Looking to buy 2 laptops for students - help.

[Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,240
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Basically our computer went for repair and as they weren't able to fix it they've given us £700 vouchers. Now both girls are students one is 14 other is nearly 16. So given that their work load isn't HUGE mainly gcse stuff and then a levels after but they love music so will download good amount of music and like films but usually watch it and then delete it So what would be a good spec from them and we are happy to add another £100 to the £700. They want macs for uni so these two laptops will get passed onto the other two kids who will be 13 and 12 when the girls are 18. Now the computer was from comet so I don't know where we can use the vouchers yet. Anyone know in advance?

Thanks.
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  • TheBigMTheBigM Posts: 13,125
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    The vouchers are likely to be only usable in comet.
  • psionicpsionic Posts: 20,188
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    The vouchers are likely to be worthless
    http://storage.comet.co.uk/www/splash/html/splash.html
  • mac2708mac2708 Posts: 3,349
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    TheBigM wrote: »
    The vouchers are likely to be only usable in comet.
    psionic wrote: »
    The vouchers are likely to be worthless
    http://storage.comet.co.uk/www/splash/html/splash.html

    Unless.......

    I bought an extended warranty with my goods, will this still be honoured?
    ExtraCare Service Plans and Extended Warranties are provided by a third party (The Warranty Group) and is unaffected by the Administration of Comet Group Limited. Your ExtraCare Service Plan will remain in full effect and will continue to provide protection for your product.
    http://storage.comet.co.uk/www/splash/html/questions.htm#4

    More details are needed from the OP
  • Alan FAlan F Posts: 1,043
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    There are plenty of laptops available in PC World, Tesco, Asda etc at £300-£350 which are totally suitable for students and even those at University.

    Unless you too subscribe to the theory that at Uni you must have a Mac to look 'cool' then I suggest that you take this opportunity to point out to them the considerable price difference between a suitable laptop and a Mac. If they remain un-convinced then suggest that you will contribute £350 towards the Mac provided that they have worked and saved the additional by the time they wish to 'upgrade'.
  • QuackersQuackers Posts: 4,830
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    pri wrote: »
    They want macs for uni so these two laptops will get passed onto the other two kids who will be 13 and 12 when the girls are 18.
    Thanks.

    Just for future reference, they will be eligible for educational discount so can get the macs cheaper once a uni student :)
  • LostFoolLostFool Posts: 90,623
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    Unless you are wanting to play high-end games, a £300-350 laptop is more than sufficient for student use.

    They may "want" Macs for University but assuming you as a parent will be paying for them I'd ask why they "need" one and why a normal laptop wouldn't be sufficient. You'd be better off looking at machines which were robust (they get knocked about a lot moving between lectures) and with a long battery life rather than helps them look cool.
  • QuackersQuackers Posts: 4,830
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    LostFool wrote: »
    Unless you are wanting to play high-end games, a £300-350 laptop is more than sufficient for student use.

    They may "want" Macs for University but assuming you as a parent will be paying for them I'd ask why they "need" one and why a normal laptop wouldn't be sufficient. You'd be better off looking at machines which were robust (they get knocked about a lot moving between lectures) and with a long battery life rather than helps them look cool.

    Like a Mac Book Air? Ultra light, really portable more suitable than a bulky Acer, Asus or HP for carrying around between lectures , upto 12 hour battery, and less susceptible to malware, so no phoning home after they have tried to download torrents riddle with nastys saying its broken, and holds its value more.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,240
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    Quackers wrote: »
    Just for future reference, they will be eligible for educational discount so can get the macs cheaper once a uni student :)

    Yeah I told them that that's why I've stopped them till uni as I took advantage of that twice when I was at uni.

    The vouchers are valid and will be coming through the post in the next few days as they did come to collect the pc to repair it few weeks ago but seems as they can't.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,240
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    £300-£400 is what I'm looking at for each of them but I'm no good with memory and hard drive etc as all I use my mac for now I've finished uni is my iTunes!
  • tealadytealady Posts: 26,262
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    Quackers wrote: »
    Like a Mac Book Air?
    It really depends what course they are on and what , if any, course software is required. A mac may not be the best choice as not all software will run on it or not easily run on it.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,240
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    tealady wrote: »
    It really depends what course they are on and what , if any, course software is required. A mac may not be the best choice as not all software will run on it or not easily run on it.

    That shouldn't be a problem as of now one wants to be a psychologist and another wants to be an astromoner
  • mac2708mac2708 Posts: 3,349
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    pri wrote: »

    The vouchers are valid and will be coming through the post in the next few days as they did come to collect the pc to repair it few weeks ago but seems as they can't.

    As a matter of interest have you found out yet where the vouchers can be used and was this an extended warranty?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3,240
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    We took out 5 years out to cover the pc when purchased and no we are yet to find out I'm thinking shall I phone them or just wait for the post as they said yesterday they'll be sending them out.
  • cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
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    tealady wrote: »
    It really depends what course they are on and what , if any, course software is required. A mac may not be the best choice as not all software will run on it or not easily run on it.

    That wouldn't be a problem as they could run Windows on their Macs either in a virtual machine like Parallels or VMware Fusion or by dual booting using Bootcamp. It also means that they could play Windows games if they were into gaming.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 6,940
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    Me and the OH just bought a new laptop for her daughter going to college.

    I'm sure she would have loved a MacBook Air.

    But.

    She ended up with a 15" quad core i7 Haswell MSI laptop (with full HD screen and dedicated GFX). It's an absolute beast. She's doing digital design and photography/video/animation etc so it's mainly about CPU grunt. (I should add, despite her reservation about it's size, she absolutely loves it now that shes actually using it)

    Her laptop cost £700.

    To get the closest MacBook Air would cost .... around £1400 before student discount and it would only be a dual core i7 processor. It also wouldn't be full HD.

    Not even close to being a contest.

    The MSI may be bigger, but it boots the Air six ways from Sunday in just about every category (certainly the important ones anyway). At half the price.

    For £800 you could pick up two perfectly decent mid-range laptops which would be fine for the OP's needs. Have a look on hotukdeals to get some ideas ....
  • LostFoolLostFool Posts: 90,623
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    Quackers wrote: »
    Like a Mac Book Air? Ultra light, really portable more suitable than a bulky Acer, Asus or HP for carrying around between lectures , upto 12 hour battery, and less susceptible to malware, so no phoning home after they have tried to download torrents riddle with nastys saying its broken, and holds its value more.

    Ask them if they want a Mac Book Air which costs over £1000 or a lightweight laptop for £400 and the difference in cash. ;)
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 591
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    Quackers wrote: »
    Like a Mac Book Air? Ultra light, really portable more suitable than a bulky Acer, Asus or HP for carrying around between lectures , upto 12 hour battery, and less susceptible to malware, so no phoning home after they have tried to download torrents riddle with nastys saying its broken, and holds its value more.

    Yeah this. The PC laptop will be in the landfill within 2 years - a Mac looked after will give at least 5 or 6 years use, and even for parts it's valuable - and recycleable aluminium.
  • kazzabeeekazzabeee Posts: 529
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    If I was in the same boat I would offer them £350 then tell them to get part time jobs to pay for the remainder. Kids are spoilt rotten these days and it won't kill them to go out and work to save up. They would probably look after them better if they've had to work to pay for them!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 6,940
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    The PC laptop will be in the landfill within 2 years

    No pun intended ..... but thats total garbage.

    The MSI will last her through the next two college courses (5 years worth) no problem.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 591
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    sancheeez wrote: »
    No pun intended ..... but thats total garbage.

    The MSI will last her through the next two college courses (5 years worth) no problem.

    We'll see - don't lose that guarantee! ;)
  • cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
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    Yeah this. The PC laptop will be in the landfill within 2 years - a Mac looked after will give at least 5 or 6 years use, and even for parts it's valuable - and recycleable aluminium.

    If it's an el cheapo pile of dung from PC World then it probably will be in the scrapheap pretty quick. If it's a more expensive laptop then maybe not but it depends on the user and the quality of the machine. My 3 year old Macbook Pro is still going strong and I will continue to use it until it snuffs it. Nothing has broken on it and it looks good apart from a few scratches near the trackpad which are caused by my jewellery :o It could do with some cleaning though but that's because I eat near it :p
  • tealadytealady Posts: 26,262
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    That wouldn't be a problem as they could run Windows on their Macs either in a virtual machine like Parallels or VMware Fusion or by dual booting using Bootcamp. It also means that they could play Windows games if they were into gaming.
    Not everyone is technical or wants the hassle of that.
  • cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
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    tealady wrote: »
    Not everyone is technical or wants the hassle of that.

    It's not as difficult as it sounds. I did it and dual booting Windows is as easy as going to Boot Camp Assistant, following the instructions on the screen and sitting around waiting for a couple of hours while Windows installs :D Not sure how easy Parallels or VMware are to use as I've never used either of them.
  • s2ks2k Posts: 7,410
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    is as easy as going to Boot Camp Assistant, following the instructions on the screen and sitting around waiting for a couple of hours while Windows installs :D.
    Or if its anything like my last case have it lock up on the 3rd reboot and knacker the bootloader completely. Apparently a common fault caused by a batch of drives with bad firmware or something...Widely documented online but Apple wont budge and blame it on an unsupported OS even though it's actually their software that causes the fault.

    (Just to throw a dampener on the whole macs being more reliable nonsense.)
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 6,940
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    Spend twice the money on a less powerful machine then hack it to run Windows anyway.

    That sound REALLY smart.....
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