For 3 years, I ran 100% of the operations of our business using a Chromebook. I paid $150 for a brand new device manufactured by Acer called C720. It came with a 16GB solid state hard-drive and a 2GB RAM. I also didn’t have any other computing device in this period.
I used web clients for everything. Google docs for documents, spreadsheets and presentations. I used JSTorrent as a web-based torrent client. For apps with no chrome version, such as Skype, I installed android versions.
Web apps like Canva for light editing work, which is what I also use today. I don’t know how to use any powerful photo or video editing app.
While chromebook may not be an ideal fit for all kind of webpreneurs or freelancers, especially many developers and designers, it did the job just right for me.
I was able to run content sites and blogs seamlessly. I could manage and grow our social assets mainly Facebook pages and I could seamlessly create and update Facebook and other kind of ads.
It could also have been a great fit for my e-commerce business, which I didn’t have at that time.
Right now I use Macbook Air and wouldn’t recommend myself to buy a Chromebook again due to certain limitations it comes with, but the point I’m trying to make is one could get started with something like that especially if funds are limited.
You could of course buy a used windows device for $300 or so in Pakistan, but in comparison you could also buy a used Chromebook for may be $50-$75.