Why Every Student Should Get a Chromebook

July 30, 2017 Miguel Salas

Having graduated from college and my laptop being one of tools behind my graduation, I can now say without a doubt a Chromebook would have been far more useful to me and would have probably boosted my GPA by a few points. I use a Chromebook myself these days for more important exams or research I encounter as a graduate student.

If you are a college student, high school student or any type of student struggling with grades, on a budget, not much time to study and would like to increase your productivity time and boost your GPA . You should definitely consider a ChromeBook. I will explain in this article why.

What in the world is a Chromebook?

In case you’ve been frozen in an ice cave for the past 10 years or you never owned a laptop yourself. A ChromeBook is just a laptop but with a lot of different features (or lack of) than the regular laptop you know of . I would actually go as far as saying, it is more of a laptop than the laptops you see on the market today. Therefore far more useful for every single student.

What Makes A Chromebook So Different?

For those of you who have just woken up from a comma here are the main differences in a nutshell:

Unlike a regular Windows Laptop or a MacBook, you can’t install most of your applications and that includes antiviruses and any other software you may need:

You will be limited to pretty much Web Browsing and Typing Documents or Presentations and Data Sheets.
If you want to install more applications or use more features than the ones mentioned above you would need an internet connection.

Well…that doesn’t seem helpful for anyone.

Really? Think about what you just said. Or just read the above paragraph one more time.

Do you get it? Yes it can actually be far more useful than a laptop because…

You can’t install most of your favorite and “useful” applications
games-722136_960_720 That includes:

No useless third party software

Seriously there are some applications that just won’t let you in peace. They keep poping up with updates, warnings and what not,taking up precious times from your hands. There are no such software , or any software for that matter, on a chromeBook.

No games of any kind even landmine and pacman

I myself fall victim to this . My productivity goes down tremendously when I try to work on my full blown and powerful laptop simply because my favorite games are installed within it.

No Antiviruses or no viruses or malware to deal with

You’ll never be wasting time trying to uninstall, update, worry about viruses when you browse the internet with a ChromeBook. Just forget all about it and focus on your work.

You will be limited to pretty much Web Browsing, Microsoft Office and PDF Files

Do college students or high school students need more than that?

The answer is… most of them don’t.

I say this as an electrical engineering student. We supposedly need tons of “advanced and useful software” to graduate which is very true.

But…

we have the computer labs to get things done much more quickly.

Why?

Your fellow students and your TA are waiting for you in the labs to get things done fast and right.

Which type of students need a more powerful laptop?

I said most students of course, some do not have the luxury of using a chromebook and that includes:

Business Students: Excel will run much more efficiently on a Windows Machine. If you dont have a desktop at home then a chromebook is not an option.
Architecture Students: They need to draw and model their designs using 3D Software and powerful laptops.
A few engineering students: Engineering students who deal with 3D Modeling all the time and not just occasionally(like 90% of them) and dont want to live in the computer labs which is reasonable.
Programmers: Need to install a lot of different software to program for iOS or Android Devices or just for other research purposes….but most of them can actually get away with a ChromeBook with a few tricks. Or they could head to the labs and be done with their assignments.

Sure there are more cases when a “real laptop” is needed but the majority of you would be fine. But even if you fall in any of those categories , I myself do(programming), you will benefit from having a ChromeBook with you tremendously in addition to another laptop or a desktop .

How every student can benefit from a ChromeBook

Final Exams
Unless your Exam requires you to use a laptop or a computer, a chromebook can actually be far more useful to get an A on your final exam:

ChromeBooks have the best battery lives on the market: You won’t be looking for outlets and waste a lot of time you could use to get a few more problems down.
You won’t be distracted by useless programs and this includes: games,antivirus,malware,etc.
They’re extremely portable for you to just whip it out of your backpack and continue studying on the bus and even as you walk into your final exam room.

Term Papers

A ChromeBook is the ultimate device for term papers. You get exactly what you need for term papers:

A word editor to type your paper of course
A web browser to research your topic and access any resource with blazing fast speed

And most importantly….

If you have an internet connection everything will be backed up constantly in the cloud. Should there be an outage, your computer malfuction or run out of battery(if that ever happens with a chromebook)

Or…

Somebody just trips over your power cable in the library destroying your laptop and all of your documents.

It’s all good just get another cheap Chromebook and get back to work, everything is safely stored in the cloud away from thieves and coffee spills.

Blazing Through TextBooks

You get the point, you’ll be get rid of a lot of distractions if you use your chromebook to read your textbooks. Plus the portability and battery life will allow you to continue reading at anytime and place.

No itunes for time wasting music , no games for “quick breaks” and no media players for movie watching will make sure you blaze through that 1000 page textbook faster than the speed of sight.

Bottom Line

Regardless of what your degree is or what type of student you are, no matter how hard it is and how much related it is to powerful computers, you can always benefit from a Chromebook.

As for freshman college students, don’t think twice. It should be your first laptop and you’ll use it the entire four full years even if you buy another laptop later (you might not even need to).

If you already have a laptop like me, buy a chromebook like I did and increase your productivity threefold.

Whenever I have a test, a term paper or anything super important that I need to get done fast I just whip out my chromebook and get it over with. Try it.

Author Profile

Miguel Salas

I am physicist and electrical engineer. My knowledge in computer software and hardware stems for my years spent doing research in optics and photonics devices and running simulations through various programming languages. My goal was to work for the quantum computing research team at IBM but Im now working with Astrophysical Simulations through Python. Most of the science related posts are written by me, the rest have different authors but I edited the final versions to fit the site's format.