Over the past year, I’ve reluctantly gone back into Google’s and Microsoft Windows 10 tech silos. Not so much because they are the best ones, but more because they are the most cost effective for the computers that I have.

Let’s face it all of the big computer manufacturers and the big three operating systems track your activities online through their products and it seems that everyone else does it once you are online.

That is just reality and the world we live in today.

Last year inside the space of three months, my MacBook Air M1 and iPhone Mini 12 both crapped out and I had given my 2017 iPad Pro to my granddaughter. As much as I like the way that Apple products work together, with the premium prices and my frustrations after that experience I decided to do something else. Due to price considerations, I decided to go with a Windows 11 HP Envy 360 when my MacBook Air died. Then when the phone stopped working, I had an old Pixel 3a phone laying in a drawer and activated that as a temporary solution, which I used until this April.

Let’s just say that I like a lot of Microsoft products and actually prefer the Edge browser over most that I’ve tried. However, I absolutely hate Windows 11. It feels too invasive, gets in the way too often, and while it’s powerful, by September I had put several different distros of Linux on the HP. None of them did what I wanted, and I kept looking.

Finally, I gave in to the Chromebook (I’ve used several since they came out in 2012) and got one off eBay for $30. It worked fine and I was able to do pretty much what I wanted, plus it played nicely with the Pixel 3a. Over the years, I’ve pretty much gone with Google’s productivity suite, as my daily drivers, they do enough and don’t get in the way of how I do things.

Fast forward to the start of this year and I was feeling a bit constrained by the Chrome OS and didn’t like the keyboard of the little Dell I’d gotten. I attempted to put Win11 back on the HP, but playing with the drivers drove me crazy, and I put KDE on it and put it back in the drawer. I still maintain my wife’s Windows 11 machine and still hate Win 11 with a passion. It feels, off to me. Yeah, if I had to, I could use it, but I’m choosing not to.

So, I got out my old Lenovo x230T and started using that. An old 2010/2011 Win7 machine that I’d upgraded a few years ago with a new hard drive and RAM. I’d always loved the keyboard (probably the best I’ve ever used on a laptop) and used that. Win 10 is not nearly as annoying as Win 11 in my opinion, but still it has its quirks and supposedly will be going away in 2025, so I didn’t want to get too attached to it. It can’t upgrade to Win 11 which is probably just as well since I hate it so much. Knowing in the back of my mind that I’d probably have to put a Linux distro on it at some point in 2025 if I wanted to keep using it.

During February, I saw a helluva deal on a Google Pixel Chromebook on eBay and grabbed it thinking it would be better than what I had. Especially, since they changed the end of life to 2027. I’ve used that for the most part since, and also picked up a Pixel 7 Pro which compliments the Chromebook quite nicely. However, as great a little machine as it is, the keyboard just isn’t what I want. I still compare them all to my Lenovo x230T and none measure up.

Which means that I keep pulling out the Lenovo and in fact am typing up this post with it. No, it isn’t the sleekest laptop I have ever owned and certainly not the most powerful, and the screen rather sucks compared to the newer models, but when it comes to typing up an article, browsing the web, or quickly pulling up an old game, it does just fine. Once I replaced the battery, I get 3-4 hours off it, which is nothing like the 10+ that newer machines do, and the display is definitely not the same.

With Microsoft’s Phone Link, it plays nicely with my Pixel phone, which is something that I’ve found that most Linux Distros and their phone link software doesn’t do as well. I prefer to text from the computer whenever I can, that two-finger typing ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been researching which distro I want to side load on the Lenovo, and none have really done a lot for me. Zorin 17 is close and KDE I like but Win 10 still works better for me than they do.

Plus, I don’t want to frig fart around with the operating systems and command line stuff anymore. I want to use a laptop, have it be stable, and Harold (idiot) proof for when I go off on those tangents and get under the hood and play with things I probably shouldn’t. In other words, I want it to just work, get security updates and not get in the way of what I want to do on the computer. 

However, the reality is that once Win 10 stops getting security updates, I will stop using it and overwrite it with a Linux distro. It already has too many exploitable flaws in it.

What do I do?

That is the question isn’t it.

I love my Lenovo but a computer from 2010 is pretty much the equivalent of a dinosaur in terms of technology. My Pixel Chromebook is okay and usable, but the keyboard rather sucks in my opinion. The HP Envy 360 is a great piece of hardware that I experiment with trying out multiple Linux Distros to see if any of them are what I’m looking for. The keyboard is acceptable on it, so if I find a Linux OS that works for me it will be part of the solution.

Depending on what Microsoft does with Win 10, I’ll probably have to put whatever flavor of Linux works best for me, once 2025 gets here, which won’t be a bad thing, but only if I can find a distro that can play nicely with my phone. It’ll still be a 14-year-old laptop, but at least one with a modern operating system.

Otherwise, I’ll make do with some combination of the Chromebook and HP with Linux. I just wish that my Apple products had been a little more reliable, because otherwise I’d probably would not have moved on from their silo. Oh well, all this does keep me on my toes and the toes get dipped into more than just one of the tech silos, so it isn’t all bad.

Still…it’d be nice to settle down a bit and find one that works for me.

The only things I know right now are that I’ll not move to a Windows 11 machine and Apple products aren’t an option. TheWife would be quite displeased if I suddenly went back all in with Apple and the disruption it would cause to our budget. So, I’ll deal with the tools I have available and make the best use of what I have.