Halloween is hardly over, and the thoughts turn to Christmas.
For many, a laptop for the youngster(s) in the house is a consideration. I’m often asked which I would recommend…
That’s a difficult question as it really depends on what you need the laptop to be able to do. Is it general use, bit of googling, research for school projects, some video-watching, bit of not-too-intense gaming? Then you need roughly what I need for my cccSkerries classes, and I find my cccSkerries workhorse computers (which serve me well for general coding purposes) do the trick.
They are Acer Aspires like this one, £239 currently, and Lenovos like this one, £299. I run them on Windows 10, and I use Google Chrome for accessing the internet.
[Those are not affiliate links, for those who wonder about such questions – I’m only linking to Amazon as that’s where I buy my laptops, to make it easier to find them.]
Edited to include the following paragraph, thanks PH who wrote:
“Just thought I’d mention that Lenovo themselves have great deals online. So eg The Lenovo G50-30 you mention is only €329.99, whereas through Amazon with Sterling conversions etc £299 could be €425………..so be careful & save yourself €100…………”
And you can find the G-Series here.
Refurbished laptops might be an option, too – I have never used Laptopsdirect.ie but they seem to have an interesting list of refurbished Acer laptops, at very good rates. Worth a look, too.
There is no need to purchase Microsoft Office as you can use Google Drive and the various Google Apps, like Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides, for free once you have a gmail address (which would need to be set up and managed by an adult for under-13s).
Insurance?
Is it worth adding up to a third of the product price for insurance? Many places offer this at the check-out.
I would normally decline. I find that I am more careful with tech items that I don’t buy comprehensive insurance for. And if the worst comes to the worst… not having bought insurance for four or five items means that I can “afford” the next one to break – and if it doesn’t, I have made a profit, compared to buying insurance! Happy days!
