Forget Windows 10

[john]

Well okay perhaps not completely but my wife wanted a new laptop as our existing one was taking too long to boot up for her. I looked around and we didn't want to spend too much on a hi-spec machine which had sufficient performance to be quick enough for her and I also had reservations about her adapting to Windows 8 or 10 after using Windows 7. The thing is she only ever uses the laptop for browsing the internet, she doesn't use e-mails, office applications or print etc so much of the functionality of a normal laptop would be wasted. However she did want a keyboard and a reasonable sized screen which ruled out a tablet but did want it to be lightweight so I've bought her this Chromebook. We've only had it a day but she is quite happy with it and it's very fast to boot up and load web pages. Toshiba do two versions of this machine and we went for the higher spec version with 4GB ram and the 1920x1080 display. In fact I'm so impressed with it I may buy another for myself as I know my wife will be using hers a lot. I'll still keep my laptop to do things the Chromebook won't do but certainly accessing the internet on the Chromebook is a much better experience, it boots up in a few seconds and web pages load virtually instantaneously.

I know some here will have reservations but, like my wife, I suspect many people don't really need anything more.

[nowster]

Similarly, I've an install of Firefox¹, Thunderbird² and LibreOffice on Debian Linux for my parents. It just works and does all they want or need. If there are any problems, I can set up VNC over VPN to access their desktop and help them out.

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¹ Renamed as Iceweasel for trademark reasons.
² Renamed as Icedove.

[Steve]

I think you made the right move John, add a bit of cloud and it's a very functional machine.