Not Recommended - Chromebooks

Owned by Marc Miller
Last updated: Mar 23, 2022

ECI does not recommend the purchase of any Chromebook at this time due to the following reasons

  1. Most required Engineering software does not run on Chromebooks, this includes almost all Microsoft and Mathworks products except for Matlab Online, Microsoft Online and Microsoft Remote Desktop (if and only if downloaded through the google play store).  
  2. Nearly everything — word processing, note-taking, etc... is done online via Google's Chrome browser and pretty much everything you produce is saved onto the 'cloud'.  Which means if you are taking engineering classes or labs in places with EMF shielding or simple wifi dead zones, you may find Chromebooks "less than useful"
  3. With Google Cloud Print not being supported after January 1, 2021 many older Chromebooks will no longer be able to print to any printer. As of March 2022 only enterprise Chromebooks managed by large organizations have out of the box CUPS support. Consumer grade Chromebooks often only support CUPS printing via third party apps with known security issues.
  4. Chromebooks are not supported by default by NOC who manage UCSB's Eduroam wifi. They do not provide packed installers/configuration modules like they do for PC and Macs, only step by step instructions: https://www.it.ucsb.edu/eduroam/configure-chromebook-eduroam. All support is "best effort", meaning if they cannot easily help you, you are out of luck.