While a lot of technology pundits dismissed Chrome OS a few years ago, it’s gotten very popular in the education market due to its integration with Google Apps and the simplicity of deploying it. In my day job, I’m an IT Director at an independent elementary school, so I’ve become extremely interested in Chrome OS over the past few years.

In our library, we had ten iMacs that were starting to show their age. They were three years old, and only had two GB of RAM. I inquired about selling them through our local Apple reseller, and I was surprised when they offered me almost $350 for each of them. I decided to replace them with the LG Chromebase. It’s similar to a Chromebook, but it’s a all-in-one desktop.

After unboxing them, I had to attach the base to the monitor using six screws, but then, they were ready to boot up. They started up within five seconds and were ready to be enrolled into our management system. For home use, all you would need to do is login with a Google Account (or a guest account). A few of our parents have ended up buying one for home use, as well. If you just need a computer for your children to do research on, the LG Chromebase is a great option. A Chromebox + iPad combination for kids is something that I can see becoming extremely popular in the next few years.