In 2015 I started supporting local Alternative Wellness Professionals. I was very sick and needed their help. I found many very skilled in their Trade, but their Commercial Aptitude was so poor many were barely surviving. I felt helping them come up to speed commercially had both commercial and social benefits.

Technical Summary

None had proper computers for their work. Some had desktops where laptops were better. Others were using mobile tablets with mini keyboards Some had macs with 10-12" screens.
None had enough works stations for their work. They all had one or two machines when they really need 3-4 workstations.
None had multiple monitors where needed. All need multiple monitors on one or two locations if not more.
None had proper printers for their needs. All had older machines or overly complex machines
None had proper scanners for their needs. None had fujitsu scan snap scanners or one of the few comparable.
None had proper mobile devices for their needs (An iphone for most is helpful as it's easier for them to get help from others due to uniformity)
None had proper cloud computing accounts for their needs.

Problems with PC's & Macs in these offices

PCs

They are subject to virus's and hijacking. Everybody with one has a hijacked browser
The update cycles can be unstable. if they get locked into one it can take 10-20 minutes to boot up or down
Differing O/S on different machines with non tech folks left them spinning when anything burped.
The interface flow has gotten more complex since Windows XP
If a system needs a new O/S load, getting the machine back to a users desired settings could be 1 to 2 hours for someone who knew what they were doing... (which was not these folks)
Low cost used machines are good but often a little slow and subject to all known PC issues listed above

Macs

Macs are too expensive for multiple machines

Regarding Computers

They needed more workstations. PCs were too unwieldy for reasons listed above and Macs were too expensive.
Chromebooks or Unix machines were ideal. I had no experience with those prior to then.
They needed two monitors in key areas
The ideal setup consisted of a 17" laptop with a 19" external monitor. A 15" laptop with a 19" external monitor was second.
The laptops were ideal such that they could be taken to other locations easily if needed and they could be swapped out easily.
A mini computer with external keyboard and monitors might fill that roll as well in some cases. Those were not big when I started with them back then. But a laptop or two would be ideal too for take home and rare relocation reasons.
As it turned out a Chrome O/S laptop ( or a Unix Device) is ideal once they've been oriented to cloud computing (all google platform. )

The First Purchases in 2016-2017

Between myself, ric and one other guy we bought 5 of these to get going...

There was only ONE option for a 15" Chromebook . I found that very odd. It was this Acer. The only options within this family were either 2GB or ram or 4GB. I found a video on youtube where a guy had the two side by side. Surfing one page at a time there was a slight delay with the 2gb version and none with the 4gb. Not a lot but enough to notice. HOWEVER, when he did a test where he tried to load multiple web pages at a single time (a tabset) the 2GB version bogged down horribly bad.

We bought about 4 of these. They perform as well today as they did then. These are the minimum requirements. I'd like mine to be just a little faster loading the tab sets and it seems to bog down a little when surfacing BUT that is minor.

They started at $289 and then rose to $349. Now? Al the 15" machines are in the $400 to 600 price range and they've put in flash memory for a hard drive...

The Extended specs have duplicate info and cross ups?.

Processor: 1.6 Ghz OR 1.5 Ghz dual core?
Ram : 4GB DDR3L, SDRAM
HD: 16GB solid state
Monitor 15.6" Intel HD Graphics
wifi: yes
Video out: USB Type C
usb2: 1
usb3: 1 (critical for a third monitor - chrome OS feature?)
Camera: yes
Mic: yes
Speakers: 2
SD Reader: Yes (not needed)
CD: None
DVD: None

They fail to mention, this does have a built in camera and an SD card reader. .

Subsequent Purchases in 2019

In 2019 we bought the same looking machine. it arrived and we tried to load a tabset and it took 2.5 minutes to load. We thought it was a bad machine. I rechecked specs and they had swapped out the solid state drives for eMMC drives and it was industry wide. I was only able to find refurbed units still with the solid state drives.

We sent back and bought the Asus (vs the Acer). that has a quad core processor. We could put that next to the older ones to see how that compares.

Looking at Amazon... -- a 2gb w faster processor with high ratings?

Same general vintage (2017ish)

This has amazingly high reviews. Faster processor and less ram?

Again, this was originally selling for around $300 (i se in comments) and is reselling refurbished in the 180 range...

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Flagship-CB3-532-Premium-Chromebook/dp/B06XD3LXXK/ref=sr_1_20?dchild=1&keywords=15%22+chromebook&qid=1599883688&sr=8-20

Ideal Solutions - 5 options...

There are FIVE options to consider:

17" Chromebook - with beast body for easy assembly/modularity?
15" Chromebook - with beast body for easy assembly/modularity?
Buying PCs off lease in bulk, Refurbishing PCs to chrome books and selling . mechanical drives okay.
Mini box computers
Raspberry PI something...

the most interesting play here to me is the 17" units IMO, because there is literally NOTHING in the marketplace. Obviously the marketing folks know what they are doing BUT, IMO they are missing a great niche market. That said, the refurbing and mini boxes would likely be a safer play

1 -- 17" Laptops

Amazon has 17" laptops in the 625-799 range

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=17%22+laptop&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

If 17" Chromebooks could be had in the $350 range, it would be a market buster. that would be fun to watch.

That said, in theory under $500 should be good but at that price you are getting 2 for 1000 instead of 3... and that bites into volume some IMO.

2 -- 15" Laptops

The market is filled, but NONE of the new ones have the solid state drives...

3 -- Buy and Refurb

When I type in "Buy Refurbed Chromebooks" only the big guys come up.

IMO if we/someone specialized in only 15" or 17" machines -- and used a universal testing system to rate load time, thus listing all the specs but nullifying the ambiguity, we might be able to make a killing.

If they 15" can be purchased for $10-30 each in batches of 10. Four could be setup on a bench, loaded tested and boxed in under an hour and sold for 180 to 200 each? That's an easy $600/hour if we have a market to sell to?? (and truthfully could likely do more at that same time than that?)

Not sure there is any place to find 17" used for low cost in bulk...

4 -- Minibox

The mini boxes make a lot of sense too.

they'd need basic wifi and browsing capabilities an the ability to handle two monitors , external keyboard and a mouse.

5 -- Raspberry Pi

I have one of the $30 or $40 raspberry pis . or is that the $10 one now?!? It was loaded with chromium. Fascinating..... I did not try a multi tab load on it. Im curious and corous to know if any way to get 2 monitors connected... and multi tab set speed...

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