I recently bought a Chromebook. Over the years I have had a short, unimpressive experience with one of those “Netbooks” that tried to create a place in the market so I was prepared to be a little disappointed. However, the critical role this thing had to fulfill is to be a backup computer to RDP into work if my primary system died so I was willing to put up with some limitations as long as it could plug that hole.
The first thing I learned during this process is that customer reviews from Chromebook users are almost totally useless. They mostly consist of incredibly naive and clearly non-technical people who were shocked and dismayed that their $250 “laptop” did not run Windows or MS Office. I doubt the critical thinking skills of these people because if it were possible to produce such a beast at that price point, it seems obvious to me that the market would be flush with them. Having said that, there are some low end $350 full-blown laptops out there from Acer and HP so the market is pretty close.