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Internet and Email only SBC?

Former Member

Looking for the best option in an inexpensive single board computer for basic internet and email usage?  Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, something else?

 

My mother (age 70+) wants a "simple" computer to check her email and search recipes online.  Seems like a shame to spend 100's on building her a desktop that won't get used.  I have several 20" LCD's lying around and thought I might just take one of the inexpensive SBC's on the market, and either strap it to the back or build it into the case and give that to her for Christmas.  Would make her day.

 

She had an old dell that I had Ubuntu 12.04 on until it died here recently, so she knows to click the Chrome button to get to her "recipes" (I just set the home page to allrecipes.com) and to click the Thunderbird button to check her email.

 

Question is, for (truly) basic usage what would be the best SBC to pick?  I'm familiar with all the basic blends of Linux and know she could find her way around Ubuntu or ElementaryOS (though I don't think any SBC supports ElementaryOS).  Something that when it dies won't cost me an arm and a leg to replace, I like the idea of the entire OS/data on a uSD or SD card since I could just swap the thing and she would be back where she was.

 

I don't own any of these devices yet but have tinkered with the Radxa Rock quite a bit and it does everything she would need and then some (but at $100 is a bit expensive compared to the others), so I guess worst case I could just give her that if the other options wouldn't be sufficient.

 

Any suggestions?

 

- Jeremy

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    I've recently bought some Raspberry Pis. You can surf the internet with them, it's just kind of slow. The RPi has no problems whatsoever rendering 3D graphics or movies, but it starts coughing when it comes to plain old windows. I'm using the raspbian OS. It might be a bit annoying surfing the web with one (even for your grandma) because while it's loading and rendering, it moves even slower; so if you change your mind about where you want to navigate, that's a pain too. It is however really cheap.

     

    EDIT: Just seen the Radxa Rock2. To me it seems the way to go.

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    I've recently bought some Raspberry Pis. You can surf the internet with them, it's just kind of slow. The RPi has no problems whatsoever rendering 3D graphics or movies, but it starts coughing when it comes to plain old windows. I'm using the raspbian OS. It might be a bit annoying surfing the web with one (even for your grandma) because while it's loading and rendering, it moves even slower; so if you change your mind about where you want to navigate, that's a pain too. It is however really cheap.

     

    EDIT: Just seen the Radxa Rock2. To me it seems the way to go.

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