Part 2: [Miscalculation] I want to punch my past self for thinking any USB would do.
Cold pizza after the "best"
The sense of omnipotence the moment the logo appeared. At that time, I truly thought I could even change the world. However, once I finished the settings and started using it, my head, which had been bursting with dopamine, gradually cooled down.
"...Is this really that different from Windows 11?"
I was expecting a transcendental response that would stick to my fingertips. But in reality, it lags by a beat every time I open the browser. Rather than lightning fast, it's at most just "a slightly lighter Windows."
"Are the settings wrong?"
I desperately searched again. Online articles say, "Plug it into a USB 3.0 port."
"...No, my LIFEBOOK U9310/D only has blue (3.0) USB Type-A ports!"
[Important] Do you know the "true identity" of USB 3.0?
As I got to the bottom of the cause, I realized my own ignorance. The "USB memory" I installed was the culprit itself.
Here, I want to clearly convey the "USB trap" that shocked me at the time.
Most things sold cheaply as "USB 3.0 compatible memory" are almost 100% "flash memory" inside. But this is the biggest pitfall.
📊 "The path" and "the contents" are completely different things
To make it intuitive, I organized it by aligning the units.
Type Max Speed
USB 3.0 Approx. 625 MB/s
Flash Memory Approx. 100 MB/s
SSD Approx. 450 - 500 MB/s
The term "USB 3.0 compatible" only means "the road (standard) is wide,"and whether the "car (contents)"running on it is fast is a separate issue.
I was deliberately driving a "slow light truck (generic USB memory)" on a "10-lane road." No matter how wide the road was, it was natural for it to feel "sluggish" if the car was slow.
An investment of about 6,000 yen that was "sleek" and overflowing dopamine
"I thought any 3.0 would do, I wasted a whole USB!"
Biting my lip in frustration, I clicked on a tiny model on Amazon that was a "real SSD inside."
That is theHIKSEMI ultra-small external SSD.
The price is around 6,000 yen. It's quite an investment for someone on an allowance, costing about 1/3 of the 18,499 yen I paid for the device itself, but there's no turning back now.
The item that arrived was truly 'tiny'.
Even when plugged directly into the port, it feels like it was there from the start. This way, I can maintain the aesthetic of the 'me who admired the MacBook'.
True explosive speed, and the return of a sense of omnipotence
The moment I re-flashed ChromeOS Flex onto this HIKSEMI and booted it up again—. Into a world of 'zero friction'
This time, it's the real deal. OS startup, login, browser launch. Everything clings to my fingertips. 'This is it... this 'zero friction' world is what I was looking for!' The anxiety over my 6,000 yen investment was instantly rewritten into a sense of omnipotence that this was the 'best purchase ever'.
The creeping limits of 'Flex'
However, a small 'shadow' soon falls over the world I thought was perfect. As I stare at the browser running at explosive speeds, another desire rears its head deep in my heart. '...If it's this fast, couldn't I run Android apps too? I want to install manga apps and play games.'
But here, I learn a cruel reality.
'ChromeOS Flex cannot use the Google Play Store.'
'Wait, I can't use it...?' In the 'lukewarm water' of just flashing it using the official tool on Windows, this was as far as I could go. To quench the desire that had been ignited, I had no choice but to step off the official path (Flex) and venture into the deeper world of 'demonic modification'.
After looking into it, it seems that a framework called 'Brunch,' which transplants the soul of a 'real Chromebook,' can make that dream come true. But to do that, I have to jump out of Windows and learn to operate the unknown OS 'Ubuntu'...
My challenge now plunges headlong into the 'wilderness of the command line'.