And the best Back-to-School laptop is....

'Tis the season to go shopping and buy the tools your kid needs to succeed. For many parents, this includes buying new tech stuff.

While many schools offer computer laboratories allowing students to complete required tasks such as research, writing a paper or creating a presentation; the reality is that the allotted time at school may not be enough. Particularly at the

Google Chromebook running Chrome Operating Software, manufactured by Dell

middle school and high school levels.

Therefore, it is very beneficial to have a computer in the home allowing your student take care of their assignments at home. However, the price point for even a low end computer can hover in the $500 range.

Enter the Chromebook laptop, which is a phenomenal computer at an absolutely incredible price. The Chromebook is a laptop manufactured by well known brands such as Samsung and Dell with the operating system powered by Google’s Chrome operating software. To be clear, it’s not Microsoft Windows or Mac OS, but Google.

If you are in the market, I strongly advocate you consider a Chromebook. The first step is to analyze your student’s needs. I personally have done this exercise many times because I have four kids. One is a recent college graduate and the others are currently in high school, middle school and elementary. That being said, I truly understand the holistic needs of the average student, from K-12 and beyond. Below is a checklist of what your student may need from a home computer perspective. In addition, each task detailed below can easily get accomplished with a Chromebook.

• Research: Chromebooks come with the Google Chrome web browser and allow a user to easily search the Internet. Wikipedia and beyond are just waiting to get searched!

• Writing a paper: Google Drive is the crown jewel of the Chromebook. Google Drive is a suite of cloud based solutions that easily provides tools such as Google Docs to write, edit and even share a document. It’s a fantastic competitor to Microsoft Word.

• Presentations: Google Slides is another powerful cloud based application that functions just like Microsoft PowerPoint and is part of Google Drive.

• Email: The Chrome browser allows for that

• Tutoring platforms: YouTube, Khan Academy and many other tutoring sites all work in Chromebook because they are mostly web browser based.

Another major plus to the Chromebook is that all of the aforementioned solutions are FREE. There is no subscription required, unlike Microsoft Office.

When you buy a Chromebook, you simply sign in using your Gmail account and voila! You’re off to the races. If you don’t have a Gmail account, you can easily create one, gratis. Some school districts even issue their students email accounts. My kids can actually access their Google accounts by signing in via their district issued email addresses.

In addition, many progressive districts work well with Google Drive. My high schooler actually writes and submits his papers via Google Docs. No more printing and submitting like some of us had to do. I’ll never forget realizing that I was out of printer ink the night before a paper was due!

I cannot say enough about the Google Drive suite that is free and part of the Chromebook experience. These tools are incredible and offer many easy to use applications like Google Sheets which is an excellent competitor to Microsoft Excel. And as I mentioned, it’s FREE!

Price: A brand new Chromebook starts at $199! Something like that is likely all your student will ever need. They are lightweight, inexpensive and easy to use. In fact, I’m writing this blog using Google Docs on a seven-years-old Samsung Chromebook that I purchased brand new for $199.

This season, don’t fall for the false belief that an expensive laptop or shiny and costly Macbook will give your child the edge they need to succeed. Also, do not buy your student a tablet, especially an iPad. Tablets were meant to consume content, not create. A tablet is a very clunky way to conduct schoolwork.

The Chromebook is inexpensive, easy to find, powerful and should be all your kid needs to succeed this school year. You can get a Chromebook at most retailers like Amazon or Walmart. Once you have it, your student can toss it in their backpack and fire it up, they’ll just need an Internet connection and the world of learning is theirs to explore. If they encounter an issue, like breaking the Chromebook, everything is stored in the cloud anyway so they need only sign into another computer. With that said, I’d recommend paying the extra $29.99 to get the two year protection plan.

#Chromebook #ChromeOS #BacktoSchool #BacktoSchool2019 #BTS #newschoolyear #bestlaptop #laptops #khanaccademy

Mark Anthony Torres is a writer, futurist and seasoned global technology expert with nearly 20 years of industry experience. He's passionate about simplifying technology and making it easy to understand. To get in touch, leave a comment below; email him at bizdev@markanthonytorres.com or call him at 248.786.7070.