I really wish i could find a use for the chromebooks for my family, but i failed. This one seems similar to the samsung chromebook, which i tried for a while (also lending it to mother, sister, children) but we all found it basically useless for any everyday task.
Surely one can blame the ecosystem; but still the conclusion does not change, and as a comparison, tablets and phones had a more successful approach at adapting or modifying the ecosystem and become usable.
You cannot use an arm chromebook as laptop because of lack of storage, applications, limited options to connect peripherals (no drivers for anything except storage). No way to print that occasional document or boarding pass (unless you have another computer or perhaps network enabled printer); no way to scan a document. The samsung had an SD slot (this one does not); but you could not show videos from your camera because of unavailable codecs (and no way to install them, despite plenty of android apps for arm that play the same formats).
Casual browsing also fails a lot because of unsupported codecs (flash, silverlight); a lot of chrome extensions do not work for arm. Apps, almost non existing.
Compared to a tablet, you get a keyboard and the ability to display multiple windows on screen; but in exchange you lose almost every other sensor or peripheral (accelerometer, gps, camera, light) which make the device useful.
Now if there were at least a sandbox to run android apps, one could (temporarily ?) address the lack of applications.
I'm kind of surprised. My dad is an over the road truck driver who isn't too tech savvy. The most I've ever been able to teach him to use on a computer is how to browse the web with Google Chrome. When he left to go back over the road, I got him a Samsung Chromebook with the built-in 3G and he loves it.
He plays his online Texas hold'em (flash based), looks up unfamiliar destinations on Google Maps to see the satellite imagery, and checks the weather radar regularly to avoid storms. He's also able to better keep in touch with us now that he can shoot off e-mails whenever he wants.
I had the exact opposite experience - our chromebook is used all the time while or tablet collects dust. Having a real keyboard is a big advantage. The features you list that a tablet has that the chromebook doesn't are all on our phones anyway.
We'll probably take the plunge and get one for someone in the family when the next wave come out. Most of our documents are in Dropbox, Skydrive, Google Docs, etc. We also have a RaspberryPi and PogoPlug serving up plenty of local network storage. The only printer we use now is an all-in-one with wifi and support for Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print. Scanning from it is a little trickier but it can also scan right to an SD card from the printer panel. I can't think of the last time anyone else in my family attached a USB peripheral other than a mouse or storage.
>> I really wish i could find a use for the chromebooks for my family
My family mostly browse the web. Actually, they don't call it the web. They call it facebook and google. This is the 99% use-case. For that matter, this laptop is perfect.
Surely one can blame the ecosystem; but still the conclusion does not change, and as a comparison, tablets and phones had a more successful approach at adapting or modifying the ecosystem and become usable.
You cannot use an arm chromebook as laptop because of lack of storage, applications, limited options to connect peripherals (no drivers for anything except storage). No way to print that occasional document or boarding pass (unless you have another computer or perhaps network enabled printer); no way to scan a document. The samsung had an SD slot (this one does not); but you could not show videos from your camera because of unavailable codecs (and no way to install them, despite plenty of android apps for arm that play the same formats).
Casual browsing also fails a lot because of unsupported codecs (flash, silverlight); a lot of chrome extensions do not work for arm. Apps, almost non existing.
Compared to a tablet, you get a keyboard and the ability to display multiple windows on screen; but in exchange you lose almost every other sensor or peripheral (accelerometer, gps, camera, light) which make the device useful.
Now if there were at least a sandbox to run android apps, one could (temporarily ?) address the lack of applications.