- Hey there, Pete Moriarty here
and today I'm going to be sharing with you
a call-all device called,
The Chromebox.
(upbeat music)
So, what exactly is a Chromebox?
They're the desktop equivalent, of a Chromebook.
Now, if you've used Chromebooks before,
you know that they're a Chrome operating system.
It's effectively a Chrome Browser in a laptop.
But what Chromeboxes actually are,
are the desktop equivalent of these.
These allow you to work in the Chrome environment,
the Chrome operating system,
but with a traditional keyboard,
mouse and a kind of desktop setup.
Now, where might this be useful?
Well, these are a full-blown alternative
to buying either a Mac desktop or a PC desktop
for yourself and your office team.
Now, where do we use these?
Well, I've been using these for a number of years
in our business for our full-time team members
as their full-time machines.
We like to eat our own dog food
and we like to make sure that we're using the products that
we're actually recommending
and I've actually been using this particular HP one
as my primary machine for the last year.
Now, what does a Chromebox actually do?
How does it actually work?
Well, like a standard PC,
it has standard kind of connector ports on the back,
so you can see there's vision, you could do dual screen,
with both an HDMI and a display port based monitor.
You can even connect it up to VGA, or DVI connectors
if you've got an older monitor with you.
You can see that its got an audio port.
It's got USB.
Some of the models even have USB three.
And some of them even have a card reader on the side
for SD cards as well.
And so, effectively you purchase one of these,
they're low cost,
and then you bring you're own monitor, keyboard and mouse.
And maybe a set of speakers if you need that as well.
Now, they support all kind of different USB peripherals
so you can plug in your webcam,
you can plug in your printer if you need to.
And most of your devices are gonna work just fine on these.
If they're bought within the last couple of years,
and they have modern drivers,
well, there's a good chance they're gonna work
just fine on the Chromebox.
Now, who would you roll this out to?
Who would this be useful for in your team?
Well, any of your team members who are using
100% cloud based applications,
it's gonna be perfect for.
So if someone's using zero.com and a browser based CRM
and the rest of your business is using
G Suite for your productivity tools.
Well, it might be a good idea for you to try out
one or two of these machines for your business.
Now, why the compelling reason?
Why should you go to a Chromebox
instead of just buying a PC,
or you know a standard regular desktop
from your local computer shop?
The most, the most important advantage of these
is they are low cost.
These are traditionally, or typically sorry,
twenty to thirty percent cheaper than an equivalent desktop.
And the great thing about all Chrome devices is,
there's no updates that you need to worry about managing.
They're all automatically managed by Google.
There's no antivirus software required
because there's no virus vulnerabilities.
You just don't need to bother with that on a Chrome device.
And, there's next to zero ongoing maintenance and support.
You just don't need to call an IT person to
troubleshoot something on these
for the majority of the time.
Now, from time to time you may have a problem
and you need to maybe reset one of these.
Well, the great thing is on every Chromebox
there's a button called Power Wash.
You go into settings
and it re-installs the operating system itself
from an encoded flash drive which is onboard.
And you've got a brand new one ready to go again.
Now, these are great machines, they're super reliable,
and they run super quick as well,
because they've got onboard storage,
which is flash based as well as decent amounts of RAM
to use as well.
So, which model should you choose?
Well, these tend to be quite efficient,
so a model with two gigabytes or four gigabytes of RAM
is typically, pretty reasonable
for a standard office worker.
Now, if you're a power user and you'd like something
that's got a bit more oomph.
Well, you might want to choose one of the models that has
got a bit extra RAM.
There's some eight gigabyte models,
there's some with better processors
like a i3 or an i7 processor.
And we even have our own versions which we have
added additional RAM to.
Some of the models going right up to
sixteen gigabytes of RAM.
Now, my recommendation is
that you start out with one of the more basic models.
Give it a go.
See what business processes you can work into
using a Chromebox form.
And you may be surprised that you have
many of your staff members
who are able to get all of their work done on a Chromebox
instead of a traditional computer.
Just remember that each one of these that you roll out
is one less machine that's gonna need
onsite support, installing updates,
updating Microsoft, or Apple software.
And you know, dealing with the upgrade cycle
and having to pay for new software upgrades as well.
So, if you've got any questions let us know
right below this video.
But go ahead
and check out your first
Chromebox in our store.
Cheers.
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