Laptop for Christmas Recommendations

[IcedTeaOneSugar]

DD wants a laptop for Christmas, on the basis that she wont get anything else I've agreed.

I've been saving with Park all year so I'll be using vouchers, if I need to make a change to my order I need to do it very soon so I have to make a decision. At the moment I have Amazon vouchers allocated to this gift, but I could swap for ones I can spend in Argos, sadly comet is no longer an option.

My absolute maximum budget is £400

(bear in mind I only have once child, I've been saving since last December and this is all she's having with the exception of PJs and a stocking).

She will mainly use it for browsing, playing on sites like club penguin and that kind of thing, but also needs basic word and excel for school projects, this will become more important over the 3 years or so I'm hoping this will last.

Can anyone recommend a good laptop?

Is touchscreen worth considering this one?

or not not touchscreen but more memory - I think

Windows 8 was really designed for a touchscreen. Its just not as smooth using it with a mouse.

Acer laptops can be perfectly adequate - not as good a build quality as say a Sony, but fine. What age is DD?

Remember you will need to buy the Microsoft Office software to get Word and Excel.

The difference in memory between the two for what you say its going to be used for isnt much to take into account, and 6gb Ram is plenty.

She'll almost 10, so not using it much for school now, just the odd project.

I was hoping it would come with a starter version on word and excel, my Acer laptop has this and it works fine for what I need at home, unfortunately Amazon doesn't seem to list software, unless I'm not looking in the right place.

hopeful bump :)

DH has had both an Acer and an HP laptop and both were fine. I think you will be ok re processing power as your DD won't have hundreds of files/photos I'm guessing although would she download music?

With your software I think you can often use the same install disc on up to 3 home pc's? Also I think microsoft do a student edition which is cheaper.

I use Open Office which is free open source software but it might just be for macs.

Hope that has helped a bit!

I don't think windows 8 includes any office apps.
The free one you got for yours was with Win 7, I assume? If so, it's one licence only.
I've nothing against freeware, there are some good free alternatives for the office programmes, but OP said it was for school. Different layouts, features, and functionality can confuse homework at home on a different system. It also might need to be saved in the relevant format to be taken to school and worked on there, rather than printed.

OK, so it sounds like the either laptop will be fine, but I need to double check on software.

We can probably get office later TBH as she doesn't use it much, it's at least £95 for a student version you can only install on one laptop/pc at a time.

SquirtedPerfumeUpNoseInBoots They use Microsoft at school so I think its probably best, as you say, to stick to that for now.

If you can possibly afford the tablet touchscreen rather than the laptop I'd go for that option. It's much more modern, and will last her a while longer. Otherwise, she'll be looking a touch device for big school as everyone else has them.

what about this one?

Because I'm seeing that Acer as already over your budget.

I would go for something quite basic and try to spend half your budget.

Staples were recently doing a student deal with a Toshiba model. It included a laptop bag, student office software, security software, a keyboard and mouse and some other bits for £249. I wouldn't normally recommend Toshiba after a previous rubbish model that we owned however for students I think it's fine and I would consider this package for our children.

squirted when you say a tablet touchscreen do you mean an iPad?

Sorry typo. I meant tablet or touchscreen.

As in, something controlled by touch. Rather than just keyboard.

OK, so maybe the touchscreen laptop is the way to go, they're both touchscreen and have a keyboard so both options and have the bigger screen and memory for school essays, saving photos etc. It has the "always connected" feel of the ipad so pretty modern.

Thanks.

arcticfunky To be honest it would be a bit of a waste of money to go down that route as she already has an old laptop of mine which probably still performs as well as a £250 laptop you could buy now, however, it's outdated and slow, hence the request for a new one. That's my understanding that a "cheap" laptop would have an out of date processor etc. and less/same memory/RAM, as my old but originally fairly expensive one, but I could be wrong.