Need to buy one for daughter at college, so will be used for basic browsing and word, excel stuff, would a chromebook be ok?

http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook

everyone’s got one

student discount as well

the only thing that has put me off picking one up for general stuff is the screen size

Lenovo X220 pentium i5 reconditioned from 3000rpm with 8GB memory and a 240 GB SSD hard drive (£300)

Docking station off Ebay £12

HP 22 inch monitor £120

Wireless keyboard and mouse £40

Sound is played through a Pure DAB

Just set this up for teen1 at his new abode. It is all they need. The NINE hour battery life means it is easy to grab and go. The ssd drive means it is almost as fast as his iPad to start. The fact that it’s build like a tank means it won’t break. The fact that it’s not a mac means it’s not going to be stolen. The small size makes for easy portability.

Get one. Macs are massively overpriced for basically less spec. It’s a tool not a statement.

And everything on Onedrive with a new MS account means no worrying about losing stuff

Can’t really see the benefit of Chromebooks now. The early benefits (Cost, fast start, long battery) are matched by windows PCs now and you can run a wider range of software. I’m sure they have a few nice applications but for basic browsing and word, excel, etc then a PC is more flexible.

IMO things aren’t yet at the point where a Chromebook is a viable option for your only machine. I’d get a regular (non-Mac) laptop.

OP, you can’t install programs onto a chrome book. It’s all delivered through the web browser, so Word/Excel is actually Google Docs which is basic but reliable or Office 365 which I’ve never tired.

I really rate mine for my purposes, but you need to be clear on the functional differences between them and a traditional PC before you purchase.

Chromebook for *actual* work? No thanks.

(And yes, I’ve experienced it)

Either Windows or Mac really.

I rate my Chromebook, Toshiba full HD one. Genuine 8-10hr battery life and use microsoft onedrive (15Gbyte) as my storage space, this launches Excel and Word in the browser and is nearly as good as the real thing but free!

I use a 64G SD card for storing music and movies. This fits nearly flush and is not intrusive.

In related news,

If you’ve got an academic email address, you can probably get Office for free at the moment.

https://portal.office.com/start?sku=student

TiRed’s advice is spot on – if it comes with Win7 then stick with it, still a perfectly serviceable (and supported) OS

and he’s right about macs, a ridiculous amount of money and too nickable for university/college

TiRed’s advice is spot on – if it comes with Win7 then stick with it, still a perfectly serviceable (and supported) OS

Windows 10 is fine, though, and I can’t see the point of sticking to an older OS for basic use.

But I’d definitely go with a cheap Windows laptop and a genuine copy of Office.

I upgraded it with a fresh Windows 10 install. It flies. It’s running office 365 from my account as a supported install as his student ID number wasn’t available.

Laptops have been over-specced for years, so a three year-old high end business laptop is better than a cheap £300 new one in almost every area e.g., fantastic daylight screens, but displayport not hdmi and poor speakers).

This is the second I’ve bought after a cheap new HP for teen 2 didn’t survive school life. They are just excellent. Even his housemates are impressed with the ease of switching from full-on desktop device and watch TV, to stick it in your rucksack and cycle to college.

It was a £1000 device when new, has milspec vibration and dust protection AND a coffee-resistant keyboard. Teen-proof.

Can’t really see the benefit of Chromebooks now.

Wait till they’ve had their Windows machine at uni for a month and they’ve crippled it with malware and viruses and/or lost their vital assignment. I got my daughter a Chromebook because I don’t want to spend every weekend doing tech support.

Really like the idea of the chromebooks and the 13″ hd Toshiba one get good reviews at around £250 seems to good to miss.
Is the google version of the word and exel easy to use?

I use docs off and on, as good as word for the usual stuff.
It depends how you use excel, if you want to go heavy it might not be as good.

Wait till they’ve had their Windows machine at uni for a month and they’ve crippled it with malware and viruses and/or lost their vital assignment.

Bollocks.

Plus, you can always use Google Docs etc on a PC too if it’s cloud you want.

Bollocks

Have you met teenagers?

Is the google version of the word and exel easy to use?

Slightly tricky to answer. I find it straightforward for basic word processing and maths stuff, but I suspect a university student would be more of a power user, with integrated diagrams, images, tables, charts etc. That may be less intuitive. She’d just have to try it and evaluate it herself I suppose.

Have you met teenagers?

Actually, thinking about this, the answer all along is probably – just get her what she wants/negotiates. You’ll get no end of grief by inflicting a Chromebook on her if it’s a PC she simply has to have. 😀

Have you met teenagers?

You don’t actually give them admin access do you? 😆

IMO things aren’t yet at the point where a Chromebook is a viable option for your only machine.

definitely beg to differ.

I run two companies wholly on chromebooks. 6 users.

At home I have 3 chromebooks and a chromebox (desktop version). No PCs no Macs. My one confession is that I have a virtual windows machine available to me on my brothers server if I ever need to do something using VBA in Excel. But havent yet in over a year of being PC-free.

Its a joy to have something run so well with so little faff required. No virus worries, no windows update ballaches, no hardware issues. Just 7s boot and go.

I think the only thing that annoys me are those websites still clinging to obsolete tech (silverlight) which wont run on Chrome.

Its a joy to have something run so well with so little faff required. No virus worries, no windows update ballaches, no hardware issues. Just 7s boot and go.

Sounds like my Windows laptop TBH, although my laptop boots faster from suspend.

You don’t actually give them admin access do you?

Plus, y’know, backups.

Serious question now… teen1 will be using his laptop on field trips (geology and geography), aside from GIS, am I correct in thinking a Chromebook is borked without WiFi (and in the field, I assume 3G)?

And boot time for his SSD Windows 10 laptop is almost instant.

Backups are handled by OneDrive and a small portable hard drive.

Fortunately for me, he really isn’t into IT. Bikes yes, computers, no.

Not entirely, Google docs works offline now. I’ve not used it like that personally, so I’m not sure if you have to indicate which documents you want work on with no connection. Can’t be that hard to do, and they all have a reasonable internal storage capacity.

all recently used google documents (docs/sheets/slides/drawings etc) are cached for offline use. If there are pdfs you wish to read offline, then you will need to download them first.

Backups? Who needs backups? 😉

Cheers for all your thoughts, but still can’t make our minds up???

You do realise synchronisation isn’t the same as backup, right? 🙂

Cheers for all your thoughts, but still can’t make our minds up???

The right answer was the first one

http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook

everyone’s got one

student discount as well

Not sure what you’re waiting for 😉

Mine has been brilliant. The “spec” may seem low but it multi-tasks better than anything else I’ve used, never crashes, never has a virus or malware, never does anything other than what it should. She’ll get MS office for free from the Uni. Battery life lasts all day, and they are a pleasure to use. They’re not THAT much more expensive than Windows equivalents either.

My Viao was £800. Supposedly better spec yet it kept crashing, had a shorter battery life, weighed twice as much and was twice as thick. The Mac outperforms it in every way, and looks/feels much nicer 8)

Of course, if your budget is £300 then scrub the above!

You do realise macbooks cost eight times what chromebooks do, right?

They’re not THAT much more expensive than Windows equivalents either.

Nowadays they are.

You do realise macbooks cost eight times what chromebooks do, right?

Yup, you do realise a Chromebook isn’t a macbook though, right?

If you’ve got an academic email address, you can probably get Office for free at the moment.

https://portal.office.com/start?sku=student

Just tried that with my genuine school e-mail address ending in .sch.uk (I used the admin one, but can generate an infinite number 😉 ) and it complains the school isn’t on the registered list – clicking on takes me to pricing in $ so not sure if it’s a US only thing.

I’m with TiRed (I think we’ve done this one before), though personally given the requirements I’m not sure she even needs that high a spec – personally I’m typing on a Lenovo I got for £100 on ebay which would be perfectly adequate for the job. Maybe add an SSD if you want quicker boot, but I don’t find it takes that long to wake from sleep, which is what I always do. As discussed when we hijacked Stoner’s Chromebook fanboi thread 😉 , whilst I can see some inherent advantages of a Chromebook there are still drawbacks and there isn’t really a price advantage to a Chromebook given the spec of reconditioned laptops available.

Windows 10 is fine, though, and I can’t see the point of sticking to an older OS for basic use.

I can’t see the point of upgrading for basic use if what you have works fine.

Of course, if your budget is £300 then scrub the above!

If your budget is £1000, then still scrub the above and spend £700 on coke and hookers beer (or whatever your daughter’s tipple of choice is) and parties.

Yup, you do realise a Chromebook isn’t a macbook though, right?

You do realise she doesn’t need a Macbook

(if you’re about to mention our impending school purchase, Stoner, shut up! 😆 )

You do know that there will be hundreds of machines they can use at college/uni dont you?

You do realise she doesn’t need a Macbook

Of course, since when did “need” ever come into it though! 😛

They’re not THAT much more expensive than Windows equivalents either.

Nowadays they are.

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Just done a filter search on PC World (for a quick comparison)

8GB Ram
256GB SSD
i5 or i7 processor
13.3″-14″ screen
1.5kgs or less

My Macbook Air, purchased from Apple directly as a student, came to £850, which is in the middle of the PC World offerings.

That’s comparing like for like, but also not.

You can get a machine that does everything the Macbook does just as well (arguably much more) for less than half the price. That makes it expensive in my book.

Or to put it another way, Apple force you to buy a level of spec you don’t need.

My Macbook Air, purchased from Apple directly as a student, came to £850, which is in the middle of the PC World offerings.

Which makes a reconditioned Lenovo X220 look like a veritable bargain at £300. That leaves £550 for her to spend on clothes 🙂

I love my MacBook Pro and would highly recommend it.

As a UK student you get up to 16% off (I believe MacBook Pro is 14% on average) + free AppleCare insurance for Mac if you buy via the official apple website.

Official Apple Websit Student Link