I work for a company that allows me to buy computers at a deeply discounted rate for friends and family. I'd like to buy a computer for the GF's kids. They really want to learn English, but speak only Thai. Mostly they want to play with digital photography and games, but I want to get them something they can also use for schoolwork. There's not much connectivity in the village -- but I know there are phone lines at least.

HW:

So, laptop or desktop? The biggest problem I see with a laptop is changing to an English/Thai keyboard, anything else? (and fragility, of course, the youngest is 9)

Desktop: only problem I can see is to change the power supply to 220V and get an EN/TH keyboard like the ones I see in the Internet cafes in the nearby town.

SW:

What OS? These machines normally come with Windows, so do I just get a Thai OS and boot from a separate partition? What applications/versions do they commonly use? I've read that the kids in school spend a lot of their computer time using MS Word or MS Paint. Are there any lightweight graphics programs available in Thai -- like Irfanview?

After a little more searching on this site -- I think I answered my questions! Sorry for using up perfectly good cyberspace.

For a laptop it's easy to get keyboard-stickers that show the US English as well as Thai characters.

Software used is pretty much the same as everywhere else in the world. And whatever's specific to Thailand (Some community type stuff) they'll find on their own.

Go for the desktop.

More power for your buck,

easier to maintain and upgrade later.