Google Publishes List of Chrome OS Systems Supporting Android Apps

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Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

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For some time now we have been talking about the melding of Chrome OS and Android. Google has now published a list of which systems will be supporting Android applications, and while I'm no expert on Chromebooks, that looks like damned near all of them to me.

I don't own any Chrome OS devices, but I imagine having the added flexibility of running Android apps could be rather useful. What Android applications would you use on your Chrome OS device?

Android apps are now available on:
- Asus Chromebook Flip.
- Acer Chromebook R11 / C738T
- Google Chromebook Pixel (2015)

All Chromebooks launching in 2017 and after as well as the Chromebooks listed below will work with Android apps at a time to be announced in the future*:
 
Acer C720 is not on that list and it was one of the first Chromebooks to really take off. Had the honest to god Intel processor. A lot of schools also bought those things.

I was annoyed when I first got my Chromebook that it couldn't run Android apps.....since it seemed like a given to me going in. But it's not a big deal. I found a use for the Chromebook and it's fine for what I use it for. A chromebook is like the 3rd world country of the computer world.....it's not great livin', but it's livin' none the less.
 
westrock2000 said:
Acer C720 is not on that list and it was one of the first Chromebooks to really take off. Had the honest to god Intel processor. A lot of schools also bought those things.

I was annoyed when I first got my Chromebook that it couldn't run Android apps.....since it seemed like a given to me going in. But it's not a big deal. I found a use for the Chromebook and it's fine for what I use it for. A chromebook is like the 3rd world country of the computer world.....it's not great livin', but it's livin' none the less.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the first thing I thought when I saw the list.
 
Now the question is... is it better to get an x86- or ARM-based Chromebook?
 
Get an x86 if you can. The web is just getting heavier.

However, my little 2GB 11" ARM Samsung from 2012 still runs the web with half a dozen tabs okay. Great little travel laptop.

My main Chromebook though is a 2GHz i3 Dell with 4GB ram and a upgraded 64GB Plextor SSD. That really chews through stuff. That should be getting the Play Store but its waiting to get final sign off.
 
daglesj said:
Get an x86 if you can. The web is just getting heavier.

However, my little 2GB 11" ARM Samsung from 2012 still runs the web with half a dozen tabs okay. Great little travel laptop.

My main Chromebook though is a 2GHz i3 Dell with 4GB ram and a upgraded 64GB Plextor SSD. That really chews through stuff. That should be getting the Play Store but its waiting to get final sign off.
Click to expand...


Yeah, the Android apps are all VM based anyway, so they shouldn't care.

Well, they statically compile at install time these days, unlike in the past, but still.

When I used my x86 based Asus Zenfone2 when I was in brazil the apps ran just as well as they did on my ARM based phones.
 
Ordeith said:
And the answer is neither. Get something better.
Click to expand...

IMHO, Chromebook hardware is usually nice for lightweight applications.

I used to use an Asus Chromebox as my HTPC, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy the hardware again.

The shortcoming to me is the OS/Software.

I hacked my Asus Chromebox to run a regulat Linux install, and then put Kodi on it, and it was pretty amazing that I could get a complete system with a Haswell Celeron, 2GB of RAM, 16GB SSD, etc. etc, for under $200, and this was two years ago.
 
You can get Windows boxes now with the same hardware for the same price. And you can run anything you want on them. Why give yourself the need to hack your way out of Google's closed jungle of a walled garden?
 
Ordeith said:
ChromeOS is a lost cause.
Click to expand...

The absolute dumbest thing I have ran into so far is copying a folder with subfolders almost always crashes. It can't do recursive very well. And once that happens, I usually have to reboot it to get it to shut up about the error.
 
Ordeith said:
You can get Windows boxes now with the same hardware for the same price. And you can run anything you want on them. Why give yourself the need to hack your way out of Google's closed jungle of a walled garden?
Click to expand...

The battery life is pretty darn good on a Chromebook. Additionally the lack of complexity means it also runs decent on low memory. Once I upgraded the SSD in my Chromebook I turned on the page swap to like 4GB or something and it's been butter smooth ever since.

The 2 sub $100 windows tablets I have, while functional, hit the ceiling very quickly. The tablet with 1GB of memory can really only do one thing at a time. The one with 2GB of RAM can play Minecraft Pocket Edition, but if you try to host a game on the local network it comes to a halt after 30 minutes or so. Plus with 16GB originally installed, Windows takes up like 9GB, so you end up with like 4GB usable.
 
You really can't beat them for the price. I'm typing right now on a N3050 based 11.6" Lenovo N22 connected to my TV with a keyboard and mouse in "docked" mode. I think I paid $130 brand new for it.
 
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Ordeith said:
ChromeOS is a lost cause.
Click to expand...

LOL Troll.

Chromebooks outsold MacBooks. ChromeOS has its place.

westrock2000 said:
Acer C720 is not on that list and it was one of the first Chromebooks to really take off. Had the honest to god Intel processor. A lot of schools also bought those things.

I was annoyed when I first got my Chromebook that it couldn't run Android apps.....since it seemed like a given to me going in. But it's not a big deal. I found a use for the Chromebook and it's fine for what I use it for. A chromebook is like the 3rd world country of the computer world.....it's not great livin', but it's livin' none the less.
Click to expand...

I had a C710 for a while. Decent machine for the price. However, having used that for a while and now using my current Chromebook Flip... I can certainly tell you that using Android (touchscreen based) apps on a Chromebook without a touchscreen would have been annoying at best and absolute frustration most of the time. I don't blame Google for excluding older non-touchscreen models.

jwcalla said:
Now the question is... is it better to get an x86- or ARM-based Chromebook?
Click to expand...

IMHO, the quadcore Rockship SOC isn't bad in the Flip. i think it's perfectly sufficient for even some of the heavier stuff I do. Plays games on Google Play pretty well. Streams without a hiccup. It may framelag every now and then when loading pages but that's more the GPU than the CPU. ChromeOS is pretty transparent when it comes to architecture, so it really doesn't matter. I think the most important consideration with a ChromeOS device is how much Ram it has, not the architecture or CPU.

Ordeith said:
You can get Windows boxes now with the same hardware for the same price. And you can run anything you want on them. Why give yourself the need to hack your way out of Google's closed jungle of a walled garden?
Click to expand...

You couldn't get Windows laptops for the price that Chromebooks were going for until after they had been out for a year. What you see now in cheap devices is thanks to competition.

And google's walled garden has an unlocked door. No hacking needed. You're ALLOWED to run whatever OS you want on the devices. They even tell you how to reflash them. So no, it's not a walled garden like Apple's offerings nor do you have to pay any Microsoft taxes on the hardware.
 
westrock2000 said:
The battery life is pretty darn good on a Chromebook. Additionally the lack of complexity means it also runs decent on low memory. Once I upgraded the SSD in my Chromebook I turned on the page swap to like 4GB or something and it's been butter smooth ever since.

The 2 sub $100 windows tablets I have, while functional, hit the ceiling very quickly. The tablet with 1GB of memory can really only do one thing at a time. The one with 2GB of RAM can play Minecraft Pocket Edition, but if you try to host a game on the local network it comes to a halt after 30 minutes or so. Plus with 16GB originally installed, Windows takes up like 9GB, so you end up with like 4GB usable.
Click to expand...

Yeah I've had a couple of those HP low cost 32GB Windows laptops in from customers and quite frankly they are pathetic. If you want to update Windows you have to either do some real clean up/compression gymnastics or just flatten it and start from scratch. Just what customers that want a supposedly 'cheap and easy' Windows experience will adore. I'll take a Chromebook over those any day. Much faster too. Whilst I'm a big Windows fan sometimes it is nice to use a sleek fast OS that doesn't require heavy effort to look after or say "Updates are 100% Complete" for 10 minutes when you switch it on in a hurry.
 
daglesj said:
Yeah I've had a couple of those HP low cost 32GB Windows laptops in from customers and quite frankly they are pathetic. If you want to update Windows you have to either do some real clean up/compression gymnastics or just flatten it and start from scratch. Just what customers that want a supposedly 'cheap and easy' Windows experience will adore. I'll take a Chromebook over those any day. Much faster too. Whilst I'm a big Windows fan sometimes it is nice to use a sleek fast OS that doesn't require heavy effort to look after or say "Updates are 100% Complete" for 10 minutes when you switch it on in a hurry.
Click to expand...


Yeah, widows may not make sense on hardware that is that light, but if I had to choose between a very limited Chrome OS and a fully fledged Linux Desktop, that choice is easy.

Mint Cinnamon edition is my favorite. If I need something lighter than that, Lubuntu (Ubuntu with LXDE) or Xubuntu (Ubuntu with Xfce) are my go-to's

This makes me want to find a use for my Chromebox again. Right now it's just collecting dust...
 
Chrome OS is great because of what it isn't, not because of what it is. Chrome OS is not Android. Chrome OS is about one thing: web browsing. Chrome looks and runs better on Chrome OS than any other platform I have used it on. They only deaden the emphasis by making Chrome more like Android. But what do I know? Google can do whatever the hell they want.
 
the_servicer said:
Chrome OS is great because of what it isn't, not because of what it is. Chrome OS is not Android. Chrome OS is about one thing: web browsing. Chrome looks and runs better on Chrome OS than any other platform I have used it on. They only deaden the emphasis by making Chrome more like Android. But what do I know? Google can do whatever the hell they want.
Click to expand...

Windows 10 performs better than ChromeOS on like hardware, meaning:

Windows 10 runs Chrome much better than ChromeOS does. Funny, that.
 
Ordeith said:
Windows 10 performs better than ChromeOS on like hardware, meaning:

Windows 10 runs Chrome much better than ChromeOS does. Funny, that.
Click to expand...

Username seems familiar. Are you the same guy that seems to have a screw loose about Google all over the comment sections of like ten different tech blogs all day long?

I reckon if ChromeOS really was such a non threat then MS employees and fan dudes wouldn't be sweating it so hard. Sounds like Google is onto something.

Any case, Android on desktop is coming.
 
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rat said:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/19/11711714/chromebooks-outsold-macs-us-idc-figures

Begone, troll.
Click to expand...


How did you fail to notice the market, region, and time constraints placed on the figures used to manufacture that "win"?

You really should have paid more attention to the rest of my comment before you made yourself look the fool with such a weak response, you would find I already addressed the very misinformation you cite.

Google is an expert at psychological warfare and manipulation and they often slice and dice numbers until they can manufacture a win to trumpet to the weak minded. Chromebook sales most assuredly do NOT exceed Mac sales, and they NEVER have. You really should use more critical thinking skills when reading the fluff pieces Google sponsors. You would have seen that they narrowed the market to a specific segment in a specific region (because they lost worldwide) and a specific time period (what they wanted to show only happend during one quarter where OEMs were offloading their dusty shelf filling inventory of unsold ChromeBooks on unsuspecting US schools for the tax write off) that has never been repeated.

Google is not an entity you can trust or take at face value, the sooner you realize this the better off you'll be.
 
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