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-title: "Review: The Lenovo n20p Chromebook"
-pub_date: 2014-10-10 09:30:23
-slug: /blog/2014/10/lenovo-n20p-chromebook-review
-metadesc: A follow up to my Wired review, aimed at those curious about running Linux on Chromebooks
-
----
-
-I've been testing some Chromebooks for Wired. My first review is the [Lenovo n20p][1].
-
-Here's the part I can't fit into the allotted 750 words: I'm not at all interested in these devices when they're running Chrome OS[^1]. 
-
-I'm interested in Chromebooks because they're cheap and they're hackable. I'm interested in them because for $200-$300 you can get what amounts to an underpowered ultrabook. My ideal laptop is cheap, light, and long lasting. Chromebooks deliver on all three counts, which means I can take the $800-$1000 I would have spent on an actual ultrabook and put it to better use in the world.
-
-Chrome OS, however, is not for me. I need a terminal. I want to run shell scripts and apps like Vim, Mutt, Python, Pandoc, etc. I also want a RAW image editor. And I want to use the browser of my choice. 
-
-In other words, I want Linux on my Chromebook, otherwise all bets are off, which is why I'm putting up this little addendum to my Wired review -- for anyone else who's curious to hear what Linux is like on a $200 laptop. 
-
-Spoiler alert: It's surprisingly awesome, though you need to make sure you get the right hardware for what you want to do.
-
-## The Lenovo n20p
-
-I hope it's clear from the Wired review that I do not recommend you buy the Lenovo n20p unless you really, really want the touchscreen features. Otherwise the screen is a deal breaker. It's also overpriced relative to other Chromebooks and short on RAM.
-
-Let me reiterate that first point here: the screen is awful. Completely, utterly awful. Sure it's a touch screen, which is good, because it's not much of visual screen. There are far better screens on Chromebooks that retail for $100 less. I'm typing this right now in Vim, using the [Solarized][2] dark] color scheme and I can barely see the words on the screen. It's that bad. 
-
-Still, this is the first Chromebook I've had to experiment with so I installed and have been using Debian GNU/Linux on it. I opted for the Xfce desktop since it's somewhat lighter than GNOME[^2].
-
-Debian runs really well on this machine when booted through the [Crouton project][3]. Crouton is not secure and I don't recommend actually using it full time, but it's not bad for testing. The better option would be to dual boot through the [SeaBIOS firmware][4] (or ditch Chrome OS entirely) but I'm not sure SeaBIOS is included with this hardware. I'm sending this device back to Lenovo; I don't want to brick a loaner machine installing alternate firmware. 
-
-## The Strange Story of Performance
-
-In the Wired review I mentioned that with Chrome OS I got about 6 hours of battery life doing normal stuff -- browsing the web, streaming audio and video, writing and so on. With Xfce on top of Debian on the same machine I get 8 sometimes 9 hours. I have no explanation for this other than perhaps Linux has better power management...? If that's true, Chrome OS is really lagging here because Linux has pretty shitty power management in my experience. Whatever the case Xfce routinely outdid Chrome OS in battery life.
-
-But wait, it gets weirder. In the Wired review I mentioned that the Lenovo bogs down considerably when you open more than 10 or so tabs (sad for 2GB of RAM, but that's just how it is). For example, open a few YouTube videos, Google Docs, a web-based email app and few dozen more and scrolling starts to stutter and switching tabs is noticeably sluggish. Do the very same thing in Chromium running on Debian and you get nothing of the sort.
-
-I have no explanation for this either, especially because Crouton means Chrome OS is still running alongside Debian. While performance should be on par, exceeding Chrome OS is difficult to explain. But hey, good news for those who want to run Linux on a Chromebook. 
-
-So, what's it like to try something moderately taxing, in my case, editing RAW images in Darktable? And can you record a decent screencast? How about editing video? The answers are, it's not that bad, yes and yes but it will take longer. Which is to say that I found the Lenovo to be plenty snappy considering it's only 2GB of RAM and a Celeron processor.
-
-I did not load my entire photo library (remember there's only a 16GB SSD), but I did throw about 5 GB of photos in it and Darktable wasn't much slower than on my MacBook Pro, which has 16GB of RAM. Browsing through large folders of images sometimes caused jumpy scrolling and thumbnails took longer to generate and come into view, but it was not nearly as horrible as I expected. In fact it was totally usable, other than the screen.
-
-I didn't really understand how bad the screen sucks on the n20p until I tried to edit a photo. It was a washed out joke. Whole tonal ranges that Darktable was offering to adjust simply didn't show up in the image on the screen. 
-
-I record a lot of screencasts and edit video a fair bit. I tested both on the Lenovo and am happy to report that it's possible, though exporting your edited HD video of any length will be something you're better off starting shortly before you head to bed. Which is to say it works fine, it just takes longer.
-
-## Hardware Problems 
-
-Overall I was quite happy with the n20p's hardware, save the screen. The keyboard is one the best I've used on a small device. There is a proprietary power jack, which is annoying if you want to have two -- there's no borrowing a compatible cable from another device.
-
-Another potential annoyance for Linux users is that the SD card doesn't sit flush, which means you can't leave it in and use it as a second drive. Regrettably this seems to be the overall trend in current laptop design, so not like Lenovo are the only ones doing this, but it still sucks. 
-
-I made a half-hearted attempt to crack open the case and see what the RAM/SSD upgrade potential is, but the case did not open easily and since I have to get it back to Lenovo in one piece I didn't push it. Also, the screen. Deal breaker.
-
-## Software Problems
-
-I couldn't get Xmodmap to remap the search key (what would be the caps lock key on most laptops) to control. I have no doubt it can be done, but my first attempt did not work and I didn't feel like spending the time to debug it. I doubt this is a hardware problem though since others have managed to get it working on Chromebooks, just a warning that your current .Xmodmap file might not work on a Chromebook.
-
-I also encountered some problems getting unicode characters to display properly. I've never had this problem with Xfce before but I doubt it was hardware related. I also somehow ended up with the xfce4-mixer needing to run as root to work, which can be fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling.
-
-Most of these things can probably be attributed to my own ignorance than anything directly related to the Chromebook/Linux experience.
-
-## Conclusion
-
-Don't buy the Lenovo n20p as a hackable Linux Chromebook.
-
-That said, Linux on a Chromebook is awesome. Or at least it has the potential to be. 
-
-I want this to be my only computer. For that I want an HD IPS screen. There are a couple Chromebooks on the market now with better screens, which is encouraging. I'd also want a Chromebook with an upgradable SSD (like the Acer 720 line). 
-
-In an ideal world there would be a way to upgrade to 8GB of RAM, but it seems that soldered RAM is becoming more common. On the plus side, I now know I can get by with 4GB and this revolutionary new technology called patience. I'd also love to see an SD card slot that accommodates the entire card so it can act as a second drive, but this seems to be the thing least likely to actually happen.
-
-Currently all these things exist, but not in a single machine. Like I said in the Wired article, at this point the best Chromebook is an impossible Frankenbook. That means there has to be some compromise or some patience. I'm opting for the latter. I'd be willing to bet though that when CES rolls around next year there will be some very tempting Chromebooks available.
-
-I'll follow this up with more thoughts when the next review is up on Wired (which will likely be the 13in NVIDIA Tegra-based Acer).
-
-
-[^1]: I don't believe the deal Google offers -- all your data in exchange for free, useful services -- is a good exchange. They get more than I do out of that. But I am privileged to know how to host things myself and I can afford to pay for services like Fastmail. Most people, unfortunately, are not as privileged, something I try to be mindful of when suggesting whether or not you should use a particular technology.
-
-[^2]: Something like Openbox or Xmonad would be even lighter, but requires a bit more work to install through Crouton. I went with the lightest of the easy-to-install options available in Crouton.
-
-
-[1]: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/lenovo-n20p-chromebook/
-[2]: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized
-[3]: https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/
-[4]: http://www.coreboot.org/SeaBIOS