Paratext Lite on Chromebooks

Question

Chromebook running on ARM processor
Just recently the developer team acquired an ARM powered Chromebook to see what it would take to make Paratext Lite work on Chromebooks. It did not take very long for our lead developer to prepare the software to run on the ARM powered device that we purchased to test it on. It appears to work well. It has not been thoroughly put through its paces, but initial observations have left a good impression.

Pros

• Lots of hardware to choose from (screen size, memory)
• Low power device
• Low price
• Integrated keyboard for doing more extensive keyboard work
• Several ways to use the device

Cons

• We have not tested Intel hardware yet, but initial tests look good on our Intel emulator
• Not all devices come with touchscreens, so if you need that make sure the device you plan to purchase has it
• typically larger than a tablet
• typically heavier than a tablet

Three configurations of our Chromebook

Tablet mode

tabletMode4864×2736 526 KB

Tent mode

tentMode4864×2736 1.05 MB

Laptop mode

laptopMode2728×3208 1.61 MB

We will give you some updates as we can.

For the team,
anon089134

Answer 1

Thanks anon089134, we look forward to hearing more about this. The significant thing is that PT-Lite has been cross-compiled to run in the ARM architecture, which of course, is normal for Android OS tablets. Also Apple tablets. But a major consideration in purchase, both for tablets and now Chromebooks would be the standard memory in the box. Some say a minimum of 2GB RAM is necessary. So in you next report about any performance issues, the main memory size is a must to post. -B

Comments

anon329004,
I was talking with the main developer yesterday about what the minimum memory requirements are and 2G is pretty much as small as you would want to go, he says the more memory the better. While some people may actually be able to run PTLite on less, as soon as projects get large, they take a bunch of memory to merge their files when doing send receive (SR) operations. To be honest, 2G of RAM is about the smallest size of memory that is available on the market right now.

Blessings,
anon089134

Answer 2

How do prices of Chromebooks compare to tablets? How does power consumption compare to tablets?

I’d be interested in hearing from people on this list - do you think people are more likely to use Chromebooks or tablets? Or does it depend on the setting? When would you prefer each?

Jonathan+Robie