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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Samsung Chromebook vs MS Surface RT

superchunk on 26 October 2012
selnor said:
superchunk said:

Well, you can use MSoffice on ChromeOS or Android as well if its that big of a deal to someone.... and it is directly compatible with Office. I use it all the time.

How muc extra does that cost? 

I like the idea that its already with surface. 

And Im not a fan of having to connect to access my saves via cloud. 

I dont see it being consumer friendly enough or purchased by many to mess around transfering stuff to my mates via canging things up. I want to just get something everyone will have and be easy to intergrate. Plus Xbox Smartglass is not possible on Samsung machine.


oh yeah, MS throwing it in RT for free was a brilliant idea. However, it won't remain that way. In a year or two you'll have to buy it extra like normal office.

You can save on the SSD or cloud. I personally love Drive on Google. I access that stuff on my phone all the time while out. Makes life easier.



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selnor on 26 October 2012
superchunk said:
selnor said:
superchunk said:

Well, you can use MSoffice on ChromeOS or Android as well if its that big of a deal to someone.... and it is directly compatible with Office. I use it all the time.

How muc extra does that cost? 

I like the idea that its already with surface. 

And Im not a fan of having to connect to access my saves via cloud. 

I dont see it being consumer friendly enough or purchased by many to mess around transfering stuff to my mates via canging things up. I want to just get something everyone will have and be easy to intergrate. Plus Xbox Smartglass is not possible on Samsung machine.


oh yeah, MS throwing it in RT for free was a brilliant idea. However, it won't remain that way. In a year or two you'll have to buy it extra like normal office.

You can save on the SSD or cloud. I personally love Drive on Google. I access that stuff on my phone all the time while out. Makes life easier.

Considering its a huge reason its sold out among adopters, I doubt Microsoft will charge for it wit future Surface models.



nanarchy on 26 October 2012
superchunk said:
nanarchy said:
The comparison is a little silly, if you wanted a laptop then the chromebook is under specced and overpriced even at $249 compared to other laptop options and it does not have tablet cabilitiies. There are better laptops/netbooks in that price range which all can do EVERYTHING a chromebook does but without the limitations. If you were looking at a Surface then one of your alternatives is NOT a chromebook, it would be some of the Asus/HP/Dell Hybrids or some of the android devices coming out, perhaps an ipad or nexus if you don't care about the keyboard.

I think that if you only want tablet... Nexus/iPad are better depending on your taste.

If you want a hybrid, then there are a number of Androids that are better or WinRT if you want specific Windows based apps that are nto avail on Android.

If you want laptop you have a few choices.
1) low-end / netbook ChromeOS for the greater majority of people is perfect and far better than anyother netbook based item.
2) high-end/gaming/strong business use obviously a real laptop or maybe the surface Pro later.

Of course it comes to your personal needs. My comparison in this OP is because I see both as essentially netbook style systems. Base computing and hardware, ChromeOS wins hands down. Price, obviously ChromeOS. Hybrid/tablet, of course RT. But for RTs price, its probably better to just get a laptop.

My only real gripe on RT is its price. If it were $300 or $350 with the keyboard attachment, I'd be sold 100%. But at $500 without a keyboard attachment, that's just crazy to me. For a tablet, Nexus10 will blow RT away and I'm sure they'll copy the keyboard thing as it has a similar connection on the bottom. It will easily be $150 to $200 less and just as featured.

I really don't understand your reasoning

Chromebook fails on all ends of the market. On the low end it lacks the features of similiarly priced items but has ZERO advantages over any of them, It doesn't compete with any of the tablet offerings as it is not a tablet, it doesn't compete with any of the hybrid stuff. I get it that chromebook would work fine for many people, a cardboard box to live in would also work fine for many people, doesn't mean it is something you would ever choose given a choice and at the moment there is choice, chromebook is the worst of all worlds without an advantage of any. The chromebook is the cardboard box of laptops.



superchunk on 26 October 2012
nanarchy said:

I really don't understand your reasoning

Chromebook fails on all ends of the market. On the low end it lacks the features of similiarly priced items but has ZERO advantages over any of them, It doesn't compete with any of the tablet offerings as it is not a tablet, it doesn't compete with any of the hybrid stuff. I get it that chromebook would work fine for many people, a cardboard box to live in would also work fine for many people, doesn't mean it is something you would ever choose given a choice and at the moment there is choice, chromebook is the worst of all worlds without an advantage of any. The chromebook is the cardboard box of laptops.

I think you've never used one, used Chrome and its app store, or really even considered how you or say your mom/grandma/etc uses a laptop.

Netbooks at the $250 range pale in comparison to this Chromebook. Their Windows installation is slow, buggy, lacks multitasking, and is plain out the worst choice for a laptop ever. There so gimped hardware wise, any software that would work on them would be available through ChromeOS. I have no clue what you've used that would make you think these are even viable laptop choices. My phone is better.

Compared to a laptop, which starts at a higher price point around $500 (double the price or so),  is where you get to the point that they start to compare cpu/gpu wise. But even in this low-end of laptops the chromeOS would be overall faster due to its lower OS footprint and resource use. You would still get zero gaming advantages and hardly any other software advantage. Seriously, check the Chrome app store.

Compared to a $800+ laptop, then yes you are getting to the point where there is a lot of software choices you simply could not due on ChromeOS. Easily. But you're also paying 3x the price or more. 

Really list out the things that you can do on a $250, $300 Windows laptop that ChromeOS can't do.
Office stuff? ChromeOS has Drive and GoogleDocs along with apps that give you full MSOffice 2010. No difference. 
Gaming? In this range, you'll only get the same low-end casual, web-based / mobile games. I haven't went through all of chromeOS, but anything that is new is there. Unless you're playing an ancient low-end windows game from 2000, netbooks won't do anything else. None of their GPUs are any good or even comparable to what's listed in the OP. DX11? only on Chromebook in that price range.
Photoshop/video/pic editing? Not on either so no win.
Off line usage? Quite a bit of ChromeOS / apps can be offline, but this may be the only part a netbook can win... maybe. 

Basically anyone considering a netbook doesn't even need the features of full windows. They won't be using it or anything like that anyways. Everything else is mirrored by Google's own services or via the web anyways. People buy these and web tools and media players. Not gaming or business or anything major.

As for advantages. ChromeOS is faster, lighter, quicker start, safer, no viruses, more stable, and in almost any case far cheaper to buy. Free upgrades of the OS for life.