I bought a Chromebook a few years ago, hoping to install Linux on it. I was able to—and not damage the original OS—but I found out I bought one with the wrong processor, so literally no software worked on it. I ended up buying a Windows laptop with similar specs for not much more. (The difference is that Windows hogs up a lot more disk space because all the programs are on the hard-drive.)
It's a nice little device for surfing the Web, but not much else. Google has cloud-based apps for office work, but if you want anything away from the Cloud, it's useless. You can't record isolated audio, and you can only shoot raw video.
I ended up giving the Chromebook to a relative.