Chromebook: School books, PDF viewing/editing question.

[Shawn Dunmire]

I'm in nursing school. Tired of carrying books around, my school has the "buy the book in PDF" option available. I'd love to have four 10lb books in my computer as a PDF then on my back...

Problem: I was thinking the most affordable option would be a chromebook (seeing as I have a gaming desktop as my media center and would only use the laptop for netflix, reading / studying in class).
BUT. I was doing reading that the chromebook doesn't do well with this task of textbook PDFs. 1000+ pages of PDF per book. I need to be able to highlight sentences on pages, bookmark stuff, make tabs etc. I know there are 3rd party aps for PDF viewing / editing, but I've read nothing but problems on the internet about it. And the resounding answer has been "GET A REGULAR LAPTOP"

I like the chromebook not only for their cheaper price, but slim, light weight, and attractive form.

Can someone help me make a good choice. Thank you!

 

[MarkW]

Chromebooks are available now starting at $200 and going up to about $1500. Chrome stores its data in the Cloud. So would not expect any problems with a 1000 page PDF.

Acer and Asus have 13.3 inch screen units for as little as $199 at Walmart. I had a friend whose computer died, and they dont have $500 for a regular laptop, so we were talking about the Chrome books a few days ago, and he asked what Walmart had, so thats where I looked.

Here is the thing about Chrome books. Since they are not regular laptops, its harder to differenciate them from each other. So a starter machine at $199.99 is going to have 2GB memory, a low grade display (1366x768 resolution), 16GB eMMC storage, wireless ac, and so on.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/ASUS-Chromebook-C300MA-DH01-Celeron-N2830-2.16-GHz-Chrome-OS-2-GB-RAM-16-GB-SSD-13.3-1366-x-768-HD-In/42287041

Just over double the price, and you get Acer Chromebook C910-3916 - Core i3 5005U / 2 GHz - Chrome OS - 4 GB RAM - 32 GB SSD - 15.6" 1920 x 1080 ( Full HD ) - Intel HD Graphics 5500 - 802.11ac - black
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-C910-3916-15.6-Led-comfyview-Notebook-Intel-Core-I3-I3-5005u-2-Ghz-Black-4-Gb-Ram-32-Gb-Ssd-Intel-Hd-5500-Chrome-Os-1366-X-768-D/44459930

There are LOTS more choices out there. But thats a very brief look at whats available. And be sure to check at least some of the other retailers out there. Im not trying to push Walmart here.

 

[Shawn Dunmire]

Thank you for your response sir!
What i mean the issue is for the 1000 page pdf isn't storage, but purely RAM lag loading pages. ive read it's an issue. (maybe less such with 4gb..)

Also, the biggest question/issue is the ability to edit the pdfs (highlighting, bookmarking, etc) which i've read so many people having hassles..

 

[MarkW]

The wireless in those is the ac type, which is pretty damned fast. I also believe they have ethernet ports (but check on this to verify). Either of those should be able to download pages in tiny fractions of a second.

 

[Shawn Dunmire]

Again, I think you're misunderstanding me.
I'm worried about the thousand page PDF being open, scrolling through pages, it will lag. Since the CPU is weak, and there isn't much RAM. It will display white pages for many seconds until content loads.

Also, any word on PDF editing, that's my main concern.

 

[MarkW]

The second machine that I linked has an I3 CPU. For what amounts to web browsing, it should be pretty snappy,

There are multiple PDF programs and apps out there. I have not used any of them. I think I would see if I could find a forum that covers Chromebooks and ask about those there. You should be able to find people that have used those apps.

There might be a forum here on Toms for that. I haven't looked.