If you want a desktop PC but want something very simple then there is Acer’s Chromebox. Just like the low cost Chromebook notebooks the Chromebox runs Chrome OS with a basic configuration of hardware. The Chromebox I am reviewing is a small box with two USB 4 ports, SD card slot, DisplayPort, HDMI, RJ45 and headphone port. Included in the box you get a keyboard, mouse, power supply and mounting kit.
Chrome OS is essentially just the Chrome web browser so it’s good for web apps and browsing the web but you are not going to be installing apps on it so no iTunes, Office or Photoshop so if the browser is all you need then it could be worth looking at. The Chromebox has 16GB of storage on board but you don’t really very much local storage as everything is cloud based. There is 2GB of RAM and an Intel Celeron processor. With Chrome OS not being particularly taxing on the system the Celeron processor copes fine browsing the web and using web apps but I found playing 2k Youtube videos pushed the Celeron processor a bit too far dropping down to 1080p the video played fine. I also tried opening multiple tabs open in Chrome didn’t slow down the OS.
I have to say I was a little underwhelmed with the Chromebox for £200 (on Amazon) I would rather get a low cost Windows 10 PC and put Chrome on it but to some the simplistic nature of Chrome OS would appeal to some people.
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