My 10 year old son has been asking my ex for a laptop for Christmas for the past year. She's considering getting him one but is turning to me for suggestions.
She inquired about Chromebooks and I'm not sure about those for a kid who is mostly going to look stuff up, watch youtube videos about minecraft and play games. I don't have any experience with Chromebooks and he already has a cheap off-brand Android tablet I got for him last year that cost me like $40 new. But it's really slow and not very responsive.
I'm considering suggesting a reconditioned 2009 white macbook, this model:
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP579?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Which they sell at a Microcenter nearby for $399. A little steep in price, especially for a machine that is now 5 year old. But personally I'm typing this on a late 2008 aluminum macbook that I've ben usng for years and is still going strong. But mine can support up to 8GB of ram which I have in it, this one only has 2GB (althought can be upgraded to 4GB).
There are cheaper, newer PC laptops that can be had, but OS X doesn't get viruses and has decent parental controls. Plus if she has a problem with it, she can walk it into a local Apple store or bring it to me.
Not she she'll want to spent that much though. Possibly. What would you recommend?
She inquired about Chromebooks and I'm not sure about those for a kid who is mostly going to look stuff up, watch youtube videos about minecraft and play games. I don't have any experience with Chromebooks and he already has a cheap off-brand Android tablet I got for him last year that cost me like $40 new. But it's really slow and not very responsive.
I'm considering suggesting a reconditioned 2009 white macbook, this model:
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP579?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Which they sell at a Microcenter nearby for $399. A little steep in price, especially for a machine that is now 5 year old. But personally I'm typing this on a late 2008 aluminum macbook that I've ben usng for years and is still going strong. But mine can support up to 8GB of ram which I have in it, this one only has 2GB (althought can be upgraded to 4GB).
There are cheaper, newer PC laptops that can be had, but OS X doesn't get viruses and has decent parental controls. Plus if she has a problem with it, she can walk it into a local Apple store or bring it to me.
Not she she'll want to spent that much though. Possibly. What would you recommend?
