Chromebook or Laptop?

[WhisperingWalter]

I am not very tech savvy so am looking for a little advice on wether a Chromebook or laptop would be better fo my 11 year old ds.

He needs either or for schoolwork and probably some gaming, so what anyone recommend?

It will be a Christmas gift and likely be secondhand if that makes any difference?

I can't imagine you would be able to play many games on a chrome book but i could be wrong

Well this is what I need to know, I’m honestly living in the dark ages when it comes to this sort of thing.

What you need is a laptop and you need to pay attention to the RAM and processor so it can run games, and the graphics card.

Any less than 8gb of ram is no good. You will struggle to get 16gb even second hand for a low price.

For processor an i5 or i7 is a minimum, thry come in ‘generations’ eg 5th generation i7 processor. Get the highest number generation you can find.

I’m not up on graphics cards but sure someone else will be along to cover those.

Dell have some good offers right now, I’m looking at a couple on their site to replace my laptop and I think you can do a payment plan.

A curl book has no built in programmes. Everything is online. So great for internet use(online games included) and Google Drive is perfect for all school work. No need to buy any software so cheaper.

Chrome not curl

My kids use their chromebooks for gaming

We have chrome books and love them. Google docs to a bit to get used to but now much prefer using it to Microsoft now.

I bought a Cromebook when we desperately needed a laptop and didn't have spare cash. It sits redundant in a drawer. It's nothing more than an android tablet with a keyboard and was incredibly faffy to use.

Get a laptop. Chrome books are awful.

You can't do any real gaming on a Chromebook. It's fine for homework but nothing else.
You will need a PC for gaming.
You can play games like Minecraft and Roblox on an iPad but not Fortnite.
I suppose best bet for you is a pc for gaming and homework.

Sorry to barge on, can I use Microsoft word on a chrome book? I’m also confused but need to be able to use word for my coursework. I’ve started a new training course and I feel like a dinosaur compared to the literal children on the course. I know nothing about laptops/chrome books at all!

My own experience , don’t get a chrome book. Absolute nightmare to do anything on and every document I have to convert to a pdf or pay for Microsoft to convert to a word file . I would get a normal windows that comes with Microsoft . If that’s what you need it for

Chromebooks are awful - or, at least, the ones I've used are. They're probably the cheapest of the cheap, due to budget limitations, but the ones used in many schools are so slow they're terrible and because you can do so little with them they are quite limiting.

I got a Chromebook after telling the salesman in currys what I needed it for....degree coursework.

Told I could use Microsoft no problem.

I returned it the next day as the version of Word that I could access was so basic I couldn't even do a bullet pointed list.

My uni don't accept Google docs for uploaded work, which was what I could use with a semi reasonable level of functionality.

It was so poor!

I'd just get a full PC.

You get what you pay for unfortunately. If it's something really cheap a Chromebook may be better as they have less bloat on them so run basic things a lot better than a cheap windows laptop. Honestly if you are unsure just do as much research on sites like tech radar etc Google things like top 10 cheap gaming laptops and read a few pages. I'd personally always choose a Mac but that's a different option and ot sure the gaming is as good 😅

I agree get a laptop, it will come with at least a year of Microsoft Office included and will be better for gaming. We have a very basic chromebook, bought at the start of first lockdown. Fine for my 8 year old to do his homework, stream video and very basic learning games, but won't run what he wants to play for gaming, which is Minecraft, Roblox and Fifa.

Question on Microsoft Word - no, you can't use it, as you know it, on a Chromebook. You would use Google Docs, which looks very like it but with some irreconcilable differences you find out over time. I can't do a mail merge. There are supposedly add-ons that will permit something like that, but have not got them to install.

It also seems to really fight with the ersatz version of Excel files (both with Microsoft and as a kind of internal struggle).

Get a proper laptop.

Chrome books are cheap for a reason - they're awful.

In fairness, the Chromebook works well if you are then logging further into say a work desktop within it (eg Vmware) so if the school just need you to get a device which you then log further into their server, it'll work fine as you can access whatever is accessible via school computers.