Macbook Air for a 9 year old...Man-maths critique pls..
Discussion
I have a 9 year old Son that likes to do basic coding on Scratch, basic 3D drawings in Sketch-Up and generally fart about playing Minecraft and Roblox (albeit he does that on his XB1). He uses Office and supervised internet for homework.
He's had a £150 cheap as chips Chinese laptop (now dead after 3 years) and a second hand 12+ year old iMac I bought for £100 from eBay which died in lockdown after 2 years of use - looks like the logic board is buggered.
For Christmas he'd like (and I'd prefer he had rather than use my Mac and PC) a new laptop. Based on his usage right now, a Chromebook would suffice however my 10" MBA is still going strong after 9 years of solid (ab)use and so I wonder if the man-maths of buying him his own MBA would make sense.
Decent Chromebooks are circa £350 and that would probably fit the bill for him until he's in High School. A new MBA with an M1 chip is £899, so not chump change but he's very careful with his gadgets and definitely is on the geeky side of things and I expect he will get good use out of it. If it were to last 9 years, he'd either be heading to higher education or have entered the workplace and so would likely want something a bit more current by then or be able to buy his own.
Spending £500 - £800 on a Windows laptop feels like throwing good money after bad so I'm wondering about this MBA idea...
Anyone think I'm mad / done the same / have experience with a Chromebook for this usecase?
Ta.
He's had a £150 cheap as chips Chinese laptop (now dead after 3 years) and a second hand 12+ year old iMac I bought for £100 from eBay which died in lockdown after 2 years of use - looks like the logic board is buggered.
For Christmas he'd like (and I'd prefer he had rather than use my Mac and PC) a new laptop. Based on his usage right now, a Chromebook would suffice however my 10" MBA is still going strong after 9 years of solid (ab)use and so I wonder if the man-maths of buying him his own MBA would make sense.
Decent Chromebooks are circa £350 and that would probably fit the bill for him until he's in High School. A new MBA with an M1 chip is £899, so not chump change but he's very careful with his gadgets and definitely is on the geeky side of things and I expect he will get good use out of it. If it were to last 9 years, he'd either be heading to higher education or have entered the workplace and so would likely want something a bit more current by then or be able to buy his own.
Spending £500 - £800 on a Windows laptop feels like throwing good money after bad so I'm wondering about this MBA idea...
Anyone think I'm mad / done the same / have experience with a Chromebook for this usecase?
Ta.
If it helps, you could save a little more and get an Apple Refurbished MBA for £849 (I'm assuming that £899 is either not from Apple direct, or is using education store pricing?).
Or you can take the risk for another £25 off by buying from OnBuy.com
Or you can take the risk for another £25 off by buying from OnBuy.com
Thanks - noticed the refurb £850 option after posting. The £899 is Currys PC World (not sure if same spec as the £850 refurb / £999 full price direct from Apple.
This might be moot now as I’ve just come back in from the office and he’s said he wants a Windows laptop - as he preferred his cheap laptop compared to his iMac…
£400 on a Dell, anyone?
This might be moot now as I’ve just come back in from the office and he’s said he wants a Windows laptop - as he preferred his cheap laptop compared to his iMac…
£400 on a Dell, anyone?
mmm-five said:
If it helps, you could save a little more and get an Apple Refurbished MBA for £849 (I'm assuming that £899 is either not from Apple direct, or is using education store pricing?).
Or you can take the risk for another £25 off by buying from OnBuy.com
How is that a risk?Or you can take the risk for another £25 off by buying from OnBuy.com
Sebo said:
Anyone think I'm mad / done the same / have experience with a Chromebook for this usecase?
All my family's phones are Android as is my tablet.All the laptops are Windows except for one Chromebase which doesn't get used much these days. The kids stopped using it as it didn't support all of their school apps at the time.
I also find it a bit of PITA as it's a bit different from Windows and I struggle to remember the various workarounds. TBH I find the same on my tablet so I always go back to Windows for anything remotely complex.
Personally, I don't get all the "problems" you're supposed to get with Windows. I'm not a techie but I have to look after all the laptops and they just.....err.....work.
I also don't understand why Apple products seem to be so much more expensive than their Windows equivalents BUT if you're familiar with iOS there's a lot to be said for just sticking with that.
Due to work kit a couple of places where I worked, at one point I had to tackle iOS because of various Apple phones and tablets - aaaaaaargh! It was a massive PITA to have to work with a 3rd OS and another ecoystem.
If you like your Apple stuff, I'd suggest you stick with that. £900 seems like a huge amount to me but if it's for 9 year, fair do's.
I've never used a mac so got no clue about them but wondered is it better for kids to be "brought up" on a windows OS? More likely to use it in a future life maybe? Or are they standard in schools etc now?
If he really wants to learn a bit then maybe something that can dual boot and linux os?
This looks really interesting too, not out yet for us https://frame.work/
If he really wants to learn a bit then maybe something that can dual boot and linux os?
This looks really interesting too, not out yet for us https://frame.work/
Chromebooks are fine for a limited set if tasks but in my experience quickly become quite irritating. I sat on mine (accidentally!) and replaced it with a second hand MacBook Air - £400 will get you a 2017 model in good shape with plenty of life left in it. It doesn't feel old or slow, although it's not the best screen.
Type R Tom said:
I've never used a mac so got no clue about them but wondered is it better for kids to be "brought up" on a windows OS? More likely to use it in a future life maybe? Or are they standard in schools etc now?
ALL of my media friends are 100% Apple - phones, tablets, laptops, etc.Nobody else I know uses Apple the PC side of things.
I've never seen anything Apple in either of my kids' schools.
Their stuff has been generally Windows friendly/Windows centric and sometimes unusable from Chromebooks which is kills them for my family.
If he's got a .sch.uk so you can access www.theedustore.co.uk or you know anyone with Costco membership, you can get an MBA down to £830....
Sebo said:
I have a 9 year old Son that likes to do basic coding on Scratch, basic 3D drawings in Sketch-Up and generally fart about playing Minecraft and Roblox (albeit he does that on his XB1). He uses Office and supervised internet for homework.
Coding Roblox and Unity are next. Can he do those on Mac? Roblox I think is yes, ...Unity looks OK? it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)#...
AC43 said:
All my family's phones are Android as is my tablet.
All the laptops are Windows except for one Chromebase which doesn't get used much these days. The kids stopped using it as it didn't support all of their school apps at the time.
I also find it a bit of PITA as it's a bit different from Windows and I struggle to remember the various workarounds. TBH I find the same on my tablet so I always go back to Windows for anything remotely complex.
Personally, I don't get all the "problems" you're supposed to get with Windows. I'm not a techie but I have to look after all the laptops and they just.....err.....work.
I also don't understand why Apple products seem to be so much more expensive than their Windows equivalents BUT if you're familiar with iOS there's a lot to be said for just sticking with that.
Due to work kit a couple of places where I worked, at one point I had to tackle iOS because of various Apple phones and tablets - aaaaaaargh! It was a massive PITA to have to work with a 3rd OS and another ecoystem.
If you like your Apple stuff, I'd suggest you stick with that. £900 seems like a huge amount to me but if it's for 9 year, fair do's.
MacOS is not (yet) iOS.All the laptops are Windows except for one Chromebase which doesn't get used much these days. The kids stopped using it as it didn't support all of their school apps at the time.
I also find it a bit of PITA as it's a bit different from Windows and I struggle to remember the various workarounds. TBH I find the same on my tablet so I always go back to Windows for anything remotely complex.
Personally, I don't get all the "problems" you're supposed to get with Windows. I'm not a techie but I have to look after all the laptops and they just.....err.....work.
I also don't understand why Apple products seem to be so much more expensive than their Windows equivalents BUT if you're familiar with iOS there's a lot to be said for just sticking with that.
Due to work kit a couple of places where I worked, at one point I had to tackle iOS because of various Apple phones and tablets - aaaaaaargh! It was a massive PITA to have to work with a 3rd OS and another ecoystem.
If you like your Apple stuff, I'd suggest you stick with that. £900 seems like a huge amount to me but if it's for 9 year, fair do's.
People pay for what they believe is a premium product (think Dyson, GHD, Loewe, etc.). I've got both Windows and Mac PCs and despite the initial cost difference (double in most cases) the cost per year of usage works out about the same...and I usually get more back for the Mac when I do upgrade one of my 2 Macs (about every 5 years). The Windows PCs I just upgrade (if possible) after the same period.
grumbledoak said:
Sebo said:
I have a 9 year old Son that likes to do basic coding on Scratch, basic 3D drawings in Sketch-Up and generally fart about playing Minecraft and Roblox (albeit he does that on his XB1). He uses Office and supervised internet for homework.
Coding Roblox and Unity are next. Can he do those on Mac? Roblox I think is yes, ...I think that’s the direction he’s headed tbh and he seems pretty set on Windows now which is ok with me from a home desktop support point of view. I just need to gauge what the right price point to spend that he can get a Wintel laptop that isn’t a lemon.
Thanks others for feedback and suggestions too.
The initial thoughts on a Mac was because he knows how to use them and I seemed to spend less time supporting him when he had his iMac than his Windows laptop - there again he was younger then and I think it was running an Atom processor and 32GB SSD before the OS was loaded….
Surely the answer is I get him an Alienware RGB’d up to the eyeballs laptop… /jokes
hstewie said:Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff