Chromebook or netbook?

[Gups]

My soon to be 11 yr old has dysphraxia and is a bit slow writing notes etc in class.

If it was down to me, I'd leave him to practice and get used to it but apparently we have to get him a puter he can use in class. He's a reasonably quick typist.

Netbooks look like thy're on the way out, taken over by tablets. I can get an Acer for about £200 but will have to expand the RAM.

Other option is a chomebook - Samsung do a good looking one for £230. I'm a bit worried how useful google docs are compared to Word. Anyone got any experience with this stuff or have any other thoughts or suggestions? 

[Liep]

I've used Google Docs for the last semester and found it very easy and sufficient for my use. Not sure if it requires a connection to work though.

[derspiess]

I've used Google Docs for the last semester and found it very easy and sufficient for my use. Not sure if it requires a connection to work though.

I *think* you can use it these days without an internet connection.  I think it would be more than sufficient for an 11-year old, and I'm starting to use it more often than MS Office for personal stuff.  It's verboten at work though I'd probably still use Office here anyway.

[mongers]

I've used Google Docs for the last semester and found it very easy and sufficient for my use. Not sure if it requires a connection to work though.

I *think* you can use it these days without an internet connection.  I think it would be more than sufficient for an 11-year old, and I'm starting to use it more often than MS Office for personal stuff.  It's verboten at work though I'd probably still use Office here anyway.

I'm now using a netbook as my main day to day computer, save for a couple of games that need my recent purchase.

Compared to a chromebook, I like the flexibility of installing all sorts of , often legacy software on it. 

Plus the games from gog.com play very nicely on it.

The downside of a netbook/sub-notebook, is finding one with a decent keyboard and/or one that suits you.

edit:
Oh and I'm not a fan of glossy screens on any sort of laptop, the supposed benefit for watching dvds/media is far outweighed by general legibility of internet/office productivity software. 

[DontSayBanana]

Google Docs is extremely useful, if only for the portability.  I've been known to take notes on my phone so that I can edit/review them later on my computer.  About the only thing I've found to be missing from GD that's in a full word processor like Word or OpenOffice.org Writer is snap alignment for placing objects.

The downside to booting with a Chromebook is that you absolutely MUST have a network connection to use it- that's the main reason for the Samsung models including a free year of 3G wireless access.

[derspiess]

This thread reminded me that I had a netbook tucked away somewhere with a busted hard drive.  I had replaced the crappy 8GB SSD (which Acer stupidly went with even though there were no proper Windows drivers for it) with a 30GB ZIF drive lifted from an iPod.  When that drive failed I couldn't find the original SSD so I just put it in a storage box until I found it.

Still can't find the original drive but I did come across another 30GB drive.  Rather than re-install boring XP I put Ubuntu 12.10 on it, which runs a bit slow but works well enough.  Might go back to the 10.04 on which it was originally certified & see if that works any better. 

[DontSayBanana]

This thread reminded me that I had a netbook tucked away somewhere with a busted hard drive.  I had replaced the crappy 8GB SSD (which Acer stupidly went with even though there were no proper Windows drivers for it) with a 30GB ZIF drive lifted from an iPod.  When that drive failed I couldn't find the original SSD so I just put it in a storage box until I found it.

Still can't find the original drive but I did come across another 30GB drive.  Rather than re-install boring XP I put Ubuntu 12.10 on it, which runs a bit slow but works well enough.  Might go back to the 10.04 on which it was originally certified & see if that works any better. 

You'll probably see an increase.  Quantal Quetzal doesn't strike me as being tuned very well for low-end equipment; also, I've discovered the hard way that QQ doesn't play nice with graphics drivers on either side of the line- it hated the GeForce 7025 on my mobo, and it hates the Radeon HD 6850 I put in it the other day.

[Gups]

Update - kid loves the chromebook but so far has mainly been watching vids of other people playing computer games (?) on youtobe. We did a bit of schoolwork on it and the docs functions pretty well except that copying and pasting seems strangely difficult.

For £229 including VAT, its a very good piece of kid, nice build quality and very light.

[derspiess]

Update - kid loves the chromebook but so far has mainly been watching vids of other people playing computer games (?) on youtobe. We did a bit of schoolwork on it and the docs functions pretty well except that copying and pasting seems strangely difficult.

For £229 including VAT, its a very good piece of kid, nice build quality and very light.

Tommy always ends up watching horrible adolescent-produced stop-motion lego videos on Youtube.  Would not actually be that bad were it not for the kids doing their own voices.

[Ed Anger]

My nephew watches those minecraft videos. Ugh.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I was looking at Chromebooks while killing some time at Best Buy, and was inspired to put a new, non Win 7 Starter OS on my Aspire One 522 (with a little AMD C-50 processor and 2GB of RAM).  I tried out Joli, but it didn't work properly, then stuck the 64bit version of Mint 14 with Cinnamon on here, and....this is pretty great.  It's surprisingly polished. 

I was going to give Chromium OS a try, but this thing is what I was looking for, I think. 

[Tonitrus]

My nephew watches those minecraft videos. Ugh.

Mine too...but then he also does some pretty cool stuff with Minecraft afterwards as well.