Help requiredaptop for sons birthday - which one of these please

BritBrat

Ask if a desktop would be OK.

You will get a better deal with a desktop and it has more chance of playing the games.

May cost a bit more but will last twice as long.

Laptop is OK for internet access and word processing and not much good for gaming.

amonra

We had a similar discussion recently on laptops for kids.
Why on earth does a 10 yr old need a laptop ? He is going to drop it, spill coke over it, lend it to his mate who will do further damage to it, leave it on the bus....... The mind boggles.

chuckley

more to the point y r u buyin a laptop for a 10 year old?! if its just got 'miniclip games' cant u allow him x amount of time access per day/week on the home computer?!

Mobeer

Integrated graphics in a laptop will run games using 2d graphics perfectly well, even the latest ones. It's only with 3d graphics that integrated graphics struggle and only expensive laptops with separate graphics cards are needed.

Hizz

Taken oboard the comments. Thankyou.

I have been around several PC shops earlier today and from what I have seen, the best I can find for him around the £350 mark is this package. I'd appreciate comments or preferbaly suggestions as to where I may be able to get this (or something even better!) for a cheaper price.

It's his birthday next week:-

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1914353266.1203780187@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccceadedgfekfedcflgceggdhhmdfhk.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=974577&category_oid=-27735

Hizz

Bump for help on my last post, as I'll have to go and get a PC on Sunday morning. Help!

opportunity_cost

If you really want to get the best value for money, you gotta buy online. I'd go with the £349 Inspiron 530 on Dell's website. You get a Core 2 Duo, 2GB of memory and a system that won't need much upgrading in the foreseeable future (maybe a graphics card for playing the latest games but that's about it).

rdpro

That dell has poor upgradeability with only a 300W PSU - a decent graphics card would probably render the entire pc unstable.

opportunity_cost

rdpro, come on, that's not what you call 'poor upgradeability'. :rolleyes: If a future video card needed more power (which is by no means a definite), the OP could fit a new PSU inexpensively. Problem solved. You wanna worry about the upgradeability of the core components (motherboard, processor, memory). Those are just fine.