I searched the dizzying array of choices for the right option for my son’s first Chromebook, and it was a bigger challenge than I’d imagined.
My son began second grade this past September, and his school issued him an old, beat-up Chromebook to his backpack as his first laptop. Unacceptable! As a tech writer, I could not settle for what the school was offering. So, I did what any tech nerd dad would do and took my boy shopping for a new Chromebook.
But as I quickly learned, the world of Chromebooks can be dizzying. If I was going to find the right option for my kid, I’d need to check my own tech knowledge and preferences at the door.
For starters, there are a lot of Chromebooks out there. I did not fully realize just how many there were until I began shopping for one.
The first place I looked was Amazon. That was a mistake. There are more than 200 pages of Chromebooks. You get well-known names such as Lenovo, Acer, and Asus. But you’ll also get weird brands with names like Mighty Skins and VEIKK. I was certainly wary of the Basrdis Chromebook.
Even known brands have an enormous library of machines. There were six pages of Chromebooks for Asus, ranging in price from $57 to over $700. Samsung Chromebooks take up 17 pages on Amazon.
Okay, Amazon was not working out for me. With some guidance from our own Chromebook reviews, I decided to take my son to Best Buy because surely they must have a respectable range of decent Chromebooks to see in person, right?
As it turned out, my local Best Buy had 17 Chromebooks on display, directly across from the Windows laptops. That’s a lot of Chromebooks. Their prices ranged from $200 to over $1,000. That’s better than the 200 pages of options on Amazon, but it still left me a bit overwhelmed by all the options.
