your old Mac is turning into a Chromebook (but you don’t want that)
Do you still have an old Mac somewhere? Then you can now turn your Mac into a Chromebook with ChromeOS Flex. iPhoned tells you why it’s actually not a good idea (yet) to install it.
Read on after the ad.
ChromeOS Flex: Turn your old Mac into a Chromebook
It secretly sounds quite good: you can give an old Mac that no longer receives updates from Apple with ChromeOS Flex. ChromeOS Flex is in many ways similar to Google’s operating system that is also on their Chromebooks.
With ChromeOS Flex you can no longer use Apple software, but you do get a slimmed-down version of the ChromeOS operating system in return. You can then use the Mac as a kind of internet/work computer.
ChromeOS Flex can be installed on your old iMac, Mac mini, Macbook, Macbook Air and Macbook Pro. Your Mac must have an Intel or AMD chip. Apple silicon chips like the M1 won’t work. In addition, your old Mac must have 4GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. You should also be able to boot the Mac from a USB stick.
What can you do with ChromeOS Flex
But what can you actually do with ChromeOS Flex? Almost all standard computer things, such as e-mailing, browsing and the well-known internet applications (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and more) can be performed on a Mac with ChromeOS Flex. The advantage of ChromeOS Flex is that it does not demand much from your Mac and is therefore usually quick to start and easy to use.
Therein lies the biggest disadvantage of installing ChromeOS Flex on your Mac: you actually turn it into a ‘sort of’ Chromebook. A full-fledged Chromebook has access to the Play Store (Google’s counterpart to Apple’s App Store). ChromeOS Flex doesn’t have that. You then have to rely on the Chrome Web Store, where you can’t download nearly as many apps as on a full-fledged Chromebook.
In addition, ChromeOS Flex does not support some hardware. Google indicates that it can work, but offers no support. For example, there is no support for CD and DVD drives, fingerprint scanners and FireWire ports. So it is always a good idea to try it out first.
Read more: the differences between ChromeOS and ChromeOS Flex
Right now, there are still a lot of snags to turn your Mac into a Chromebook. What you can do is try it first. To test ChromeOS Flex once, use a USB stick. When you start your Mac with this USB stick, you can check ChromeOS Flex once. Check out Google’s installation guide for ChromeOS Flex below.
Read more: ChromeOS Flex installation guide (in English)
What is a Chromebook?
A Chromebook is a laptop from Google. And has ChromeOS as its operating system, which is actually built around the Chrome browser. So you actually only use the browser. Most things are stored in the cloud and can be used on any other device using Google Drive.
Unlike ChromeOS Flex, you can download Android apps from the Google Play Store app and use them on your Chromebook. But be aware: the Google Play Store is not available on all Chromebooks. The advantage of a Chromebook is the price. For just over 300 euros you already have a pretty neat Chromebook.
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