I'm looking for recommendations for a suitable laptop (thinking probably Chromebook?) for my 7 year old twins.
They use "Purple Mash" as an online learning platform so it needs to be able to run this (web based, some Flash but rapidly moving away from it).
I'm looking for:
Physically robust enough for kids to use unsupervised and last a long time
Decent battery life
Powerful enough to cope with their next few years of learning - I assume there's no challenging computing requirements coming up soon though
Low cost - ideally <£200
Any ideas ?
Yep go chromebook
I'm not a tech expert but I do know going forward you'll get your kids ready to do homework on a saturday morning and then have to wait for what seems like forever for a laptop to boot up during which time the kids will already be switch themselves off 🙂
Got one of these for my 11 year old for xmas
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2156701
First impression are good .... the 2 in 1 flip style is a winner for using it as a tablet, while the touch screen does take some getting used to when using in a classic keyboard style.
Good luck
I just got my two (13 AND 15YO) Asus C223's from AO - I've got a 423 myself and it's bombproof, and these two are just the smaller screen versions for younger shoulders (and better eyes)
In theory CB's have a finite support life ( https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en ) so you might want to check that what you get has a decent update period left since its launch - in practise they might get updated beyond that still anyway.
20% off a load of stuff on eBay at the mo too.
Quick hijack - does 768 resolution matter on chromebooks? I occasionally use an old laptop with this, and it's a pita.
While your initial thought is that it will be used purely for noble educational purposes, is there likely to be any mission drift towards the odd game of Minecraft etc? (I only ask as someone who has been the father of 7-year-old twins).
If so, I wouldn't recommend a Chromebook, as 'proper' minecraft is unsupported, but some kind of Windows Laptop instead.