Chromebook or Laptop?

[CheeseEloise1]

Wanting to get computer for 11 year old son. Someone on here recommended the Acer Chromebook 11 which retails at £179.99. For £174.92, I see that I can get an Asus E200 laptop which has Windows on it. I am new to all the Chromebook stuff. Which would be a better computer to get? He likes browsing on the web and working with Excel and Word, which I know I can get on the Cloud for the Chromebook.

Annoyingly I found out that I won't be able to use my Wifi printer with the Chromebook as it does not like the the Chromecloud. I would still be interested to hear which one you feel would be of more use?

We got a Chromebook under those circumstances, it's been great.

and working with Excel and Word, which I know I can get on the Cloud for the Chromebook

Can you?

Yes, there are online versions of Word and Excel available for free.

Online versions for reading and editing - don't appear to have the full functionality.
Also how fast is your wi-fi - googledoc, for example, is very laggy on all but the fastest internet.

Does that mean that my son wouldn't be able to start a Word or Excel document from scratch?

Does that mean that my son wouldn't be able to start a Word or Excel document from scratch?

Yes, you can start a Word or Excel document from scratch. Create yourself an account and have a play around. They aren't fully featured but you can do all the basics. caroldecker is right that you would need fast internet to use Word and Excel, but google docs are available offline using Chrome, and these can be converted to Word/Excel/Powerpoint once complete.

So is it quite easy to use Tribpot?

Yes, I think so - but I've worked in IT for nearly 20 years so not the best person to judge! Honestly, have a play around with Word Online yourself, see what you think. That said, I don't know how well a cheap laptop would cope with the full-fat versions of Word and Excel either, does the ASUS come with MS Office installed?

I would be wary of a chromebook, my nephew does a lot of homework on soft copy and I would worry about the power o a chromebook for any decent word or excel document.
I use excel extensively at work and googledocs do not cut the mustard for anything beyond the very basics.

I like the Chromebook for browsing and for casting to my chromecast. I'm not a fan of Google Docs. I use LibreOffice on the desktop and laptop.

Just to say, I got my son the Acer CB5-311 Chromebook and it is amazing. It got an excellent review and a 79% score from WHICH. I bought a Chromebook book to accompany it but we have not needed to use it as using the Chromebook is so straightforward.
Thank you for all your advice!