Back to the Very Very Basics

For reasons that are not important now, I have found myself in the possession of a lightly used but still somewhat recent Asus Chomebook, of the sort that one can pick up for less than $200, with 4GB RAM, 64GB of onboard storage, a less than spectacular screen resolution, and a keyboard without backlighting, which means on this dark gray version that once the lights dim, its usefulness will compromised for all but the most talented of touch-typers. It’s been a while since I’ve used something this basic (I’m writing this piece on it now), and inasmuch as my daily driver laptop is a reasonably specced-out M4 MacBook Air, I was curious how I would feel about it stepping down from that. Answer: I… don’t hate it? I don’t love it, to be clear, and it’s not something I would likely ever choose over using my Air. And there are some things about it which are pretty egregious, that are clearly the result of this thing clocking in at under $200, most notably a screen that would have to work to…