macbook for 11 year old for school

Can anyone offer any advice on which laptop to get for my 11 year old for a school laptop class? The ones recommended are macbook 2.1GHz (white) $1745, macbook 2.0GHz (aluminium) $2295, or macbook 2.4GHz (aluminium) $2695. I don't know much about them & would be grateful for some independent advice before I go to the shop. The kids will be doing most of their work on them. Quite a big outlay and I want to make sure I get it right the first time!! Cheers

The cheapest possible. No point in spending any more for higher specs for a kid that age.

I assume it's a fairly fancy school?

Thanx! It's a trial thing, so we can't approach other parents who've "been there, done that" for advice. Hopefully it'll work out. I "Googled" laptops etc & saw this place & looked like you guys knew your stuff, so any advice is much appreciated. Ta

actually, i could possibly suggest going the aluminum version for a bit more durability, but i'd still find it hard to justify that extra $500.

Any reason why they only recommend Apple laptops? im with Kris I can see no reason why they would want you to spend such an amount of money. Unless there is some specific learning programs they use that only runs on Apple.

You can buy a pretty good Dell laptop for about $1200 that will be more than enough for most people let alone a 11yr old.

I was only allowed to buy one of two models at school and for good reason, it's not the school's job to be tech support to 1000 different laptop brands. I wanted something quicker than their base spec and they wouldnt allow it.

Geeks will say "oh but its easy". Well, to the teachers that are just trying teach a kid maths, it isnt.

The extra couple of hundred bucks it costs to conform is WELL worth it.

I don't think conformity is the issue, more the choice of a premium brand to conform to.

There'd be similar issues with forcing people to buy, say, Sony laptops as well. Dell or HP, not so much.

A white macbook is hardly premium and is obviously an option. Clearly the trial is Mac based, if you dont like it, put your kid in the non-laptop class. But the original post isnt about balking at whether its mac or not, its which one, in which case Kris' first post is spot on. I think you'd struggle to find an 11yo maths or english program hat didnt run like a dream on it.

They use MacBooks throughout the school & the laptop class will follow suit (supported by Magnum Mac). The kids in the class are all pretty computer savvy. The problem is I'm not & as it's my wallet that's screaming in pain I just want to make sure I'm not being talked into something more expensive than required, or getting the cheap option & then have to fork out again 'cos it's not good enough. It's great to get your opinions. Thanx!

You will be paying a premium over what you would for the same spec Dell or HP.

I hope the teachers/school admin are enjoying their back-handers

Great, mac vs. pc argument, how original!

I guess it's a PC vs. Sony debate too then?

Exactly. Of course there is a premium. If it were me running a programme like that, I'd be specifying a choice of the many netbooks/subnotebooks available now, for kids that age. Hell, I'd be jacking up external funding and just buying the shit out of a bunch of eee's or something since it's only a trial for one class.*

But that's not what was clearly specified in the choices the OP presented to us. She has a choice of Macs and that's it.

Tinkabelle: If you can find a lightly used (sub 6 months or so I'm thinking) Macbook on Trademe or something, you can still buy warranty upgrades from Apple for piece of mind, so may be able top save money over buying new.







*Actually I wouldn't because I don't believe the laptop-per-pupil model is suitable at this level. Barely even at highschool level for that matter, but that's another kettle of fish.

If you can get a mac clone that'll work past the next OS update be my guest...