To refuse to give IT support to parents until they spend more than £250 on a laptop

[hnetl]

My parents are constantly having IT or tech troubles with their laptops. Something is always wrong with it. It’s slow and unpleasant to use.

They insist on buying whatever the cheapest laptop is for say £250. They probably buy one a year. They want my help on how to fix it, which I can often do after hours of trying, and getting stressed out.

I’ve told them they need to buy something better. I spent £1,000 on my macbook 6 years ago and it’s still going strong and is a pleasure to use. AIBU?

I don't think you can tell them what to spend on tech.

I would take a quick look if they ask for help, and if it isn't something easy or quick to fix I'd just remind them that it's a cheap machine and you can't fix it.

But I would point out that the last couple of years they have bought cheap laptops that invariably go wrong, and in that time they could get a quality laptop that would last them. They genuinely might not realise.

I agree with you OP. £250 is very, very cheap for a laptop and it will not be great. Ita a false economy to spend that on a laptop. Same with cheap washing machines. Spend a bit more and it will last longer and be more pleasant to use.

They need to spend £600 odd and it will last a good few years.

YABU. Nothing wrong with cheap laptops. I buy refurbished basic laptops for my business. Never had any problem with any of them, despite being basic and often 5 or more years old, they still give me a year or two of useful service and then kept as backups or old legacy versions of various software packages.

A £250 laptop will be perfectly fine for a simple/occasional user for things like email, web browsing, word processing, etc. Yes, it may struggle if you're doing something like video/photo editing or have other complex needs, but even then, most cheap laptops would cope, but just be very slow.

You really don't need an Apple to have a perfectly functional computer. I have an Apple for personal use but couldn't afford so many Apples for my business and most of the software run by me and my clients wouldn't run on an Apple anyway.

What exactly are the problems with it?

YANBU but I would push them towards a Chromebook. Cheap and one of them did both my late mum and aunt for years without issue

A laptop should last way more than a year or two and legacy software packaged relaly shouldn't be a thing anymore with SaaS and cloud based applications.

Even a basic laptop should be lasting a few years. What is wrong with it?

£1000 is going to the other extreme. There are lots of decent laptops available for far less than that. Do they even have £1k?

Yanbu OP. My dad is exactly the same. So cheap when it comes to any kind of tech (laptop, smartphone etc), yet pisses and moans when they freeze, aren't quick enough etc etc. And he jokingly calls me Tech Support 🙄

It really annoys me when the older generation want to buy the cheapest item and then expect you to sort it all out

You cant tell people what to buy and its not very nice to say you wont help. If you cant help, fine, just say you cant fix it and dont know whats wrong with it and send them to a local computer shop for osmeone else to do it

People cant afford thousands for stuff.

I feel your pain. My mum has form for that, too. Plus with the really cheap laptops (and MacBooks...) you can't even add extra memory or storage. The last one my mum got only had 64GB of storage. Once you put Windows 10 and Office on it there was bugger-all room for anything else. In the end I replaced Windows with Linux Mint and once past the initial mild learning curve she's had fewer problems with it.

£500-£600 gets a solid Windows laptop btw.

Elderly parents do not need a £1k macbook! Just say no if you can't be arsed to help your own parents out but don't push them into an expensive piece of kit that they really don't need.

Can’t they sort out their own IT issues? My dad is in his 80s and hasn’t once asked for IT support from me or my siblings. He used occasionally to ask for advice, but hasn’t for ages. In fact, he’s probably more thorough than I am when it comes to security and back ups. He saves stuff locally of course, which is also backed up to the cloud. He then has an SSD NAS drive that he takes a further back up from weekly, in case the cloud goes down…🤣 And all he has is a few spreadsheets and word files, and a whole heap of pictures…

But, everything is synced across his phone, tablet and laptop. He makes life harder for himself because my mother has an iPhone/iPad/MacBook, and he resolutely insists on some Samsung phone and tablet, and an HP laptop. I’ve learned to leave him to it…☺️

I feel like some of the replies are missing the point - they are spending £250 each year on a crappy new laptop, and expecting OP to spend hours sorting it out each time. I have had exactly this problem with my DF, and had spent dozens of hours each time basically rebuilding the damn thing for him from scratch. It is so incredibly disrespectful of another persons time.

Of course it’s not unreasonable to (a) point out to them the false economy of constantly going for the cheapest option and (b) politely decline to offer support beyond an initial assessment.

Yanbu, PIL asked for recommendations, we gave them that within their budget, they ignored that, bought a laptop that wasn’t really suitable for them, cheap but overpriced for what is was and constantly ask for help, drives me nuts!

I get that, but that doesn’t mean the only alternative is an expensive MacBook. I wouldn’t buy a top of the range car if I was only going to drive it to the supermarket in it once a week.

I bought a cheap laptop 6 years ago and it’s still going strong. I only use it for the odd spreadsheet or letter, or to download photos from my phone, or to print something.

What on earth is he doing with it?

Not all old people have cheap ones my iMac was £2k and DH's Windows one was about £2k, we aren't all cheapskates

They are falling victim to the Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (Terry Pratchett).

It's fine to not want to help them if you're frustrated but it's not ok to tell them to spend more money.

Went through this with my ex-in laws.

Determined to spend the minimum possible. I asked what, precisely, they wanted to do, costed something appropriate but also with a warning it simply wasn't capable of doing more than the bare minimum, and would essentially be obsolete and incapable of taking upgrades as soon as they got it.

Inevitably, a few months down the line the phone would go pleading for help. I tolerated it out of feeling obligated to for a while, then eventually just told them straight that firstly, I wasn't going to be unpaid IT support any longer, and secondly, if they were insistent upon being cheapskate and ignoring the warnings I was giving them at the point of purchase then I was just going to stop trying to help in the first place.

They eventually got the message and stopped taking the piss.

I think you should probably advise them to get a customer care package from Currys or wherever, then they can spend their time bothering them. Or find them a phone number for a local computer fixer person, take a cursory glance and say you don't know, and send the business their way.

Yanbu, that sounds like a nightmare

but cheap, buy twice

YANBU. they don’t need to spend £1000 but they do need something middle of the road that is no more a couple of years old otherwise it’s just pointless.

Give them the number of a reputable tech help person locally. Repeat.

If the laptops are having problems after a year, that seems a very short lifespan to me. Sounds like they could benefit from one of those intro computer courses for olds, where they can learn basic housekeeping for the device.