Laptop/MacBook Air for DDs age 13

[itinerant]

I know this has been done to death but I thought if I posted some specifics it might help? Pls all you clever people out there!

DDs (twins) are 13 years old and in year 9. Both are modest girls who don’t ask for much and who are more than happy to receive second hand stuff (“vintage” lol). Approx 3 years ago I bought them both reconditioned Dell laptops at a bargain basement price - my company was rolling out new laptops and sold off old stock to staff. These have been mostly used for homework (essays, presentations), browsing and some gaming (mainly SIMS). Also occasionally for watching DVDs, although we do have a family Netflix account and this doesn’t happen very often. Both DDs have second hand iPhones and iPad minis (although one is definitely nearly dead).

This academic year I have noticed they need to use their laptops much more frequently for homework. Unfortunately, one has started to slow down almost to the point of being unusable, the other seems to be following suit. So I’m looking for replacements - budget for each no more than £400. Happy to buy second hand/refurbished.

Both DDs spend a lot of their spare time doing arty things - designing comics, graphic art, portraits etc. Mainly pencil and paper but (by request) DGM has purchased them entry level (I think - they only cost £50 whereas they can cost £100s) drawing tablets for Christmas. I see that these are both PC and Mac compatible.

What would be the best purchase at this price point? They would benefit from something reasonably light/portable as I think they would sometimes take it into School. DD2 has mentioned that some of her friends have MacBook Airs but I don’t know how much of this is a teenage fashion thing (mine aren’t particularly into that, but they do like Apple products). Would this be a useful purchase (and what does that mean re MS Office) it should I be thinking only about a laptop? If it helps, they have free access to Office 365 via school.

Can anyone advise? Thank you!

Oops that was a bit long

If you can source refurbished MacBook airs at that price then I would very much recommend as s great work horse laptop for school work etc....

My Y12 DD has the cheapest model and it works fine for everything she needs, is instant on rather than taking an age to boot, is lightweight to carry around school and one charge lasts for the full school day...

We previously went down the cheap laptop route but it was a low power netbook and really wasn’t anywhere near as good for her needs/wants

You can have ms office products on it for compatibility with school if necessary too and provided you keep the OS updated generally there are far fewer malware issues...
The MacBook Air has been around for years with few updates and is still a good machine - very few differences old models to brand new so buying 2nd hand /refurbished isn’t an issue.

And for teens it really is a nice branded product too so keeps them happy /looks cool and you’ll be the best parent for at least 10 mins

A 3rd option might be to keep the current laptops and swap the hard drives for sold state drives and add more memory. My old laptop has a new lease of life now i’ve done this.

Hmmm TwoBlue, I think I know what you mean but not 100%
Is that fairly straightforward?

Adding memory is pretty easy, changing the drives a bit harder. You could probably find a local IT person who would do it all for you.