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In this video I compare two Chromeboooks with identical internals, except for the RAM. The HP 14 has 4GB while the Acer C720P has 2GB. Without any extras running in the background, I put them through their paces to see how different the RAM limitations really are.
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hey folks Robbie payt here with chrome
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bump box again today uh we're going to
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be doing a comparison specifically um
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pitting the ram differences against one
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another between the HP Chromebook 14 and
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the Acer c720p I had a few comments uh
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between YouTube the website Google+
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asking if I would do this particular
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comparison without having crew on
0:24
running in the background so for those
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of you who haven't seen the other videos
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who don't know uh there's a an AB ility
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to with Chromebooks because it's running
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on a Linux shell to actually install
0:34
untu through the use of a script called
0:36
Crouton and it actually allows you to
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Just Bounce right back and forth between
0:39
the two I do have a video uh detailing
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how to get that done so if that this
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perks your
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interest and you want to get that done
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I'll put the link in the video or in the
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description of the video
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below um but what we're really
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concentrating here on um I do have a
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fresh install on the Acer I'm getting
0:57
ready to send my review unit back um and
1:00
so I just power washed it and then
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remembered to do this video so it's a
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fresh a fresh install and then I have
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logged out of um out ofu on the HP
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Chromebook 14 and so we are just running
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Chrome OS at this point on both of these
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machines and so the
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hp14 uh over here has 4 gigs of ram
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versus the 2 gigs here and so a lot of
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people were curious whether or not that
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was going to cause performance issues um
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and with with everything else closed
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down if we're just in the Chrome OS
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environment so what I've done to kind of
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cut down cut down time on this video is
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I've opened up quite a few uh tabs let's
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see got 1 2 3 four 5 six seven nine tabs
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on each one the exact same web pages uh
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I also have running down here at the
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bottom we have um keep I have the file
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explorer I have pocket text which is
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just a simple text editor and on one
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I've got uh Google play music The Other
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I've got Spotify running so we've got
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music actually playing you can hear that
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maybe it's not playing
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now okay so we're are playing music here
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I'm going the mute see if we're still
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[Music]
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going and
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then so got music playing over here too
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so uh just so you know that music is
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playing in the background on both so
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that's going to chew into some of that r
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on both of them and that's kind of part
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of the reason we're doing this so just
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to show you really quickly I do have
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some pretty uh intensive websites up we
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got the Verge Android Central and Gadget
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I've got a video running in the
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background I'm going rewind that on both
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of these so we don't
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stop got Google+ we got Twitter Facebook
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Cloud9 which is IDE and chrome unboxed
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you know this one I need to get to
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YouTube
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here we'll drag that into the fourth
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spot
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sorry
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guys like I said I want to have the
3:37
exact same things running between the
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two of them you can already see uh this
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is kind of giving you some indication
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for the most part it's uh it's doing
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okay it's a little laggy on YouTube but
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I've got a lot of stuff going right now
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so um that's not shocking at all okay so
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we've got that video running in the
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background
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um and so there's a lot of things going
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that are that are killing Ram um and so
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that's that's kind of the point of this
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video is to see uh for those of you who
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don't know you take three fingers and
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swipe up and see uh the open
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programs well there it
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goes there's a there's a perfect
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performance example um again I'm putting
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both of these machines and really heavy
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load
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um but that three fingers there it goes
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here buttery smooth um and we're running
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all the same stuff I take that with a
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grain of salt some of that could be I
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think the track pad on the Acer isn't
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quite as responsive as the one on HP so
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that could be part of it um another
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thing you'll notice you do three fingers
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left and right you can actually swipe
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through the tabs hopefully you can see
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that but there's a little white
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highlight that just kind of back and
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forth um and it's nice and smooth again
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on the HP I just kind of swing through
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and jump to any any one of these and the
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moment I jump to it uh scrolling is
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responsive so that's a big deal um if
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you roll to something and youve got to
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wait five or six seconds for it to load
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uh that can be a little bit annoying and
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so really we're seeing these long web
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pages we're not seeing any Checker
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boarding which is indicative of memory
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running low uh Android Central is a big
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page no Checker boarding there so the
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whole page is loaded in The Verge oops
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The Verge no Checker boarding there we
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do have a drop in frame rate as far as
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how it's scrolling uh that's not
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completely surprising on either one cuz
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we have some of this Parallax stuff
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going on here um that stuff tends to be
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heavy even if that's the only thing open
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but ultimately it is responsive swing
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all the way over chrome unboxed and
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again nice and smooth whole page is
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loaded no problem switching through
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these guys no problem getting multiple
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tabs open uh none of those issues uh we
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really see some pretty nice performance
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going on here with the
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HP back over here again we we saw the
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three finger Swip
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um come
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on select one U not working so well
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um we'll use the keyboard shortcut here
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the keyboard one's fine see I mean it's
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nice and smooth no issues at all so I'm
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really thinking it could be trackpad
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responsiveness going on here uh with the
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Acer um let's do some three finger
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swiping and we
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see you see it really lagging again um
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just being scientific about it it could
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be a mix between the processor the ram
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um or the the tactilus of the of the
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touchpad so I'm not sure so let's go to
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Android Central and do quick scroll and
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see a lot of Checker boarding happening
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it's catching up pretty quickly um a
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little bit of Checker boarding let's
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move over to gadget same thing just
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Checker boarding but the scrolling is
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responsive uh which is interesting the
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two- finger scrolling is perfect ly
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responsive um so that the three finger
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gesture is not happening is kind of
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strange um let's look at the the YouTube
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videos here um frame rates are good
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here it looks like frame rates are
7:14
holding up just fine over there as well
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that's a good thing uh let's move over
7:18
to Google+ again usually pretty wretched
7:21
um on Chromebooks and we're dropping
7:23
some frames here on the hp14 it's not
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terrible but there was a couple skips
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and jumps
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check Google Plus here and again yeah
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dropping some frames but really not
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unusable at
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all little issue in responsiveness there
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but again not not bad not unusable but
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right there you saw about a second
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delay let's check out Facebook getting
7:48
you kind of seeing the same thing kind
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of a
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jumpy um jumpy scrolling let's try
7:54
Facebook or Twitter here a little bit
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jumpy there too as well
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Facebook no issues
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here uh IDE I just have this loaded just
8:06
because it's something I actually use so
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I probably never going to have all these
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particular tabs open but I wanted to
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make sure we're not loading uh simple
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pages with nothing on
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them saw a little checker board Happ in
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there not
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much and so overall
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um really what I have to say you know
8:27
switching between if you're using
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keyboard shortcuts you saw a little jump
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there not bad um but really no issues
8:35
here um switching between between stuff
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uh between programs between tabs is
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smoother on the hp14 looks like it does
8:46
keep stuff in here a little bit longer
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and my guess would be if I started
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piling on another 10 or 12 tabs um we
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would start to see some some lag um and
8:57
I'll just do I'm just going to duplicate
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it
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out about five or six more of these
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guys them all get loaded we'll do the
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same thing over here kind of as our our
9:10
last test and so my guess is if you
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um if you're a type of person that has
9:18
20 tabs open at a
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time um a 2 gig Chrome book's probably
9:23
not going to be for
9:27
you so we have one two three four five
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six instances 2 three four five six so
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look at the same
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here and you starting to see on HP like
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that kind of Jumpy you know it's not
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nice and smooth like it was a few
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minutes ago it's having some issues uh
9:45
page dat is loading fine this is still
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responsive so that's good to
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see see how our forward and back
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work so those you don't know two fingers
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across can actually um take you back
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that works just fine there
10:07
so again three finger scrolling is
10:09
working okay and this may be a poor test
10:13
simply because it's the same page loaded
10:15
in so it may be cheating a little
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bit a little bit of lag but I mean we
10:22
got a lot of tabs open we got a lot of
10:23
programs open so I mean the Acer is
10:25
really holding its own I think in terms
10:27
of two gigs now I did see some
10:28
performance issues if you're running
10:30
Crouton and so for me uh professionally
10:33
speaking I I need to have for now I
10:35
still need to have Crouton running in
10:37
the background I don't do a lot in it I
10:38
usually just have inkscape running in it
10:41
but I do have to have it and so uh these
10:43
are things for you to think of if you're
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going to have a Chromebook and you're
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going to try to make it your daily
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driver your main device um and that's
10:50
going to require a couple things in that
10:52
Linux environment it may be worth
10:55
thinking through hey right now
10:56
regardless of what uh some of these
10:58
companies put in their devices a toiba
11:01
upcoming Toshiba Chromebook or a
11:03
touchcreen on the Acer and these things
11:05
seem really compelling if lots of tabs
11:07
and needing Linux open are going to be
11:09
workflow issues for you those are things
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to Think Through um because those things
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are going to become frustrating in a
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short amount of time whenever your Tabs
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are jumping around and stuff won't load
11:19
and you know pages are having to reload
11:21
but I have to say uh not having Linux
11:23
going in the background uh the Acer
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fared a whole lot better uh than it did
11:28
earlier when cruit uninstalled so thanks
11:30
you guys for kind of pointing that out I
11:32
didn't even think about that when I was
11:34
when I was doing the review and kind of
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brush that off and so I think this
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hopefully this will be a little bit more
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helpful if you plan on staying in the
11:40
Chrome OS operating system and not not
11:42
leaving it I really think there's an
11:45
argument for saying that two gigs is is
11:47
enough right now um is it is it the
11:50
greatest performance possible no not
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really um you do get a little
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performance bump out of the four gigs
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but only when you're heavily
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multitasking whenever you're keeping it
11:58
down to 4 five tabs and and the music
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player open I really don't think you're
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going to see too much of a difference
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between the two devices and so uh it
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makes me look forward to seeing what the
12:08
Toshiba can pull off uh with two gigs of
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RAM as well so um hopefully that device
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will become uh fully available actually
12:15
to order within the next 3 or four weeks
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and I'll get my hands on that and we'll
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get a review of that going but um check
12:21
out the other videos uh you can
12:23
subscribe below if you like this video
12:24
give me a thumbs up um also you'll see
12:27
in the description uh a web address
12:29
Chrome unbox dcom it's where kind of we
12:31
can pile all the stuff together any kind
12:33
of latest Chrome news that I think needs
12:35
to be put out there I try to get on the
12:37
site and so uh the more people that that
12:40
come the the more probability I'm going
12:41
to start getting more devices to review
12:43
and and more stuff I can pass on to you
12:45
guys so um so subscribe like the video
12:49
uh share the website check it out do all
12:51
those kinds of things and thank you so
12:52
much for watching uh thanks for
12:54
subscribing thanks for uh just being a
12:56
part of all this and uh I'll see you
12:58
next time thanks
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