptop just couldn't handle Windows 10 overall and it was struggling with it.

It's not just browsing though. Chrome starts an application launcher and task manager that runs in the background, like a second operating system on top of Windows. This uses up resources, both CPU cycles and RAM, but mostly RAM. This "memory leak" or "Memory bloat" drags down the other functions of the Computer.

Try uninstalling Chrome and using the Edge or Internet Explorer browswer. You can still access Google, just use the Edge browser to do it. See if that helps.

I have been using a chromebook for awhile. I echo what bryan11 said. I use it for browsing the web, using it for SHO, HBO, Netflix, HULU etc...

I do use it lightly for online excel but if you are looking to do something other than track work outs it is probably not for you. Word, powerpoint, excel are frustratingly slow through the browser. BUt it makes for a great ipad with keyboard and I take it when I travel and it does well with most things.

I forgot to mention you can also play any games from Google play now on it. Those things are nice on the big screen. and I posted from it

Oh ya one last thing, it has an HDMI mini - out, so if I want to watch this on a TV i just bring my wireless mouse, HDMI cable, HMDI mini adapter and netflix/HBO/Showtime/Starz on the go and I am watching shows/movies on the big screen tv as well. COmes in handy when you're in a hotel.

The high school I work at has over 1400 Chrome Books. They get abused like hell and seem to work fine. The teachers use google classroom and the entire class hands in their work online. I've see all the kids running movies and watching youtube without any problems.

I've got a Samsung 11" that is 5 years old and still works like new. Recently I bought this 14" Acer CB and I'm well pleased. Aluminum clad, thin and light (about 3 lbs) 4 gb ram 32gb flash.
$180 and free shipping from the Acer recertified store.
http://acerrecertified.com/ace...roduct-custom-fields

One of the best things about Chromebooks is using Chrome remote dekstop to access remote sessions on your more powerful devices. Use all of your office Apps, access email etc on your powerful machine anywhere with a remote session running on your chromebook.

If you are running IPhones 90% of the time, how about an IPad?

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by rbert0005:
If you are running IPhones 90% of the time, how about an IPad?

Bob

That's what I was wondering.

In the interest of full disclosure: I'm quite disillusioned with all things Google, of late, and I've no experience with Chromebooks, anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
It's not just browsing though. Chrome starts an application launcher and task manager that runs in the background, like a second operating system on top of Windows. This uses up resources, both CPU cycles and RAM, but mostly RAM. This "memory leak" or "Memory bloat" drags down the other functions of the Computer.

Try uninstalling Chrome and using the Edge or Internet Explorer browswer. You can still access Google, just use the Edge browser to do it. See if that helps.

OK, so I wiped the laptop with a factory reset and started over with NO CHROME and no add-on antivirus and Malwarebytes. I opted to use the new MS Edge browser and the preinstalled McAffee LiveSafe application instead, and would you know, the thing is actually working normally and pretty snappy now?

I had no idea Chrome was such a resource hog.

I LOVE that this thing boots to the Windows desktop in like 15-20 seconds, I'm used to traditional hard drive PC's taking what seems like 1-2 minutes or longer it seems.