- Well, it finally happened. The thing every parent fears the most. My son needs a Chromebook for school. So if we're doing this, I guess it's up to me to find the best dang
bang-for-the-buck Chromebook... But wait. (plastic squeaking) This is gonna be a lot
harder than I thought. Why can't they just be good? Like our sponsor. CableMod makes cables to last, and their new keyboard cables are the easiest way to spice up your desk. With a ton of colors
now available on Amazon, you can complete your keyboard setup today using the link down below. (upbeat music) If you or a loved one isn't
currently in grade school, I wouldn't you expect you to be aware of just how dominant Chromebooks
have become in that space. In 2019 there were 30 million Chromebooks deployed in schools, primarily
in the U.S. and Canada. And in January 2020 Google announced that that
number had ballooned 33% to a whopping 40 million Chromebooks in classrooms around the globe, and that is before the COVID techsplosion. And now my son is gonna
be joining the ranks of Chromebook users
whether I like it or not. But then, maybe that's not so bad. Like many of you, I've been
guilty of dismissing Chromebooks as glorified web browsing
appliances because... Well, that's what Google
intended them to be. But in the past few years, they have become far more capable with Google adding the ability
to run Android apps in 2016, introducing the Linux beta on all new devices released since 2020 for you developer types out there, and even allowing enterprise users to run Windows through Parallels. Wait. "Allowing"? Okay, yeah. The whole point of the
schools' Chromebook requirement is that the kids' machines
will be running Chrome OS, and the two main selling
points of Chrome OS are how easy it is to deploy
a locked-down fleet of them that keeps the kids from
doing anything too fun, and how lightweight it is, which indirectly makes
Chromebooks crazy cheap. I mean, look at this thing. $190! That's... I mean, new Windows laptops with MSRPs under $200 do exist, but the ones that we've seen come from less-than-reputable
manufacturers and I don't think that reputation
is changing anytime soon. I mean, even the options
for Windows machines around the $250 mark make no sense 'cause they're basically just Chromebooks that have been saddled
with the additional cost of a much heavier operating system. So it's really in this low price tier that Chromebooks shine as capable and cost-effective machines. But what kinda sacrifices are being made to achieve these crazy low price points? Let's go shopping! Disclosure: I'm an investor in
Framework, a laptop company. They don't make Chromebooks,
but I thought you should know. All right, let's see what we got here. Too big for a little kid. Opposite problem. This one doesn't have any ports. All plastic. These suck! Well, this is a good price. Wow, is that screen ever tiny. Not to mention those bezels. Is this YouTube video running
at 720p with the CPU at 100%? That's just embarrassing. Ooh! Look at this tiny thing! That's cute. Oh, it's a tablet with a
detachable keyboard cover. Neat. (alarm wailing)
Oh! Shoot, uh... Boy, is this keyboard
ever gonna be cramped. Though for a child, maybe. Touchscreen is nice to
have for Android apps. Maybe some drawing. It
is a bit small though. Oh, okay. It's got eMMC storage. That's when the essentially embed an SD card into the motherboard and then use that as your system storage. It's really not very
fast compared to an SSD, and this is only 32 gigs. But it'll be more responsive
than a hard drive, and with tight integration
with Google Drive, I might need that much local storage. And since we're not doing
any heavy computing, it doesn't need to be that fast, but... Ooh, the Best Buy demo doesn't even fit on the screen properly. I don't think this thing's gonna cut it. Maybe we should look online
for some other options. Oh, Samsung has a Chromebook. Look at that. Fiesta Red. Built-in S Pen. Nice. A 4K screen. Okay, the screen size.
This is what, 13 inches? Kinda overkill. Could hurt battery life. A Core i5! I don't think we've seen anything
with a Core-tier CPU yet. Feels a little overkill too. 8 gigs of RAM is nice. But while we love to joke
about Chrome being a RAM hog, I mean, you don't have
Windows sucking back a bunch of your resources. And there's probably a
reason that most Chromebooks only have 4 gigs. 256 gigs of real SSD storage?
How much is this thing? $1,000! If I wanted to spend MacBook
money, I would get a MacBook. See ya later, Samsung. Okay, how about this one? Lenovo Flex 5. Got a Core i3. That should be adequate
for watching an HD video and taking notes without being overkill. USB-A for connecting devices at school. It's a two-in-one. That added flexibility
could really come in handy. Screen looks pretty good too. This is checking a lot of boxes right now. And it's in stock. Of course, we can't
just buy the first thing that tickles our fancy. This one says up to 12
hours of battery life. And knowing that he's my son, he'll probably forget his charger, so a long-lasting battery is good. Then again, these all claim
to have great battery life. I guess that's another benefit of running low-end hardware
and a lightweight OS. But this display seems pretty
lousy. Is this a TN panel? You know, we recommend
these types of displays in the past for gamers due to their super fast response times, but the colors look bad and the
viewing angles are terrible. It's not something you want
to put up with on a laptop, and especially not in 2022 when IPS panels have become so affordable. Okay, back to the Lenovo. Seems durable. Not too big, not too small. The keyboard didn't wow me,
but none of them really did. And the speakers are...
(tinny techno music) Well, they're speakers.
(tinny techno music) But at 370 U.S. dollars, I
think this is our best deal. Let's buy it. But wait, Shopper Linus. You aren't ready to make a decision yet. You forget to get hydrated. LTTStore.com. And you forgot another big
thing: long-term support. Did you know that the support window of your Chrome OS device is determined by when it was released? I mean, that makes sense. Newer item is gonna have
more life left in it. But there is a big gotcha in there because devices made in 2018 are gonna get automatic
update support until 2022. That's a period of four years. Meanwhile, a device released in 2020 is gonna be supported until 2028! This is because in 2020, Google promised that all new Chromebooks would receive eight years
of automatic update support, but they didn't bother to
extend that eight-year guarantee to devices that were already released, even if they were only a few months old. So look closely and double-check on Google's Chromebook support site, which we're gonna have linked down below. It's really easy to make a mistake here. Like, look at this Acer Chromebook 14. It doesn't look all that different from this Acer Chromebook 514, but that first device is
only gonna be supported for seven more months while the 514 will be
supported for seven more years. My Flex 5 here is
theoretically good until 2028, meaning that my son will be enjoying this mediocre computing experience until he is well into high school. Or will he? Darn it!
("God Save the King") This is Linus Tech Tips.
("God Save the King") We don't take kindly to computers merely doing what they
were designed to do. Which is why we're going to
break out of Google's sandbox and see what this Chromebook can do from a gaming standpoint. They are actually quite
a few options these days. We could use a game streaming service like GeForce Now or Google Stadia, and if triple-A games are your priority, then this is gonna be
pretty much the only option. And it's actually a
surprisingly solid experience, though I would strongly
recommend a USB Ethernet dongle for a more stable connection. If you're after lighter games... Man, Android has a lot
going on these days. Everything from SNES and
PlayStation emulators to indie hits like "Stardew Valley." That's honestly all that
most people will need or even want, but we can go deeper. Chrome OS, like Android,
is based on Linux, and some very clever people
have developed a nifty way for us to install Linux on
our machine called Crouton. It lets us put our own
Linux install in chroot, a self-contained directory that is separate from
the rest of the system, but this is essentially an exploit. Whoa! What are you doin'? Didn't you know Google has added their own implementation
of Linux on Chrome OS through a project called Crostini? Trust me, it is way simpler to
set up and much more secure. The catch is that you need a Chromebook from 2020 or later to use it. So if you have a newer Chromebook, we've linked a simple
tutorial down below for you. But note that due to the implementation, Crostini runs Debian in a VM, the performance will take a hit. So if you want to be running
your games on the bare metal, then keep following along because Crouton is your best option for now. That requires to activate
developer mode on your Chromebook, which will not only wipe
all of your local files but it also makes your device
more vulnerable to attacks. And if the unit was loaned to you by your school or workplace, this will for sure get you in trouble. Not to mention that there
are numerous other caveats that you can pause and read here. Now, I'ma just fast forward us following the instructions
on the GitHub page. We're gonna have that
link down below as well. As you can see then, in Crouton, while we do have access
to games via Proton, with this low tier of hardware it is not a super smooth experience. Like "Rocket League," for example. It's a relatively lightweight game, but it's modern and
requires a modern system. And as you can see from
just loading into the menu, it's not gonna go very well. The game's barely runnable. So let's lower our expectations
and try out "Half-Life 2." Hitches, but it's not half bad. How about "Broforce?" This is a 2D game. It's an action side-scroller
that is crazy fun, especially when playing with friends. And honestly, it's a
pretty good experience, which means that while Linux
gaming can be a challenge, I'm hopeful that as that
continues to improve, this is gonna be a viable way to unlock an even
greater library of games. At least those that are
light enough to run. But there's evidence showing that Valve is working with Google on a Chrome OS-native version of Steam that would allow games to run
via Proton on Chrome OS itself with no workarounds or VMs required. The project is under
the codename Borealis, and some users recently spotted flags for it in Chrome's settings, meaning we could potentially see an optimized gaming platform for Chrome OS later on this year. Stay tuned. But for now I'll have
to settle for running unoptimized software on
the suboptimal hardware in the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5. By "I," I mean my son. Which raises a key question: "Linus, surely you could've afforded a premium Chromebook
like the Pixelbook Go. Why did you cheap out then
on your only begotten son?" I'm really glad you asked, and it's because an expensive Chromebook is still a Chromebook, and the way that I see it, no matter how much money
you have to throw around, if you're spending more than about 500 U.S. dollars on a laptop, you're gonna be getting hardware that's not gonna be dragged
down by Windows anyway. So you might as well have something that can run Windows natively without a whole bunch of hackery and hassle in order to get running because Windows is still
a lot more flexible in terms of what you can do. What you can also do is hear about our sponsor! Today's video is brought
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video, go check out our video "Running Windows on a Chromebook." It's a pretty fun adventure.
