Laptop for 15yr old

naughtysmurf

Yes, another which laptop thread

Within the next couple of days my 15yr old will be producing a Junior Cert result sheet with a string of A's on it :rolleyes:
Anyway I promised him a new laptop in exchange for a reasonably decent set of results but which brand & model?
Ideally want to keep the costs down as much as possible, we have only ever had Dell (two in the past) with no issues so leaning that way again

He tends to only use it for Facebook / YouTube, movie downloads, Netflix etc, he has said he prefers a laptop over a tablet

Any thoughts, including where to get, laptops direct / Curry's reviews are mixed

Thanks

madness98

naughtysmurf wrote: »

Yes, another which laptop thread

Within the next couple of days my 15yr old will be producing a Junior Cert result sheet with a string of A's on it :rolleyes:
Anyway I promised him a new laptop in exchange for a reasonably decent set of results but which brand & model?
Ideally want to keep the costs down as much as possible, we have only ever had Dell (two in the past) with no issues so leaning that way again

He tends to only use it for Facebook / YouTube, movie downloads, Netflix etc, he has said he prefers a laptop over a tablet

Any thoughts, including where to get, laptops direct / Curry's reviews are mixed

Thanks

In regards to brands, my preference is Asus, but Dell, HP, Toshiba and probably Samsung are all good.

It's more the specifications you have to look for, people will try to sell you gold when really what you're getting is rusty steel that they're trying to get rid of.

Here's a little guide when looking:

Processors: Intel i5 is the one you're looking for
Memory: 4Gb minimum, but 6Gb or 8Gb is more comon nowadays
Hard Drive: 500Gb minimum, but 750Gb is increasingly more comon

When you've got that bit figured out, just look for the cheapest, I would say you're going to have a minimum realistic spend of about €400 though, the next processor down is the Intel i3, it's okay, and really it probably would do the job, but you could keep a laptop with an Intel i5 a good bit longer

Torqay

madness98 wrote: »

When you've got that bit figured out, just look for the cheapest, I would say you're going to have a minimum realistic spend of about €400 though, the next processor down is the Intel i3, it's okay, and really it probably would do the job, but you could keep a laptop with an Intel i5 a good bit longer

Not nuch longer really, the preformance difference between a Core i3 and i5 is only about 20%. If you want "future proof", you'd get a Core i7 which easily doubles the processing power of a Core i5.

Any off-the-rails Core i3 laptop should suit the requirements just fine. I'd rather invest the saved money into a nice solid state drive (a 120 GB Samsung 840 Evo costs around 90 yoyos).

In the last few months I had to replace dozens of laptop hard drives, either people getting more careless or platter hard disks just become increasingly unreliable but there's definitely a trend.