Chromebook for 10 year old - any brands to avoid?

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danepak

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#288994 5-Aug-2021 14:27

Visiting a few stores tonight to see what’s available.
Daughter is starting intermediate next year and they recommend Chromebooks.

She also wants to be able to play Minecraft and Roblox on it, so it needs Google Playstore access, but my understanding is that this is pretty normal.

I see that the screen size generally is a choice of 11 vs 14 inch.
What else should I look out for? HDD space isn’t that important, right? (As things are saved in the cloud). Typical sizes I’ve spotted are 32GB and 64GB.

Any brands to avoid?

Stu1

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#2755710 5-Aug-2021 14:43

Not many around at the moment , we brought a Lenovo it’s great for school as well as roblox and Minecraft and streaming

danepak

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#2755712 5-Aug-2021 14:44

Thanks.
And my apologies, just noticed that there’s another similar thread.
Admin, feel free to delete.

Dynamic

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#2755715 5-Aug-2021 14:47

Fantastic that the school is recommending Chromebooks. I'm in love with the low TCO that they give for families. If it misbehaves, powerwash it, reboot, login, and it's good as gold (barring a hardware failure). I carried a 14" Chromebook for a while for work use, and generally used it for connecting back to my work computer. Loved the fantastic battery life and the light weight. If someone had stolen it, I'd be annoyed but not concerned about data theft.

Most kids use the 11" version, which is fine for their small hands. Most have 4Gb of RAM these days. Watch out you aren't picking up a 2Gb of RAM model, which still work fine but limits you in the number of simultaneous tabs. As you mention, storage in Chromebooks isn't really a thing. My kids were using 2Gb RAM 16Gb flash machines for a few years and never mentioned storage as an issue.

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danepak

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#2755716 5-Aug-2021 14:49

Thanks. Will defo keep the screen size in mind.
She would also like touch screen, but not a must have.

skewt

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#2756984 9-Aug-2021 09:02

Wouldn't recommend a Lenovo 300e, I have seen a lot of them fail with phantom screen touches

openmedia

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#2757021 9-Aug-2021 11:06

I'd recommend you look for models with a quad core CPU. A lot of Chromebooks are only dual core celeron class CPUs and having a quad core makes a huge difference.

Ditto 4GB RAM minimum

The latest units have reasonable GPUs for School work etc

Look out for a supplier like Cyclone who has a good accidental damage cover. We've used ours several times which meant we got a good 3 years out of the unit.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

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Dratsab

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#2757026 9-Aug-2021 11:16

Also check any models that seem attractive because they're on sale against the Auto Update Expiry page Google maintains.

danepak

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#2757032 9-Aug-2021 11:26

openmedia:

I'd recommend you look for models with a quad core CPU. A lot of Chromebooks are only dual core celeron class CPUs and having a quad core makes a huge difference.

Ditto 4GB RAM minimum

The latest units have reasonable GPUs for School work etc

Look out for a supplier like Cyclone who has a good accidental damage cover. We've used ours several times which meant we got a good 3 years out of the unit.

Thanks. I'll keep the quad core in mind.

I found an octo core device at a very good price with huge storage. $449. Am I missing something here? Yes, the screen is smaller, but those specs.

Lenovo10.1" IdeaPad Chromebook Duet 2-in-1 detachable Laptop Octa-Core Processor 4GB RAM 128GB Storage FHD IPS Display

esawers

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#2757034 9-Aug-2021 11:33

skewt:
Wouldn't recommend a Lenovo 300e, I have seen a lot of them fail with phantom screen touches

Lenovo replaced our screen free of charge, out of warranty

danepak

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#2757293 9-Aug-2021 15:39

Is this a decent device (good specs and fair price)? Quad core and I find the additional insurance appealing.

https://byod.cyclone.co.nz/student/account/favourites/details.jsp?favouriteID=15169&type=favourite

danepak

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#2765120 22-Aug-2021 21:14

openmedia:
I'd recommend you look for models with a quad core CPU. A lot of Chromebooks are only dual core celeron class CPUs and having a quad core makes a huge difference.

Ditto 4GB RAM minimum

The latest units have reasonable GPUs for School work etc

Look out for a supplier like Cyclone who has a good accidental damage cover. We've used ours several times which meant we got a good 3 years out of the unit.

Ended up getting a device with quad core.
My daughter is very happy with the device.

Acer Spin 511 R752T Flip Chromebook 11.6" HD IPS Touch Intel Celeron N4120 4GB 32GB

Thanks for your help.

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andrewnzer

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#2793064 11-Oct-2021 11:28

danepak:

I found an octo core device at a very good price with huge storage. $449. Am I missing something here? Yes, the screen is smaller, but those specs.

Lenovo10.1" IdeaPad Chromebook Duet 2-in-1 detachable Laptop Octa-Core Processor 4GB RAM 128GB Storage FHD IPS Display

That octocore CPU is a Mediatek ARM CPU as opposed to the Intel x86-64 CPUs in other Chromebooks. It doesn't benchmark as high as the quadcore Intel CPUs. Still a good deal though, the screen should be much crisper and nicer for stuff like photo editing or comics.