Laptop for 12 year old?

spaceboy

Looking for a laptop for my daughter, I've been promising to buy one for a few weeks now but can't decide what to buy. Had a look in Costco and she liked the look of the Asus Zenbook 14 inch i5 but it's £780.

jamesd

Does she have one now, if so, what are the problems with it?

What does she expect to use it for? If she's playing first-person shooter games over an internet connection live with other players and at high screen resolution the desired features can be very different from general productivity and email.

Do you object to second hand computers? There's often a substantial cost saving and some quite recent models can be available.

You can also buy direct from the returns of some places, including some makers and Amazon, and get nearly new with minor to major but specified in the description issues.

If budget allows you'll find that people here are likely to suggest that for performance reasons it's nice to get at least 8 gigabytes of RAM and an SSD rather than spinning hard drive.

spaceboy

She'll be using it for school work, Roblox, YouTube, minecraft. She doesn't have a laptop at the moment. If it was for me I'd be happy with a returns one but I think she'd prefer new.

OnlyTheBestWillDo

spaceboy said:

She'll be using it for school work, Roblox, YouTube, minecraft. She doesn't have a laptop at the moment. If it was for me I'd be happy with a returns one but I think she'd prefer new.

How would she know the difference?? The 'return' will look exactly the same, once you remove it from the box. You'll be paying hundreds of pounds for a box.

For example, this one has an 11th Gen i7 as opposed to i5. 16 GB of RAM as compared to 8 GB. A 4k Touchscreen, as compared to run of the mill Full HD, double the storage capacity...and it is £120 less.  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Inspiron-13-7000-7306-4-7-11th-gen-i7-512GB-SSD-16GB-13-3-UHD-2-in-1-4K-/353475282040

Something closer in design to the ASUS, but still higher spec; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-Inspiron-14-7400-11th-gen-i7-4-7ghz-8GB-512GB-SSD-14-5-QHD-2560x1600-S-D-/353604247572 £520
But it has "a faint scratch on the lid".

If new, DELL Outlet has the above New and Unused for £652 minus the 10% new customer discount. 

Better you come up with an exact model of ASUS for comparison.

spaceboy

OnlyTheBestWillDo said:

spaceboy said:

She'll be using it for school work, Roblox, YouTube, minecraft. She doesn't have a laptop at the moment. If it was for me I'd be happy with a returns one but I think she'd prefer new.

How would she know the difference?? The 'return' will look exactly the same, once you remove it from the box. You'll be paying hundreds of pounds for a box.

For example, this one has an 11th Gen i7 as opposed to i5. 16 GB of RAM as compared to 8 GB. A 4k screen, as compared to run of the mill Full HD, double the storage capacity...and it is £120 less.  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Inspiron-13-7000-7306-4-7-11th-gen-i7-512GB-SSD-16GB-13-3-UHD-2-in-1-4K-/353475282040

Fair point. Is 4k screen necessary?

Was going to buy one from a shop, that's the problem. Also around £500 would be better.

spaceboy

Looks like I'm best to order online, it's cheaper. I made a mistake promising we'd buy one this weekend!

spaceboy

OnlyTheBestWillDo said:

spaceboy said:

She'll be using it for school work, Roblox, YouTube, minecraft. She doesn't have a laptop at the moment. If it was for me I'd be happy with a returns one but I think she'd prefer new.

Better you come up with an exact model of ASUS for comparison.

The exact model at Costco is:

https://uk.store.asus.com/asus-zenbook-14-ux425-ux425ja-variation-bm191t-ux425ja-variation-bm191t.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&utm_adgroup=&utm_content=541665533913&utm_term=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwssyJBhDXARIsAK98ITRVH9Nig0No96VN_py30S3RzRX_tr1VYbA2Z7l0WJdriQhG9Ug4t9waAvETEALw_wcB

Cheaper on the Asus website there.

I've seen this one at Curries it's an i3 with a smaller hard drive for £470:

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/asus-zenbook-ux425ja-14-laptop-intel-core-i3-256-gb-ssd-grey-10208138-pdt.html?istCompanyId=bec25c7e-cbcd-460d-81d5-a25372d2e3d7&istFeedId=4d7eb93e-055f-499d-8ee5-1cdcc50d67d1&istItemId=ilrltarqq&istBid=tztx&srcid=198&cmpid=ppc~gg~1011+(Shopping+Ads)+Laptops+-+Top+SKUs+Generic~wk18~Exact&mctag=gg_goog_7904&kwid=GOOGLE&device=m&ds_kids=92700066071249461&tgtid=1011+(Shopping+Ads)+Laptops+-+Top+SKUs+Generic&gclid=Cj0KCQjwssyJBhDXARIsAK98ITSSPEs6ewFHnF1uQv5NQgaTt9-wYBArLZ6pW9_lYqKGCJtPFXau5ToaAgsZEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

OnlyTheBestWillDo

spaceboy said:

OnlyTheBestWillDo said:

spaceboy said:

She'll be using it for school work, Roblox, YouTube, minecraft. She doesn't have a laptop at the moment. If it was for me I'd be happy with a returns one but I think she'd prefer new.

How would she know the difference?? The 'return' will look exactly the same, once you remove it from the box. You'll be paying hundreds of pounds for a box.

For example, this one has an 11th Gen i7 as opposed to i5. 16 GB of RAM as compared to 8 GB. A 4k screen, as compared to run of the mill Full HD, double the storage capacity...and it is £120 less.  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Inspiron-13-7000-7306-4-7-11th-gen-i7-512GB-SSD-16GB-13-3-UHD-2-in-1-4K-/353475282040

Fair point. Is 4k screen necessary?

Was going to buy one from a shop, that's the problem. Also around £500 would be better.

4k screen is a nice to have; not a necessity. Probably better to have a good quality Full HD+ screen with good brightness and colour reproduction.
I'm sure £500 is more than enough.

Ibrahim5

My kids went all the way through their teenage years and University with a desktop and a mobile phone. They always said laptops were unnecessary. One son had one for a while which was given to him by University. He spilled a cup of tea on the keyboard. It was out of action for weeks while he waited for it to dry and then took it to the IT dept but it couldn't be repaired so he went back to his desktop. The other son spilled a cup of tea on his desktop keyboard. I sent him a link to a new keyboard on Amazon and he ordered it through his Prime account. It arrived the next day and so it was only out of action for a few hours.. I just know families who seem to spend a fortune on laptops. They seem to buy one every couple of years. With a desktop you just replace the parts you need so the overall spend is much less than a laptop. I know at University mine hosted cinema nights in their student rooms. Their desktops had large screens and quality audio while the rest of the students just had rubbish laptops.

[Deleted User]

Ibrahim5 said:

I just know families who seem to spend a fortune on laptops. They seem to buy one every couple of years. 

A father of one of those families here!

This is definitely worth considering when buying a laptop for 12 year olds. When my kids were younger than that age, we had 3 Dell desktop PC's set up on a bench internet cafe style, they were salvaged from my work place. None of them ever broke, they were just simply replaced years later due to being too slow / low spec.

Also a desktop PC can be better at providing boundaries about when it is used - ie not using them in bed when they are supposed to be going to sleep and then waking up to find said laptop fell on the floor during the night.

At high school age is when the laptop era started, the kids had many accidents with them. I mostly bought second hand refurbs and I'm handy at repairing computers, but the number of laptops we have gone through during the teen years is in double figures.

One Christmas all 4 kids got a brand new Lenovo Flex - they were the shortest lived laptops I ever bought and I swore never to buy new and fancy ones until they grew up a bit more.- life ranging from 6 months to 2 years before all were broken

If I was to go back in time and be buying laptops for my 12 years old kids again I would be getting a 2nd hand / refurb and also looking at a robust model rather than the fancy thin and lightweight ones, for example from the business line of Dell / Lenovo - there a plenty of ex-business laptops on sale as refurbs and will have a decent specification.

But then again your 12 year old might not be like my zoo animal kids and take proper care of their laptop, but worth thinking about this advice.

spaceboy

[Deleted User] said:

Ibrahim5 said:

I just know families who seem to spend a fortune on laptops. They seem to buy one every couple of years. 

A father of one of those families here!

This is definitely worth considering when buying a laptop for 12 year olds. When my kids were younger than that age, we had 3 Dell desktop PC's set up on a bench internet cafe style, they were salvaged from my work place. None of them ever broke, they were just simply replaced years later due to being too slow / low spec.

Also a desktop PC can be better at providing boundaries about when it is used - ie not using them in bed when they are supposed to be going to sleep and then waking up to find said laptop fell on the floor during the night.

At high school age is when the laptop era started, the kids had many accidents with them. I mostly bought second hand refurbs and I'm handy at repairing computers, but the number of laptops we have gone through during the teen years is in double figures.

One Christmas all 4 kids got a brand new Lenovo Flex - they were the shortest lived laptops I ever bought and I swore never to buy new and fancy ones until they grew up a bit more.- life ranging from 6 months to 2 years before all were broken

If I was to go back in time and be buying laptops for my 12 years old kids again I would be getting a 2nd hand / refurb and also looking at a robust model rather than the fancy thin and lightweight ones, for example from the business line of Dell / Lenovo - there a plenty of ex-business laptops on sale as refurbs and will have a decent specification.

But then again your 12 year old might not be like my zoo animal kids and take proper care of their laptop, but worth thinking about this advice.

Thanks. That does seem like good advice. I personally have always had desktops, I've never felt the need to own a laptop. Their mum has had laptops in the past. We are separated though so I guess a laptop is easier for transporting between households. You reasoning for desktops is sound though, imo.