Helped a friend purchase a new VAIO laptop the other day at Best Buy.
Salesperson told me the #1 returned product was -- the ChromeBooks.
I asked why, and they told me the reason was "Customer Dissatisfaction, it doesn't do what they want."
It doesn't do what they want, because they didn't bother to find out what it would do. They probably just thought that it was a cheap laptop and would work just like their old one.
It's amazing to me that people buy all of this stuff with no idea as to what they are buying.
In the evenings, when I am home, I do a handful of things that require "the internet".
- I read my email, which is gmail
- I read this forum, and 2 or 3 others. And I type a lot of words.
- I look at books, MP3's and other stuff on the Amazon website.
- I look at a weather site to see the forecast for the remainder of the week
- I check out facebook, and watch videos being discussed on YouTube.
- I'll occasionally plug in the HDMI to my TV to share something with the family.
^ For the above tasks, my Chromebook works great for me. Sure, it cannot do these things if my Internet is down, but then again all of those things require the Internet....so my Windows laptop won't do it, a Mac wouldn't do it, my tablets won't do it, etc.
I do a whole heck of a lot more with computers in general, but I'm an IT guy and I sit in front of a computer 40-60 hours a week doing all of these other things. When I am at home, I rarely use my computer for anything more than the things above.
As a chromebook owner, 100% satisfied. it does exactly what I expected. It's durable, it's safe for my kids to use (they cannot install anything onto it), and if stolen or lost...no personal data is stored directly on the device. The battery life is great, it's light and small, and it boots very fast. It's not a full fledged personal computer, I'm aware of that, and for what I use it for, it doesn't need to be.