If your child is approaching an age where more and more school work is leading to them stealing your laptop for the evening, you may be considering purchasing their first laptop of their own. While this should be a simple task, it often feels like there is too much choice on the market today. Making it a confusing endeavor. Luckily it doesn’t have to be complicated.
What Do I Need?
Most basic laptops will be sufficient to support a child up to high school age in their studies. They will require the ability to browse the internet in order to conduct research and submit work, they also require word processing abilities (which can be done via various software such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs). Aside from this, there aren’t really any other pre – requisites of a machine, unless your child plans to use it for other purposes such as gaming, which will require a much higher specification of computer.
With that in mind you can consider most basic laptops. 4 GB of RAM would probably suffice, however, if you want to avoid upgrading as they progress more at school, you might think about purchasing an 8 GB model instead.
You also want to consider if your child needs to stream a lot of educational content as part of their education, because if they do, then you may want something with a slightly faster processor. If they are watching this kind of content as part of their studies, then you also want to ensure you have a good standard of internet connection with a minimum of broadband to avoid interruptions when streaming video media. Much of the time people will blame devices for videos buffering, but it’s often their internet connection quality.
Seek Advice
If you are still lost in a sea of gigabytes and terabytes, then the best thing you can do is speak to a professional. Lenovo have a great online chat feature where you can ask questions and advice on which machine is going to be the most suitable for your child. They have a big range of laptops for school, so be sure to read reviews and speak to your child about which model would suit them best.
Stay Safe
In addition to the hardware, you want to ensure that your child is safe online. Purchasing a good anti-virus / malware software will ensure your information is protected, but in addition to this, be sure to use the parental controls on the device to make sure that you have some supervision of the kinds of websites your child is able to access.
Summary
In general, buying laptops for school doesn’t have to be as confusing as it first may seem. A laptop for a younger student can be pretty basic as even cheaper machines have good general functionality. However, if your child is at college and studying something specific such as computer science, graphic design or video production, then the chances are you will need to purchase a higher spec computer in order to keep up with their needs as they progress through their studies.
Always seek advice if you are unsure; this will save disappointment down the road.
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