To think that a 12 year old should NOT have a MacBook

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It's her birthday soon and she will be 13 all she wants is a MacBook I've said she can have a Windows laptop... It's only for farting around on, what's the point?

Wow lots of arguments relating to tech here. I think the point needs making that "having a MacBook" is a status thing for many kids and increasingly something to make them feel included at school. I will no doubt be flamed but I see it all the time. Parents buy a MacBook but don't bother to check their kids can use it wisely. I'm sure OP daughter really wants one but I would check she wants it for the right reasons.

CallarMorvern - yes I was. Been optimising databases for a week. Think I've lost my ability to concentrate!

My two dc asked for a laptop for Christmas. I bought the cheapest smallest laptop from argos for £230 each (still a lot of money for me) and they have been utter crap. One of them only lasted two weeks. It's false economy. I could have put the £460 towards something decent.

If I had the money and I knew she would get use out of it I would buy one, maybe doing what others have suggested eg putting birthday money towards it.

I think the point needs making that "having a MacBook" is a status thing for many kids and increasingly something to make them feel included at school.

Absolutely.

I will no doubt be flamed but I see it all the time. Parents buy a MacBook but don't bother to check their kids can use it wisely

Hmm. Kind of lazy generalisation. If it's a "status thing", does it matter if it's only used for Minecraft, if by 'wisely' you mean making the most of the machine's performance? If you're talking about internet safety etc, then I suspect there's a correlation between wealth and children having Macs and the level of IT in fee paying schools seems to be way above that of the average state school. Both in terms of what children can do and also their parents.

I don't think there is anything wrong with buying your child something that helps them fit in, it's not spoiling them. We bought DD's Macbook for a different reason, but she does struggle socially, all the kids we know communicate out if school via iMessage, so that's something we feel is important and whilst I know you can get a Windows app, it's not as reliable.
I don't think there is any benefit to making your child the odd one out, when there is no financial reason for doing so. It's not character building, especially if you have a child who struggles.

I can't imagine why you'd fight over Mac vs Windows.

Seriously it's like a conversation I'd overhear from my year 6s.

MacBooks are much safer and secure by default. I have one for work.

We are having serious security issues with my DDs PC. She has done nothing more than a usual 12 year old would do. Virus's have compromised her security, twice in 6 months resulting in computer hacking. Luckily she doesn't use a bank card on it.

If I could have afforded a MacBook for her I would have bought one. As soon as I can afford to replace her PC I probably will.

DD doesn't want an iPhone and prefers a cheap Windows phone as she feels an iPhone is too much of a expensive responsibility. She iMessages from home anyway. Her Macbook was £300 second hand, from a decent Apple reseller in Harrogate.

There are positives and negatives to both OSX and Windows, and I wouldn't trust anyone who denied that tbh.

I would also disagree about using a large hdd. You'll have a much more pleasant experience with an SSD, whichever OS you go for. Get a nas or external drive if you need more space. If you're making backups you need the data in more than one place anyway.

*MacBooks are much safer and secure by default. I have one for work.

We are having serious security issues with my DDs PC. She has done nothing more than a usual 12 year old would do. Virus's have compromised her security, twice in 6 months resulting in computer hacking. Luckily she doesn't use a bank card on it.*

They really aren't. They used to be but hackers / virus scripters etc have just as much joy now with OSx. Phishing is more and more prevalent and Mac browsers aren't any better than Windows - worse in fact.

Your daughter has almost certainly done things she shouldn't have. Dodgy sites. Installing ad-ons from strange sources or the like.

What do you mean by 'resulting in computer hacking' because I suspect you're incorrect. The chances of it happening every three months are incredible.

I had to buy a windows laptop last year for a contract that we had in work [my company]. Oh my giddy aunt I had to do a reinstall on the first day as it got a virus the first time it went onto the internet.

Macs all the way. But on £12k a year, you get what you can afford. Never used any virus software and never had a virus on any of mine.

HCTP. Thanks again 😊

I too fail to see any need to replace a laptop yearly 🤔 Mine is around 9 years old, well used, the one before it I had 10 years before it was replaced. I do admit to dragging them out until they're terminal, but even if I'd given up at 'Hmm this is aging' I'd have had a good 7/8 years out of them both.

Decisions, decisions.

On a purely practical point, don't buy a £300 Windows laptop. The bottom line is an i3 processor and 8GB of RAM, and that costs nearer £400.
Macs are fashion objects as well as computers! But why shouldn't she indulge? There may be a deal available through the school. Apple has a "catch 'em young" policy.

I have a 10 year old Mac that I got at Uni and it's still more than usable. If she is desperate for a Mac can you get a second hand one? Can she do extra jobs around the house for money? I used to do all the household ironing for cash when I was a teenager. Don't iron a thing these days

I agree with ShelaghTurner - I've used a Mac since way back when they were laughed at.

I still have my original laptop and it's still going 16 years later.

My mum who has been through 3 lap tops in ten years got herself an iPad and wonders why she didn't do that in the first place, she says she'll never go back . Certainly not a sheep.

Saying all that, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it and that's that. We have plenty of conversations in this house which result in me saying ' You're having a laugh , there's no WAY you're having that until you pay for it yourself!'

Even though we're an Apple household, I am completely loyal to Motorola mobile phones, no way would I pay for an iPhone when android phones are so good now.

That's funny Washediris, as my DP is a software bod and won't touch apple with a barge pole. I thought most coders hated it?

The parts might only cost £20 but not everyone is comfortable repairing their own device.
So off you pop to the local repair man who tells you to have a look will cost x. Then the problem is found and its x. So you are standing in the store with the dilemma, pay £120 for a repair or a fully working second hand machine. Then another problem so you say screw it, and buy the second hand.

That's how you can quiet easily end up with constant replacements.

Someone said oh but work places don't use
Mac. Erm, surprised no one has mentioned this, you can partition a Mac and have the best of both worlds and run both os.

Someone said oh an external hd will be around £70 fuck knows how much it will be for the Mac. It's the same price. Most hd can be used on either os.

But op keep looking. That one isn't that great. Read reviews. Have a look on the dell site they often do deals and have refurbished ones.
Have a look on laptops direct
Have a look on trusted reviews and tech radar.

Office vs macs stuff. Office can be run on the Mac. You also have free stuff from open office. The Mac stuff personally I don't like. I get frustrated with it because it doesn't alley let me do what I want. But then I know others who prefer it. So for this stuff I would really say go pc world and have a play of office and the Mac version.

Apple care same with any other warranty depends on what insurance you have.

I've had Windows machines for years and have never had a virus. I can't understand people who buy Norton, it's resource hungry and, according to little brother, rubbish at detecting and stopping viruses. When he loaded and ran Superantispyware (from a clean USB) it detected a fuckton of nastiness and then wiped it out. I got rid of Norton for him and installed Avast free and he hasn't had a problem since.

If your Windows machine slows down it could be a virus, bloatware or needs a spring clean. If your AV shows nothing a quick run of CCleaner should have it purring again.

As Macs become more popular more viruses, including Cryptolocker, are being modified. Many viruses now check to see whether you run Windows or OSx before installation.

When Microsoft stop support for Win7 I'll simply switch to a Linux distro, it's what I did for WinXP on my then 5 year old machine. Then 2 years later it died, so I got this secondhand Toshiba. No problems yet, and if it lasts like the old one I'll be happy.

If you are replacing a Windows laptop every year then you are doing something seriously wrong. I say this as someone who happily uses Apple and Windows devices and who can also see that they both have their pro's and cons.

Apple devices are seriously under powered for the price you pay but the build quality is amazing and they look the business, as well as being easy to use, however Apple has seemingly become OBSESSED with thin devices and the latest Macbook having one USB/charging port is an absolute joke, not to mention that unlike Windows you cannot tell where individual files are saved which pisses me off no end. Windows devices do not have the same build quality but that is changing, Dell and other manufactures are now beginning to make laptops that rival Apple in the looks and quality department as well as being more powerful.

Both Apple and Windows devices need virus protection, if not to protect you but to also protect friends and family who you email/the viruses can email.

surprised no one has mentioned this, you can partition a Mac and have the best of both worlds and run both os.

Only true if you work somewhere that will

A) go to the expense of purchasing a Mac in the first place

B) Will go to the trouble and expense of modifying it.

Most won't do that just on the grounds of employee preference. Especially not junior employees.

And also not useful if the OP doesn't either know how to do that herself or want to pay for someone to do it.

BillSykesDog I think it was more in response to people saying they won't be used to Windows when they started work, rather than expecting employers to use bootcamp.

It's extremely easy to either dual boot Windows with bootcamp or run Windows within OS X using parallels. Very painless install.