Advice about Chromebooks and work.

Hi all, first time here.

I got a conditional from St. Peters for PhTh (hooray!), and am investing in a new piece of tech for going up, as the laptop is on the blink.

I was considering getting a Chromebook as I have heard very good reviews about them and they seem relatively low maintenance...

However, I heard that universities only really like work emailed to them using Word docs, which Chrome can't do (can only do Google docs). Is this a problem at Oxford?

Cheers. :smile:

Reply 1

AnonymousPenguin

16

Original post by JoeMcGee95

Hi all, first time here.

I got a conditional from St. Peters for PhTh (hooray!), and am investing in a new piece of tech for going up, as the laptop is on the blink.

I was considering getting a Chromebook as I have heard very good reviews about them and they seem relatively low maintenance...

However, I heard that universities only really like work emailed to them using Word docs, which Chrome can't do (can only do Google docs). Is this a problem at Oxford?

Cheers. :smile:

Chrome doesn't have any citation management software AFAIK. You'll need that.

Reply 2

Bax-man

2

Original post by JoeMcGee95

Hi all, first time here.

I got a conditional from St. Peters for PhTh (hooray!), and am investing in a new piece of tech for going up, as the laptop is on the blink.

I was considering getting a Chromebook as I have heard very good reviews about them and they seem relatively low maintenance...

However, I heard that universities only really like work emailed to them using Word docs, which Chrome can't do (can only do Google docs). Is this a problem at Oxford?

Cheers. :smile:

I'm almost certain you can e-mail files out from Google Drive (or whatever it's called on ChromeOS) in .doc and .docx formats.

Reply 3

dvdhsu

2

I wouldn't recommend it, unless if you were willing to install Linux (and spend the time to learn Linux, of course) on it. For the price, there are equally good Windows laptops that will allow you to run far more software. The only real advantages Chromebooks have are that they boot up faster, and aren't infected by Windows viruses. Compared to how much software and functionality you lose, I don't think it's a good trade-off. I own a Chromebook, but don't use the ChromeOS part much since it's so limited (except to boot into my chroot, which allows me to use Linux).

As for your concern about doc files: since you're using Google Docs, you'll be able to export your documents as .doc files. So, no problems there.

Reply 4

Poppyxx

11

I know little about technology, but is it easy for someone to open an essay on a Mac or Windows computer that you've sent them from a Chromebook?

I say this because different tutors like essays submitted in different ways. I have had some who want them emailed, they will then print them out and annotate by hand. I have had others who will use the comment/annotating function on Word, then either email the essay back to me or print it off. Other tutors ask for a hard copy to be handed in. Some use an online uploading tool.

In my experience most tutors just want to do whatever they do easily - they want to click the email attachment and be able to open the essay. If that'll be fine with something written on a Chromebook, then I don't see a problem. Tutors range from being very IT savvy to not at all (to the extent one of my tutors only communicates by letter or telephone, he refuses to use his email account!).

Reply 5

tomj45

12

I think in short, Google OS simply isn't worth the hassle when you can buy an equally priced windows pc and not sacrifice all the functionality which will save you a lot of time and hassle.

Advice about Chromebooks and work.

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