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?

Well, can't tell them...They are asking the OP for help. OP probably has her own life to live.
Just projecting. 😊

We had to do that with my parents. Being out of hours IT support was getting to be annoying, especially when they didn’t use the same software as we did. They eventually got the message that we could not help and sorted it themselves.

What are they using the laptop for? I'm guessing nothing too complicated that would need a high spec. £1000 is totally unnecessary. £250 is probably about the lowest i would consider but if you do astound for deals you can get something suitable for that.

There is something wrong with a laptop that only lasts a year, even if it costs £250. Given you’re the one the keep asking to look at problems, are you sure you aren’t inadvertently causing issues?

Your parents can always look to buy insurance for their technology and given how quickly they get through them, that’s probably a good idea.

In-laws are the opposite. Spent thousands on a laptop which could probably run an entire power station but use it just for internet shopping.

We had a MacBook but all found it seriously irritating so sold it second hand for a Dell.

A big fan of DELL, mine is five years old now and speedy and reliable. I’m very good with updates, and anti virus protection and delete unwanted files regularly. It was £600.

YANBU OP. Mine bought whatever was going cheap in Aldi. Then were constantly asking DH to fix it, or intervene when they did something stupid and riddled it with viruses.

What exactly is going wrong with them?

Are they heavy users? Are the problems hardware or software related?

I've never had a MacBook or laptop issues other than general slowing down with age. You definitely don't need to spend £1000 to get something reliable

But viruses aren't more likely because you buy a laptop from Aldi, I've never actually seen one in there.

Cleary they aren't keeping their protection up to date, hardly Aldis fault

@hnetl i feel you. We replaced my dad in laws desktop for a £1500 laptop in Jan as he kept asking for tech support and his desktop was 15 years old and behaved like it was on dial up. Just been to curry today with mum in law to replace her old laptop because she doesn't like dad jb laws laptop. And has the expensive laptop reduced the tech support calls no. I think only way to do that would be for them to take a computer course.

My laptop was only around £300 - I couldn’t really afford more - but it’s been fine and functional for what I need (browsing and Microsoft office) for three years so far. Perhaps you could help them buy something in their price range with better specs.

Is it hardware problems or software problems they are having, if it's hardware I doubt a computer course will help.

I know once I had to upgrade the RAM on a MacBook but that was years ago and we also had to defrag the old MS laptop fairly often but I don't think you do that much nowadays, they seem more maintenance free. What are you having to do to this cheap laptop

Elderly parents do need a decent low to mid range windows laptop though and that doesn't cost £250. Why do people expect that you can get modern technology with better processing speed and memory than was in a mainframe computer a couple of decades ago for not much more than a decent meal out! Bottom range of any tech is always going to be shit and £250 for a laptop is scraping the barrel. They wouldn't buy a new car for £500 and expect it to be reliable so they have to pay market rate for a decent low to mid range laptop - and that is at least 500 quid!

They'd have one by now if they done that 2 or 3 ears ago by the sounds of it ..

op cannot fix slow processing speed! @FreshInks They have had £1000. That’s what they have spent on laptops in the last 2 years. I’m assuming the op knows they can afford more!

Do they? Not sure my mum even owns a laptop. She's a complete technophobe and has got a very cheap tablet and a very cheap mobile. She would never spend money on even midrange tech. Struggling to see why they need a laptop at all let alone a mac book.

I think the bigger question is what are they doing to break it. I bought a cheap laptop that I use for traveling. It gets battered about on trains and planes. It must be at least 10 years old. It looks like something out of the ark but it's absolutely fine.

True, but the damned thing was so slow it was impossible to do anything with it! That combined with their complete incompetence (and tightness) made even worse. They bought an iPad through a friend once but then refused point blank to actually learn how to use it and got him to take it back. Then complain they never get to see the grandchildren - refusing to use FaceTime or WhatsApp for video calls. Drives me round the bend. It’s not age, it’s mindset.

I wouldn't support windows (personally all my kit is Linux). MacOS at a stretch.

Linux is tailor made to get old kit running properly ...