Laptop for 12 year old son under £350?

nottseagull

quiffsmum wrote: »

...so he can purchase a laptop for school and social use on the internet.

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

I would suggest a desktop

How would you suggest he gets it to and from school?

quiffsmum

Thanks guys. will show my DH what you suggest.

swvillafan

nottseagull wrote: »

How would you suggest he gets it to and from school?

How about something like this:-

Donnie

quiffsmum wrote: »

Thanks guys. will show my DH what you suggest.

Here is a YouTube HD video showing aspects of the MSI CR610.

Though the one offered by Argos has an extra GB of RAM, 4GB as opposed to 3GB.

TwistedPsycho

nottseagull wrote: »

How would you suggest he gets it to and from school?

Why would any kid need a laptop at school aged 12?
Its asking to be stolen, broken and covered in cooties.

Donnie

TwistedPsycho wrote: »

Why would any kid need a laptop at school aged 12?
Its asking to be stolen, broken and covered in cooties.

They probably mean school work.

GunJack

Cooties ????

terahurts

Lil306 wrote: »

Whilst the choice of sites to save money is useful, netbooks are not.

My opinion but netbooks are nothing but underpowered pieces of crap

You can get laptops for around £300 with a decent speak

Also try eBay, I got my laptop for £100 on there, does the job

Netbooks are great if you aren't doing any serious work on them, my daughter saved her EMA and treated herself to an Acer last year and she's hardly without it. it small enough to fit in her bag (and locker) when she needs to take it to collage and will (just about) run The Sims2 or play avi/mpg's for those boring car and bus journeys. Not much cop when being used for Facebook games though I blame flash for that.

For brands I'd say

IBM
Acer
Dell

In that order. I've got an ancient ebay IBM T41 that still holds its own for most things and I'm pretty sure it's going to outlive me, given the amount of times it's been dropped, had stuff spilt on it and stuffed at the bottom of a suitcase for extended periods of time.

Having said all that, a lot depends on what he's going to be using it for. I told my parents I needed a Commodore64 for "homework, honest!" and then spent the next five or six years shooting aliens in their 8-bit faces......

School work and chatting to friends on MSN, and pretty much any sub-£350 laptop will do, most come pre-installed with MS Works or similar and Open Office is a free download if they don't.

I can't comment on one that would be suitable for playing games as well, although the MSI above is pretty much identical in specification to my brother-in-law's and that will play The Sims 3 without a problem, don't know how it would cope with something like Call of Duty4 though, not that I'd recommend letting a 12yr old boy play CoD in the first place.....

Esqui

GunJack wrote: »

Cooties ????

Girls have them, I'm told

Aiadi

Lil306 wrote: »

My opinion but netbooks are nothing but underpowered pieces of crap

How is something running Windows 7 Home Premium for 4 hours on battery connected to the internet whilst on the move, playing my music and using MS office 2010 with skype in between all at the same time and weighing less than 1.3kg underpowered?