Laptop recommendations for child
Discussion
Hi everyone,
Last year I bought a laptop for my 9 year old son - he only uses Word on it to do essays and comprehensions for school.
The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 15 - it is a fairly basic one costing less than £300 but it is now crazily slow to boot up and I'm on the verge of sending it back if it wasn't for the fact that my son has exams coming up where he needs to use the laptop.
I've been recommended to look at refurbished laptops that are more portable and have a larger memory to cope with the Windows 10 updates that appear to be slowing the Dell down. Should I go ahead and get a new one or are there certain easy steps I can take to fix the one I have?
One thing that occurred to me was that we have three profiles on the Dell - mine and one each for my two sons. Does this use considerable memory and am I better off reducing the number of profiles?
Any thoughts / advice appreciated!
Last year I bought a laptop for my 9 year old son - he only uses Word on it to do essays and comprehensions for school.
The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 15 - it is a fairly basic one costing less than £300 but it is now crazily slow to boot up and I'm on the verge of sending it back if it wasn't for the fact that my son has exams coming up where he needs to use the laptop.
I've been recommended to look at refurbished laptops that are more portable and have a larger memory to cope with the Windows 10 updates that appear to be slowing the Dell down. Should I go ahead and get a new one or are there certain easy steps I can take to fix the one I have?
One thing that occurred to me was that we have three profiles on the Dell - mine and one each for my two sons. Does this use considerable memory and am I better off reducing the number of profiles?
Any thoughts / advice appreciated!
EdJ said:
Hi everyone,
Last year I bought a laptop for my 9 year old son - he only uses Word on it to do essays and comprehensions for school.
The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 15 - it is a fairly basic one costing less than £300 but it is now crazily slow to boot up and I'm on the verge of sending it back if it wasn't for the fact that my son has exams coming up where he needs to use the laptop.
I've been recommended to look at refurbished laptops that are more portable and have a larger memory to cope with the Windows 10 updates that appear to be slowing the Dell down. Should I go ahead and get a new one or are there certain easy steps I can take to fix the one I have?
One thing that occurred to me was that we have three profiles on the Dell - mine and one each for my two sons. Does this use considerable memory and am I better off reducing the number of profiles?
Any thoughts / advice appreciated!
Post up some specsLast year I bought a laptop for my 9 year old son - he only uses Word on it to do essays and comprehensions for school.
The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 15 - it is a fairly basic one costing less than £300 but it is now crazily slow to boot up and I'm on the verge of sending it back if it wasn't for the fact that my son has exams coming up where he needs to use the laptop.
I've been recommended to look at refurbished laptops that are more portable and have a larger memory to cope with the Windows 10 updates that appear to be slowing the Dell down. Should I go ahead and get a new one or are there certain easy steps I can take to fix the one I have?
One thing that occurred to me was that we have three profiles on the Dell - mine and one each for my two sons. Does this use considerable memory and am I better off reducing the number of profiles?
Any thoughts / advice appreciated!
Which processor?
How much RAM
HDD or SSD & size?
OS? WIn 7/10?
Profiles don't make much difference, an SSD will & 8GbB RAM is ok. Was it new?
Hi - thanks for replying - yes, it was new - I've copied the main spec below.
CN35301 1 Intel(R) Celeron(R) Processor N4000 (4M Cache, up to 2.6 GHz) 1 15.6-inch HD (1366 x 768) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display 1 LCD Back Cover for Non-Touch Screen - Black 1 Shipping Docs - English, French, German, Italian, Dutch 1 Intel(R) Celeron(TM) Processor Label 1 Placemat (English;French;German;Italian;Dutch) 1 4GB, DDR4, 2400MHz 1 500GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive 1 Tray load DVD Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD) 1 ODD Bazel, ODD bracket and ODD Cable 1 Cyberlink Software for Windows 8/10 without media 1 UK Power Cord 1 45 Watt AC Adapter 1 40 Whr, 4-Cell Battery(removable) 1 Intel UHD Graphics 600 with shared graphics memory 1 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1 1 Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard 1 Windows 10 Home 64bit English, Dutch, French, German, Italian 1 No Media 1 No Productivity Software 1 McAfee(R) 30day Trial 1 Dell 1810 Wireless Driver 1 Additional Software for Windows 10 1 McAfee LiveSafe Consumer 12 Month Subscription 1
CN35301 1 Intel(R) Celeron(R) Processor N4000 (4M Cache, up to 2.6 GHz) 1 15.6-inch HD (1366 x 768) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display 1 LCD Back Cover for Non-Touch Screen - Black 1 Shipping Docs - English, French, German, Italian, Dutch 1 Intel(R) Celeron(TM) Processor Label 1 Placemat (English;French;German;Italian;Dutch) 1 4GB, DDR4, 2400MHz 1 500GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive 1 Tray load DVD Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD) 1 ODD Bazel, ODD bracket and ODD Cable 1 Cyberlink Software for Windows 8/10 without media 1 UK Power Cord 1 45 Watt AC Adapter 1 40 Whr, 4-Cell Battery(removable) 1 Intel UHD Graphics 600 with shared graphics memory 1 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1 1 Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard 1 Windows 10 Home 64bit English, Dutch, French, German, Italian 1 No Media 1 No Productivity Software 1 McAfee(R) 30day Trial 1 Dell 1810 Wireless Driver 1 Additional Software for Windows 10 1 McAfee LiveSafe Consumer 12 Month Subscription 1
EdJ said:
Hi - thanks for replying - yes, it was new - I've copied the main spec below.
Intel(R) Celeron(R) Processor N4000 (4M Cache, up to 2.6 GHz)15.6-inch HD (1366 x 768) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display
4GB, DDR4, 2400MHz
500GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
Intel UHD Graphics 600 with shared graphics memory
802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz
Windows 10 Home 64bit English
That is rather a low spec laptop I must say. It's got a rather slow processor & not really enough RAM. How much of an issue is it to sell it off & buy somehing better?
Ah, interesting. I'm completely fine with buying a new one - I went for a basic spec because I didn't think he'd be using much processing power typing into Word.
What minimum spec would you recommend? Should I stick with Dell? And any recommendations on where to get it from? I need it quite quickly, and ideally with everything installed.
Thanks again.
What minimum spec would you recommend? Should I stick with Dell? And any recommendations on where to get it from? I need it quite quickly, and ideally with everything installed.
Thanks again.
Mr Pointy said:
Intel(R) Celeron(R) Processor N4000 (4M Cache, up to 2.6 GHz)
15.6-inch HD (1366 x 768) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display
4GB, DDR4, 2400MHz
500GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
Intel UHD Graphics 600 with shared graphics memory
802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz
Windows 10 Home 64bit English
That is rather a low spec laptop I must say. It's got a rather slow processor & not really enough RAM. How much of an issue is it to sell it off & buy somehing better?
An SSD and another 4GB of RAM and that would be ok for Word and web browsing. 15.6-inch HD (1366 x 768) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display
4GB, DDR4, 2400MHz
500GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
Intel UHD Graphics 600 with shared graphics memory
802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz
Windows 10 Home 64bit English
That is rather a low spec laptop I must say. It's got a rather slow processor & not really enough RAM. How much of an issue is it to sell it off & buy somehing better?
EdJ said:
Thanks for replies - very helpful. I'd probably prefer to get a new one - can you recommend the best place to purchase?
The last 7 machines I have purchased (over the last 10 years) have all come from the dell outlet site (whilst they say they are "reconditioned" most are cancelled orders) - get a pretty good discount and frequently have additional savings codes you can use. All except one (the mini 10 - ubuntu tiny laptop) are still in use.I'd always been happy with Dell in the past (I'm talking 20 years ago before I started buying Apple Macs for personal use), which was why I bought one for my son, but my experience has been so frustrating that I'm inclined to go elsewhere.
For example, another issue that my son always got frustrated with was the way he would get an alert every time he turned the laptop on saying that there was no firewall. This is despite having both the McAfee and Windows firewalls switched on previously.
For example, another issue that my son always got frustrated with was the way he would get an alert every time he turned the laptop on saying that there was no firewall. This is despite having both the McAfee and Windows firewalls switched on previously.
E34-3.2 said:
Very interested with this thread. I am in a similar situation with my 8 years old. Not sure if I go laptop or 2 in 1 maybe? I might get 2 as I need one as well. Tough to decide on the budget as I don't have a clue about prices for computers these days. Sorry OP to highjack!
Don't worry at all! I also am completely clueless. In the old days, I used to quite enjoy buying a machine and looking into the various different spec available, but I'm well out of touch now. EdJ said:
E34-3.2 said:
Very interested with this thread. I am in a similar situation with my 8 years old. Not sure if I go laptop or 2 in 1 maybe? I might get 2 as I need one as well. Tough to decide on the budget as I don't have a clue about prices for computers these days. Sorry OP to highjack!
Don't worry at all! I also am completely clueless. In the old days, I used to quite enjoy buying a machine and looking into the various different spec available, but I'm well out of touch now. What he though on Microsoft tablets? Don't they come with a keypad?
You probably could speed up the existing one by resetting it and only running one anti virus at a time, but it won't be worth upgrading the hardware. Three profiles won't make any difference.
You want at least an i3, with 8GB, and an SSD not a HDD.
Dell's stuff works, the Outlet is pretty good value. They often are just cancelled orders
https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/InventorySearc...
Amazon sell them really refurbished, an HP like this I bought last year is still going strong:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-EliteBook-14-inch-Ultr...
just search "refurbished laptop SSD"
You want at least an i3, with 8GB, and an SSD not a HDD.
Dell's stuff works, the Outlet is pretty good value. They often are just cancelled orders
https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/InventorySearc...
Amazon sell them really refurbished, an HP like this I bought last year is still going strong:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-EliteBook-14-inch-Ultr...
just search "refurbished laptop SSD"
CustardOnChips said:
Get a Chromebook.
I had a thread about it a few weeks ago.
Got a Lenovo one for my daughter and couldn't be happier with it.
Fast boot up, simple to set up. No hassle so far. Which is the complete opposite to the laptop my wife and (unfortunately) son uses.
What Chromebook to you recommend or lenovo? What is the difference?I had a thread about it a few weeks ago.
Got a Lenovo one for my daughter and couldn't be happier with it.
Fast boot up, simple to set up. No hassle so far. Which is the complete opposite to the laptop my wife and (unfortunately) son uses.
E34-3.2 said:
What Chromebook to you recommend or lenovo? What is the difference?
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-s340-14-intel-celeron-chromebook-64-gb-emmc-black-10194557-pdt.htmlThis is the one we bought. Although we got it for £199 in the August bank holiday sale.
CustardOnChips said:
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/la...
This is the one we bought. Although we got it for £199 in the August bank holiday sale.
So, you can easily do some homework or browse the internet with it I guess. I though Chromebook what another machine...d'oh. This is the one we bought. Although we got it for £199 in the August bank holiday sale.
I had a Dell a few years back when in Uni (say 2010 ish) with McAfee installed, it's awful software that's quite heavy on resources, and removing it made a surprising difference. It was also causing some annoying problem that I can't remember as it was so long ago which at the time was my motivation behind removing it. There's plenty of freely available antivirus software that's just as good if not better.
As said, the laptop isn't a great spec anyway but it's something to try. +1 on additional ram and an ssd too.
As said, the laptop isn't a great spec anyway but it's something to try. +1 on additional ram and an ssd too.
Edited by BenRichards89 on Thursday 12th September 19:22
E34-3.2 said:
So, you can easily do some homework or browse the internet with it I guess. I though Chromebook what another machine...d'oh.
Yes. It's a laptop with chrome operating system. It works with apps rather than having to install programs. Daughter uses office 365 without any issues. And obviously chrome web browse.
It has built in virus protection too.
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