Lenovo Chromebook S330 Laptop, 14-Inch FHD Display, MediaTek MT8173C, 4GB RAM, 64GB Storage, Chrome OS

I've wanted a Chromebook for years, but could never really justify the purchase...until recently. I've been taking some trips out of town, and needed to be available for work, just in case, but I didn't want to risk taking my work laptop with me on the trips. So, I bought this Chromebook. I use Chrome Remote Desktop to control my work laptop, which is sitting at home, and it's been a great experience. With a good WIFI connection, It feels just like I'm working on the remoted machine. The keyboard feels good, and I'm able to type just fine. I thought I'd be missing having function keys, but there's a system setting to treat the top row of icon keys as if they were F1 - F10, and it works great. If I want to use whatever the icon for that key is supposed to do, I just press the search key (just above the shift key) to use those keys. Apart from needing this for work, most of what I use the computer for is web-related stuff; looking things up, email, watching videos, etc. This works great for that. I'm amazed that a machine for just over $200 can do everything I need to do. The screen is a little washed out, color-wise, but after a couple of days, I don't even notice that any more. The battery life is amazing. I've been working on it now for a couple of hours, and it says I've still got 9 hours of battery left.

This is a good value for a budget machine. Its austere plastic body probably wouldn't survive much abuse but it does have a mat texture that wards off finger prints. It's nice to have the 14" 1920 x 1080 mat screen and thin bezel. On a full charge I can go eight hours editing text while streaming music from wi-fi to bluetooth headphones and leave a good third of the battery remaining. It comes with Google Drive of course but I easily synced Dropbox as well using a free third party app. What I like most is that now you can install Linux apps. No need for Crouton. You just open a terminal in Chrome OS and type something like "sudo apt install libreoffice" say, and you end up with a new shortcut that you can pin to the "shelf" (taskbar) and from there said app can be launched, all while never leaving the Chrome OS desktop. You can keep a separate storage space for your Linux data or "share" your Google Drive data with Linux. So you can for example use Linux's Libre Office Write to open and save a file directly from/to the cloud, preserving the Chrome OS thin-client motif.

This is my first Chromebook and I love it. The simplicity of this thing is amazing, I have an expensive Windows 10 PC that drives me crazy, I find Windows has become a very intrusive and confusing computer, that bothers you with a load of notifications and pop ups. Trying to figure out how to disable all that stuff is a real pain, Windows seems to bury all those settings, making them hard to find. This Chromebook is none of that, the ease of this is like using a smartphone. I have absolutely no problem with the screen resolution , it looks fine to me. I can't comment on the battery life because I've yet to unplug it, I use it strictly as a stay in one place computer (plugged in all the time). Google Docs and files take a little getting used to if you never used them, but once you get used to it you'll have no problem. It was not a problem for me because I was already use them on my iPhone . You can't download outside programs because its a closed system, to me , that's a good thing because I only use it to surf the web, shop, emails and files. And because you can't download programs your not gonna pick up any viruses. If you need to edit any photos you can always download a photo app from the Play store. I've found the storage and speed for this to be just fine, it doesn't seem to slow down with numerous tabs open. You have a load of apps to download from the Google play store that should keep you happy. I don't use it to stream movies or play games so I can't comment on that, I'll streams stuff from YouTube with no problems at all. If you want a laptop to do just the basics like I do, then you can't go wrong with this for the price. To me it's way better then one of those low cost Windows PC's. I had a low end Windows PC that I bought as a extra computer for me to use when my wife is working on the expensive PC, I hated it so much I gave it away before it was a month old. Besides being intrusive and confusing, it was slow as crap. This Chromebook is like having a giant smartphone with a keyboard, (IT'S THAT EASY). The only reason I took away one star is because I think it could of used one more USB port, other then that I love it, and if you use a computer like I do, you will too.PS. Keep in mind that this model S330 comes in different specs. My review is based on the model with the higher resolution screen (1920 x 1080) and more memory (64gb). They have a cheaper model called the S330 with less resolution and less memory.

My middle-schoolers do a lot of work at school on Chromebooks through Google Classroom. I wanted to give them a similar experience at home while keeping the cost reasonable and support overhead very low. The Lenovo Chromebook S330 was just the trick. This thing is fast, the screen is clear and bright and the battery life is awesome with an estimated life of 13 hours. Is it really 13 hours? Who knows, but it last through 6 hours of constant and showed a little over half battery remaining, so it seems reasonable.For perspective, "best" in terms of computer hardware and operating system really comes down to your intended use. You'll get the best value and have the best experience when you buy for that intended use. For what I've described above, this Chromebook is perfect. I could have spent a lot more on a high-performance gaming rig or something with a touchscreen and all the extras, but that's not what was needed.We haven't had it very long, so I'll post back if any of my initial impressions and observations change.