Category: Chromebook

Like any platform, Chrome OS from time-to-time gets corrupted.  It doesn’t happen often – I’ve never had it happen in the two-plus years I’ve been using the platform.  However, when it does, you’ll need to make sure you are prepared to get things back in order quickly so you can get back to being product (or YouTube cat video watching as the case may be).

Chrome OS has a great recovery tool that is built into Chromebooks that allows you to create a recover disk using a USB drive that allows you to quickly restore your computer.  Like a Powerwash, when you use the recovery drive to restore, you will wipe the data stored on it and it will return it back to a factory default.  But that’s okay.  Remember that Chrome OS leverage the cloud for storage and unless you have some local files like pictures or files you’ve not sync’d to your Google Drive, you shouldn’t loose any data.

In this How To, I’m going to walk you step-by-step through the process of creating a recovery disk for your Chromebook and then walk you through the actual recovery process.  Like many things Chrome OS, it is pretty straightforward.

Before getting into the process, make sure that you have an extra USB drive around that is at least 8GB in size.  I use a 16GB PNY USB Drive for my Acer Chromebook 14 and it works great (and it’s cheap).

Based on a new commit in the Chromium source code for Chrome OS, it looks like a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845-powered device may be in on its way.  The commit refers to a new board that is powered by the 845, which was reveled earlier this month.  During that event, Microsoft committed to having an always connected Windows laptop based on the Snapdragon 845 and it would seem that previous challenges between Qualcomm and Google have been overcome.

The new commit clearly calls out the “qc845” processor on the “cheza” board with references to it made in the chipset-qc845/profiles/base/make.defaults section of the notes.  It calls out the ARM processor 64-bit kernel configuration and architecture. 

#CHROMEOS_KERNEL_SPLITCONFIG=”chromiumos-qualcomm64″
CHROMEOS_KERNEL_CONFIG=”arch/arm64/configs/defconfig”
CHROMEOS_KERNEL_ARCH=”arm64″

Further, the notes call out the “qc845” as the processor to be used.

Amazon has a great last minute promotion for those of you who are looking to pick up a Chromebook as a gift or for yourself.  Now through Christmas Eve, December 24th, if you purchase an eligible Chromebook from Amazon, you will receive a $50 Amazon Gift Card.

The list of devices that are eligible is pretty solid with most focused on the mid-to-high end market of these devices.  You can check out the full list over at Amazon, which includes:

• Acer Chromebook 14
• Acer Convertible R 13 Chromebook
• ASUS Chromebook Flip C302
• Dell Chromebook 11
• Google Pixelbook
• HP G1 Chromebook
• Samsung Chromebook Plus
• Samsung Chromebook Pro
• Toshiba 13.3 Chromebook

All of these device are capable of running Android apps which makes them an even better platform for all around use.

The expansion of Android app support on Chromebooks continues with the addition of three more devices supported in the latest Chrome OS update.  The Lenovo Thinkpad 13, the HP Chromebook 13 G1 and the Samsung Chromebook 3 are the latest to gain Android app support in the Stable channel.  This came with the latest Chrome 62 build that rolled out to these devices earlier this month.

If you have one of these Chromebooks, once you have received the update (you can force the issue by typing chrome://help in the browser), you should see the Google Play Store in your App Drawer.  Click on it and get things configured and you can then install Android apps on these devices.

In addition to these in the Stable channel, the Dell Chromebook 13 and the Acer C740 also have Android app support but only in the Beta Channel.

It has been a while since the Chromium team has updated the Chromebook and Chromebox list of devices that support Android apps.  In fact, the last significant update happened back in August.  Now the team has made a big update to the list, updating it with the current status of Android apps on Chrome OS.

The list can be found here and as I’ve suggested before, I recommend readers who use Chrome OS to bookmark the page.  This is the official list of devices that do or will support Android apps.  Yes, it is often slow in getting updated but it is the official list nevertheless.

Android apps on Chromebooks continues its slow march but has started entering into a second phase of sorts.  While support in general continues to new Chrome OS devices, those that already have the support are starting to see an update to Android Nougat 7.1.1.

If you recall, when Android apps started rolling out to Chrome OS, it was based on Android Marshmallow.  It worked well but you didn’t have the benefits like split-screen natively as you do in Nougat.  Now devices which have had the ability to run Android apps are starting to see an update to Nougat.

In the Stable channel, there are three Chromebooks that are supporting Android Apps, based on Android Nougat 7.1.1:

• Lenovo Chromebook Flex 11
• Samsung Chromebook Pro
• Acer Chromebook R 13

Keen followers of Chrome OS will know that these devices have had the ability to run Android apps for a while, in the case of the Samsung Chromebook Pro, since its release.  This update to their stable builds of Chrome OS will bring the Nougat update.