Should I help my 13 year old buy his own macbook?

[Abbara]

Hey, I have another question, sorry about all of this, but would a rMBP be a better buy than a MBA?

Absolutely not.

Look, the MBA is already overpowered for a 13-year old who doesn't use it for work, as e.g. video editor or software developer, and who doesn't play games on it.

The Pro version is even more powerful. But it reduces the portability: thicker, heavier and less battery life.

So you're throwing away the things you want (a quick, portable laptop), for something you absolutely don't need (even more horsepower).

The $25 pi will run a version of Minecraft, but not the full game. It' a stripped down version for the ARM processor.

Obviously I'm not recommending to buy a RP Turns out he has a PS4 and another laptop for gaming. The point of that piece is to say that if a $25 machine can run a casual game, you really don't need to buy a 13 year old a machine that costs over $1300 in Canada for taking notes in school, checking wikipedia, facebook and youtube. Anyway maybe I'm

once you combine Windows with them, all bets are off.

Absolutely absurd. It may be you've bought crappy machines. Look the issue is that anyone can build a windows computer, so you get absolutely piece of ... computers on the market which is what gives it a poor reputation. Macs don't have that quality spectrum, it's all high end. But a properly built PC running windows will do absolutely fine. I mean it's fine to give your experiences, and I believe you. But anecdotal evidence is completely useless. It's not hard to find a Mac user who's had issues with the battery dying, the screen dying, the touchpad freezing, beachballing etc. That says nothing about Macs in general, and it'd be completely disingenuous to say that once you have a Mac all bets are off based on that users' experiences.

Especially a year, two years down the line

I mean hell are you seriously saying that if you put Windows on a MBA that within 1 or 2 years, the MBA goes to ****? It's a joke. And if you want to revert back and say 'but that's a MBA, it's not just about the OS but also about Apple's hardware' well guess what. Apple is known for having Apple-Intel-Samsung parts in it, the same parts that you find in many other non-Apple devices.

I mean I get it, Macs & OS X generally delivers a smooth and optimized and integrated experience. That's why I like Apple and I agree. But this notion that the moment Windows comes into play all bets are off... that say the new Dell 2015 or new Asus are crappy machines that won't reliably last 1-2 years, despite having much better specs and being cheaper and having nice aluminium unibody constructions that are thinner with more ports, with the same CPU, GPU, SSD etc parts that Apple uses from the same high-tech vendors like Intel, only the upgraded versions. Well let's just say that statements like that give Apple haters all the ammunition they want in calling us a silly cult haha.

Anyway seems like it's going to be the MBA. Good luck OP.

 

[sracer]

Having used it to take notes on for years, - it was great! Here's an example of one of the apps:

Image

The guys handwriting is kind of sloppy, but you get the point. It actually works very well, and you can even imbed audio/pics if needed.

I wish that you were as careful in your response as I was in my post. I didn't say that it was impossible. But the handwritten note capabilities of the iPad are not as good as it is with those devices that support an active stylus.

Handwritten notes using a capacitive stylus on the iPad is not a desirable scenario. Palm rejection is specific to a particular app and not system-wide. Accuracy is also something of a concern.

A Windows tablet such as a Dell Venue 8 Pro or Acer Aspire Switch 11 (both with an active digitizer) running OneNote would offer a better handwritten note experience than an iPad.

I would ask those who believe that the iPad is an acceptable solution for handwritten notes if they have had any extensive experience with a device that supports an active digitizer.

 

[motrek]

You realize the user is 13, and wants to take it to school for notes, right? Also, that they have a laptop already, and the macbook would simply replace it..? ...

When I was 13, my parents had luckily given me a real computer of my own. I taught myself how to program (along with a million other things) and was developing and selling my own shareware by that point. If I didn't have a real computer from a young age, I doubt I would have excelled at computer science and I probably wouldn't have had the career in software development that I've had so far. And my experience is not unique. Among software developers and people in IT professions in general, a favorite topic of conversation is which computers we grew up with.

Give a kid an iPad or make him share a computer with the rest of the family and you're basically closing him off from an entire skill set and possible career path.

 

[TheEpicGlitch]

When I was 13, my parents had luckily given me a real computer of my own. I taught myself how to program (along with a million other things) and was developing and selling my own shareware by that point. If I didn't have a real computer from a young age, I doubt I would have excelled at computer science and I probably wouldn't have had the career in software development that I've had so far. And my experience is not unique. Among software developers and people in IT professions in general, a favorite topic of conversation is which computers we grew up with.

Give a kid an iPad or make him share a computer with the rest of the family and you're basically closing him off from an entire skill set and possible career path.

You would not believe how many kids know nothing about computers due to the simplicity of some mobile devices, I have met many teens who think 3/4G data on their phones is some sort of city wide WiFi hotspot that their parents pay for, or who think wired internet users cannot access anything that WiFi users post. Its sad really.

 

[David58117]

I wish that you were as careful in your response as I was in my post. I didn't say that it was impossible. But the handwritten note capabilities of the iPad are not as good as it is with those devices that support an active stylus.

Handwritten notes using a capacitive stylus on the iPad is not a desirable scenario. Palm rejection is specific to a particular app and not system-wide. Accuracy is also something of a concern.

A Windows tablet such as a Dell Venue 8 Pro or Acer Aspire Switch 11 (both with an active digitizer) running OneNote would offer a better handwritten note experience than an iPad.

I would ask those who believe that the iPad is an acceptable solution for handwritten notes if they have had any extensive experience with a device that supports an active digitizer.

This isn't an "is an active stylus better than an in-active one" post.

This is - lets try and get something cheap for a kid who likes Apple products, so when it breaks at school we're not as disappointed, post.

Anyway, it's moot since it turns out he already has an iPad, just from a generation plagued with problems.

 

[SSD-GUY]

I haven't read all 4 pages of this thread, however, I tried to save some money and got a Microsoft surface (my thinking being that this would be the closest microsoft comes to designing their own "macbook" as they designed the OS on the surface as well as decided which hardware to put in etc)

Lo and behold, windows turned out to be a complete nightmare. Sooooo many updates, the slowness, the bugginess. I had so much space disappearing after updates for some reason.

Don't get me went the build quality was very very good. Even the type cover wasn't too bad, the touchpad however could be a bit larger.

I then went out and bought a 2nd hand MBA, and apart from a few battery issues which apple is dealing with, I couldn't be happier!

My point is, even if the MacBook Air costs a bit more, I would 100% go for it instead of a windows ultra book. As you already probably know, Macs also have really good resale values so it should hold a good price when you sell it in a few years

 

[Agent-P]

Lo and behold, windows turned out to be a complete nightmare. Sooooo many updates, the slowness, the bugginess. I had so much space disappearing after updates for some reason.

Something was wrong with your Windows install then. I owned a Surface Pro (first gen) for a while and never had any of those issues with Windows. Likewise, the Windows partition on my Mac doesn't have those issues either. It's definitely not normal and also not fair to generalise to all Windows devices. Just look through the OS X section of the forums. Based on that we should say all OS X devices will have issues too and no one should buy a Mac.