Within the present local weather, getting the appropriate {hardware} to earn a living from home successfully is important. Having the right laptop computer, monitor and equipment can massively enhance your productiveness.
That is why I used to be excited to lastly get to check out one of many newest Chromebooks in the marketplace, the Dell Latitude 7410 Chromebook Enterprise lately. It is an undoubtedly a incredible machine (and hopefully a product we’ll evaluation totally sooner or later) however as I solely had a couple of days with it – a couple of issues stood out.
Chromebooks have proved a game-changer for industries which might be determined for low-cost, high-power and sturdy units, with colleges, universities and analysis labs flocking to the units. However wouldn’t it be the identical for me, working from residence in a job that primarily requires plenty of typing?
In a phrase – no. Now I haven’t got something in opposition to this machine, or Dell, however there was one side that rendered the Chromebook nearly utterly unusable for me. Particularly, there is no such thing as a caps lock button on the Dell Latitude 7410 Chromebook Enterprise – or any Chromebook for that matter.
This is not a brand new function – and has been current in most Chromebooks for some time – however I simply can’t work out why. As an alternative of a fast button press, setting a capital letter now entails hitting the Alt key and the search button (extra on that later), then faucet on the time icon within the backside proper nook, and click on Caps Lock is on.
In a enterprise setting, the shortage of a caps lock button is one thing that I am unable to get previous. Living proof – logging in to my work account requires a protracted and sophisticated password that our IT group can be very happy with me for creating. Nonetheless the primary letter is a capital, and the shortcut wanted to supply this cannot be accessed through the Chromebook’s login display screen. Cue a clumsy scramble round for a workaround, which implies I am late for signing in for the day.
As somebody who writes, edits and tweaks for a residing, the caps lock is one in every of my most used keys, so getting used to it not being there (and doing a two-button shortcut as an alternative) has been considerably tough.
Google recently rebranded its “not a caps lock” key (which was formally often known as the Search or Launcher button) to be referred to as the “All the things” button, with the corporate saying that “consumer suggestions” had influenced the change.
However for a tool that’s imagined to be designed for enterprise or enterprise customers, it simply appears a obvious oversight that there is not the choice to dispose of organising a Google Search in favour of one thing lots of people which truly use.
As I mentioned, the machine itself was incredible, and I genuinely loved utilizing the Dell Latitude 7410 Chromebook Enterprise. It provided speedy set-up (passwords however), a easy consumer expertise, and all-day battery life even with every thing I threw at it.
However please, do not take away my caps lock key.
