 Well, 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. This is gonna be a lot harder than I thought. Why can't they just be good? Like our sponsor. Cable Mod 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. If you or a loved one isn't currently in grade school, I wouldn't 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 US and Canada. And in January, 2020, Google announced that that number had ballooned 33% to be whopping 40 million Chromebooks in classrooms around the globe. And that is before the COVID tech explosion. 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' 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 your developer types out there, and even allowing enterprise users to run Windows through Parallels. Allowing? Okay, yeah. The whole point of the school's 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 MSRP's 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 because 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 kind of 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. Oh, 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. Me, oh, 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 they 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 not 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, this screen size, this is what, 13 inches? Kind of 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. Eight 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 four 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 you 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 to 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 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 in a lightweight OS. But this display seems pretty lousy. Is this a TN panel? You know, we recommended 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 wanna 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. Keyboard didn't wow me, but none of them really did. And the speakers are, well, they're speakers. But at $370 US, I think this is our best deal. Let's buy it. But wait, shopper-linest, you aren't ready to make a decision yet. You forgot 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, it's 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! This is Linus Tech Tips. 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. There are actually quite a few options these days. We could use a game streaming service like GeForce Now or Google Stadia, and if AAA 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 Trute, a self-contained directory that is separate from the rest of the system, but this is essentially an exploit. Whoa, what are you doing? Didn't you know Google has added their own implementation of Linux on Chrome OS through a project called Crustini? Trust me, it is way simpler to set up and much more secure. 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, Crustini runs Debian in a VM, the performance will take a hit. So if you wanna be running your games on the bare metal, then keep following along because Crouton is your best option for now. That requires you 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'm gonna just fast forward as 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 Crouton, with this low tier of hardware, it is not a super smooth experience. Like Rocket League, for example, it's some 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 running. 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 to play 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 code name Borealis, and some users recently spotted flags for it in Chrome 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 have 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 US 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 it run 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 to you by Wealthfront. It's a new year, so what better time to get your finances organized? And Wealthfront can help. If you're someone who wants to get into investing or to continue to diversify your portfolio, Wealthfront makes it super easy to get started. You can set up your account, then just let Wealthfront take care of the rest. Or if you want more flexibility, you can build your own portfolio through Wealthfront as well. They offer a range of investment accounts for everything from general savings to retirement. And you can choose to put your money in specific sectors like communication or tech, so you can craft a portfolio that you really believe in. 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