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Question from Della: I’m in the process of shopping for a new laptop because my old one got stolen.
Every time I type the word “laptop” into Amazon’s search box there are usually a few Chromebooks included in the search results.
I remember seeing commercials on TV where they said Chromebooks aren’t laptops. If that’s true why do they come up in a search for the word laptop?
This is no big deal really. Just something I’m curious about.
Rick’s answer: Della, Chromebooks are included in the search results when you search for the term “laptop” because that’s literally what they are!
I know the commercials you’re talking about, and they were a bit misleading.
They were produced by Microsoft with the intention of persuading folks shopping for laptops to choose a Windows laptop instead of a Chromebook.
The gist of the message was true in that a Chromebook can’t do everything that a Windows laptop can do, and that’s true.
But that being said, by definition Chromebooks are indeed laptops.
In essence, a Chromebook is simply a laptop that runs Google’s popular Chrome OS instead of Microsoft Windows, Apple’s macOS, Linux or some other operating system.
By the way, if you’re looking for a laptop that will be strictly for Internet use and is relatively inexpensive, yet extremely responsive when you’re viewing web pages in the Chrome browser, a Chromebook just might be a great choice for you.
If you don’t need to run any programs or apps on your local machine (i.e. virtually everything you do is Internet based), then I recommend that you consider getting a Chromebook for your next laptop.
However, if you need a laptop that’s capable of running full-blown programs or app locally, you’ll definitely need to take a pass on a Chromebook and get yourself either a Windows laptop or MacBook instead.
I hope my answer cleared things up for you, Della. Best of luck with your search for a new laptop!
Bonus tip: This post explains why Chromebooks are excellent machines for watching YouTube videos.