Chromebook > USB > Caiman DAC

I have recently bought a Chromebook for my everyday computing needs. The ARM based model that is about the same size as a MacBook Air but costs £229. Don't get excited - it runs on a smartphone chip, so think of it as a Tablet with a keyboard - but if it will do what you want, it's great.



http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/chrome/devices/landing.html

I have just plugged it into my Caiman - off it went - no messin! It should work with any USB DAC that does not need special drivers.

My FLAC library I uploaded some time ago to Google Play where it is stored online at 192kb/s MP3. Sounds fine using the Chromebook and Caiman connected by USB.

I usually play my FLAC library or listen to the radio by Squeezebox controlled by the dedicated IR remote or using the Squeezebox Web interface - and, of course the Chromebook will do that too.

 

Looks very like the Air, Brian.

Whats the internal storage capacity?

 

16GB SSD

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/chrome/devices/samsung-chromebook.html#ss-cb

Is cheap and fabulous at what it does - make sure you can live with the limitations.

Leave the Google infrastructure, and you may have problems. 100GB Google Drive free for 2 years in the deal.

You can edit docs offline, but you cant play audio offline - there is no app for that. You have to sync media to Google Play and stream from Google.

I use it for surfing and email.

I sometime hop across to Skydrive to access the kosher MS Office Web Apps.

Printing only by Cloud Printing.

OS manages itself and updates every six weeks or so.

Yes, It does look like a MacBook Air, but it's (strong enough) plastic. The screen is good enough. The keyboard is very good and the trackpad the best you will find outside the Apple Orchard.

If you can't come to terms with the ergonomics of a tablet, this is the way to go.

 

I would guess a Linux distro like Ubuntu will work pretty well with it? It supports a lot of different processors unlike Windoze and the rest of the bits are probably normal laptop stuff. You could do a lot more then, like play music from a network. Does it have a Spotify app?

 

My Chromebook has an ARM Chip, but there are folk working on it.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/10/ubuntu-12-04-up-and-running-on-samsung-arm-chromebook

The other Chromebooks use 86 chips, so Linux for them is more advanced.