New Chromebook is finally here

Drama, eh?

The long story of how my pre-covid Chromebook having given up the ghost a few weeks back would of been simple for losing permanently its Wifi facilities and of being replaced in a few days other than for the seller of a new machine taking the money and NOT sending and NOT even responding to messages about when it coming.

In the end I called in CatBay tm and had them make me a full refund but that took near enough two weeks.

I had an idea around how my refund attempt was going so ordered up another while that was going through due process so within two working days of getting a refund I actually get one.

The vendor double box wrapped it and removing the outer box you get this, the Asus C214M which is plain jane flip top Chromebook designed for children at school really so totally appropriate for me!

Compared with my original Asus C202, this is a fair bit slimmer which suggests a from the ground up reworking of case and motherboard rather than a rebranding of the previous model.

Like that it is an 11.6inch screen which I find handy for being small enough to easily use anywhere while the text isn't too small to read without eyestrain.

One the ways that was achieved is obvious from this side which is the Expandable external memory in the form of a SD card you insert has been changed from the full sized version to a Micro SD card popular in smartphones and portable digital music players.

That means if you had anything on a full sized card you need to transfer that over to the new one.

Another difference is on the top right above the keys. The power switch has been removed from the top to the side although it still the case it opens up and comes into life.

Getting going is child's play really.

If you don't have a google account, and if you have an andriod smartphone with various things on it most likely do after adding your Wifi network by selecting it and adding the password, you enter the details and you are into that account.

It even puts up the account holders username and any avatar!

Your passwords for sites are securely stored unless you've opted otherwise in that accord so getting to GMail and all your favourite sites is actually quite easy

In the box is the get you going instructions and charger which is a USB-C type that goes into the top right slot on the side where the C202 had a conventional mini jack and while it has a blue tooth option, 3.5mm headphone jacks are supported

While I could easily of done without the issues in getting a replacement, this Chromebook is working well, being responsive on Tumblr feeds and a breeze for quickly doing everyday tasks that don't require locally stored programs to be installed and many apps help take this beyond Tablet territory for functionality with full decent keyboard plus touch capabilities should you need it.

Colour me impressed.