My son (12) has been saving up to buy himself a laptop. The plan was to buy a reconditioned one. We are going to call into DRT on Saturday as we know they have some around £160. Somebody has suggested we look at a Netbook instead which are from around £200 new. He will be using it in the house via wifi and will largely be on the internet and doing school work. Can anybody advise would one of these netbooks be ok? Or are we better with him sticking to a laptop? Any advice would be appreciated
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
A lot will depend on if he has a lot of school work that needs a computer or not. My grandson found he needed to upgrade to a laptop when he started his GCSE studies.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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I think i am leaning towards a laptop Jan. I think the extra memory and speed would make a big difference. I know people on the site here have spoken well of DRT in the past so i think we will pay them a visit Saturday.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Paul I think the laptop is the thing. I have a daughter who is into all this stuff...I dont have a laptop myself, Ive never had one, so from my own personal standpoint I dont know much, but she swears by the full laptop for the sheer performance levels it delivers and as I always end up with the bill I have a feeling she gets the best ones!!lol Very recently she has prized a Dell out of my wallet saying her previous one, a Hewlett Packard, overheats...and to tell the truth it does. You could boil water on it.
She being a student at university the things get a fair bit of punishment though..
Guest 656- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,262
Paul, Briony's laptop that her Dad mentions above is absolutely excellent, its an Inspiron Duo, worth having a look at the website. I have a Fujitsu that I certainly wouldn't recommend and the Hewlett Packard one was a nightmare. The Acer laptop is a good starter one for your son and is very reasonably priced. Good luck with it all
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
not an expert in such matters, but from what i have read about netbooks they seem very limited compared to laptops.
i would certainly recommend d.r.t. they always give out excellent advice.
Thanks all, thats certainly our job for Saturday, he has saved up himself, bless him, so is really looking forward to getting one.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
A message from my grandson, if he wants to play computer games on it make sure he gets a good graphics card.
The information was a lot more detailed, I got lost in the middle
, but I think that is what he was saying.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Only use a laptop net books do not always come with windows most net books come with a program called Linux and are no good on the net. David at DRT is very good but if you are in Canterbury at the side of Argos call and see Steve at bio tec nicks he is excellent, lap tops starting from around £100 with disk drive and Internet ready and at least 3 to 6 months warranty on a good second hand one and for £150 to £175 you will most likely get windows 7 plus you can see them working. they are in the phone book. just one more thing if you go to DRT make sure you get David and not the young kid who knows nothing about computers.And if he is going to play games you must have at lest 2.8GHz to 3Ghz processor and a good GFX card but thats were you start spending money and do not for get Lap tops are not up upgradeable like desktops.
My Netbook does absolutely everything required of it. I have done many documents without problems and have no problem finding whatever I want on t'internet. However, the screen is small and depending what he wants to do with it this could limit him. For example some games cannot be played.
I would have thought that it would make more sense to buy a new netbook than a recon laptop.
My Netbook does absolutely everything required of it. I have done many documents without problems and have no problem finding whatever I want on t'internet. However, the screen is small and depending what he wants to do with it this could limit him. For example some games cannot be played.
I would have thought that it would make more sense to buy a new netbook than a recon laptop.
Guest 662- Registered: 18 Mar 2008
- Posts: 325
Fully recommend Dot Com Dave at DRT. Wouldnt recommend a Netbook for Schoolwork though, we had to upgrade to a laptop for our daughter
Thanks everybody again for your advice, we went to Biotecnics in Canterbury this morning and he got himself a IBM laptop for £145, the service and assistance was excellant and he is a happy young man
