I have Lubuntu on my laptop. Ease of use is great. I really like the LXDE
desktop. I have all the family and friends computers I support on Ubuntu
Gnome 10.04. But since we're all kind of frugal, think cheap, I am
currently planning moving them to the next LTS version of Lubuntu. I think
the learning curve is shorter from Gnome to LXDE than from Gnome to Unity.
There are lots of good Ubuntu based distro's out there. Download some live
CD's and give them a spin.