The Google Chromebook is junk. The Google Chromebook is a disaster. What is Google thinking?

After reading all the negative Chromebook reviews I needed to take a deep breath. Was I really going to recommend that my aunt get a laptop that got more hate than Kim Jong Un. I weighed the pros and cons. One of the pros was that the Chromebook was cheap, light and it has a touchscreen. I repeat one of the pros was that it had a touchscreen, like an Android or iOS based device, and it was only a $100 premium over the non-touch version. The negatives... well, read the beginning of this article. After all, everything your read on the internet is true.

The Chromebook is in all honesty not a radical concept. Sure it doesn't have a disc drive, nor does it offer much storage space, but it's powered by ChromeOS. What's ChromeOS? Well it isn't Windows (thank god) or Mac (your wallet just thanked God), rather it's a brand new operating system called ChromeOS. It's Linux-based, meaning that it's rock solidly reliable. No viruses, no lag, nothing. Oh, ChromeOS manhandles the web. Seriously this Chromebook (the one I am writing this article on) is so fast that I feel inadequate. The page load times are crazy fast and I'm not just talking about basic HTML websites that look like they were made in the late 90s. YouTube can play back videos in 1440p without buffering. You can have a dozen or more tabs open and the Chromebook doesn't overheat, self-combust, or curse out your mother. You also get 100GB of free Google Drive storage for 2 years.

The only thing the Chromebook sucks at, well, is sucking. Literally this computer offers everything a vast majority of the people in the world need and want. Word processing -- check. Spreadsheet creation -- check. Hair metal bands via Google Play Music -- check. The Chromebook's bread and butter is the web, because it is the web. And let's face it, the web pretty much does everything nowadays.

Don't get a Chromebook if you're a hater or a power user. You cannot do any hardcore, or even softcore, gaming on this device. But you can play Mario... take that Master Chief. You also cannot edit a Hollywood film on a Chromebook, but you can edit. WeVideo enables you to make edit together your camcorder or DSLR video footage from a variety of sources including USB Hard Drives or SD cards. Are you more the shutterbug type? One of the best known photo editing apps on the Chrome Web Store is Pixlr. It's an astonishingly easy to use app with a Photoshop style interface. You can crop, tint, remove red eye, and adjust contrast quickly.

The real reason you should buy a Chromebook though is because it has Angry Birds. All the productivity features granted by Google Docs will probably be thrown out the window if you have self-control issues. You're out of luck if you want to play an intense session of Words with Friends though. Graphically the games I've come across in my limited time with the Acer C720P Chromebook I'm using are what you'd expect a high-end smartphone to look like. Some games, like Fruit Ninja, are available to play in full screen. Others are ad-supported and run in a windowed mode. Audio is crisp and clear on my machine, though that's bound to depend on which model you end up buying (if you're even thinking of buying one at all).

Heavy video chat users will be super disappointed to find that you cannot run Skype from ChromeOS. There is a neat workaround though and it involves Ubuntu, another Linux-based OS. Ubuntu is free and can be installed by following the steps outline here. It's good to know that Google Hangouts is available and the camera on my Chromebook is more than acceptable for series use (i.e. web based interviews.) The quality isn't what one would call HD, but the signal strength is very strong.

After reading all the reviews online you might think I was crazy for recommending that my Aunt get a Chromebook. But she is its target user. Someone who likes to do some light web browsing, type up the occasional invoice and consume video content. What I didn't realize was that I'd end up falling head over heels for the machine. Computer to Human marriage isn't legal yet, but I've got my fingers crossed. Chrome wins out in the end.

What do you think about Chromebooks? Are they crazy? Revolutionary? The greatest thing since whole grain sliced bread?

You be the judge and let me know in the comments section below.