Laptop or Chrome Book

moneylover

My daughter is a Dietician in the NHS.  If schools are shut she may be able to partly work from home.  Problem is she only has an IPad , not a laptop and NHS don’t supply.  Her manager has said that a Chromebook would be fine for accessing the intranet, but obviously she wants a device that will generally be useful to the family long term.  Essentially Word documents, younger children’s games/educational programmes, internet searching, emails.    Are there any disadvantages to a Chrome book?  Sorry, starting from cold here, I don’t know anything about them and not a lot of time for research at present.
Otherwise/also recommendations for a laptop, not more than £500 max.  I realise that there are no bargains around for obvious reasons.
Thank you, Community!

Cisco001

Personally laptop.
If you want something cheap, look for used business laptop could be an option. £200 usually get you 3 years old thinkpad.

Speedster2

A chromebook sounds like it would be fine. She would definitely be able to work on all kinds of documents as Microsoft Office is fully online these days with O365. That includes emails with Outlook. Google is in the veins of any manufacturers chromebook so web browsing is a cinch. Plenty of Google apps as alternatives to Microsoft ones, just need an account.
”The NHS” she works for is split into regions, hospitals, GP syndicates etc. all have IT support contracts and her manager should be bidding for hardware for staff being told to work remotely.

Speedster2

Here’s a good few.
https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/nav/pt/laptops/osgroup/google-chrome-os/dpct/home/mc/48361

DoaM

Cisco001 said:

Personally laptop.
If you want something cheap, look for used business laptop could be an option. £200 usually get you 3 years old thinkpad.

I would agree with laptop, but bear in mind that there's high demand at the moment so "cheap" is a relative term.

Neil49

As much as I like Chromebooks for their simplicity of use I would recommend going for a laptop. 

Take a look at the Argos eBay site for refurbished ones if cost is an issue. Ideally a minimum of a Core i3 processor, 4 gb ram and at least a 128 gb ssd. I purchased a refurbished laptop from them and it was in excellent condition and came with 12 months warranty. 

Hope this helps. 

http://www.ebaystores.co.uk/Argos

Andy_L

moneylover said:

My daughter is a Dietician in the NHS.  If schools are shut she may be able to partly work from home.  Problem is she only has an IPad , not a laptop and NHS don’t supply.  Her manager has said that a Chromebook would be fine for accessing the intranet, 
Thank you, Community!

Check with your IT department if it is fine. Some systems for NHS remote working (like ours) will only work with Windows or iOS 

BigAl94

If opting for a Chromebook you need to read here and be aware of the auto update policy. Check any proposed purchase against the database to ensure a far out date. Many on offer are very short dated. https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

moneylover

Thank you everyone

TheRightOne

No point in buying a Chromebook, as it will only limit the amount of things that the family will be able to do.
Plus you are paying a lot of money for cheap components. You can easily pay £500 and end up with an eMMC storage drive. Totally unacceptable. Get a proper laptop with a relatively powerful processor, NVMe storage drive and an IPS screen for the £500 or less.

50Twuncle

As an alternatve - how about an Android tablet and a bluetooth keyboard - just a much cheaper suggestion - and fine for email/web browsing