Kids Laptops

Before you buy your kid a laptop ask yourself: what are they going to use it for?

Chances are you want them to use it to help further their education. Your kids can use the laptop for education in many ways.

1.They can use the internet to research school work.
2.They can research topics that interest them like math and science, beyond that which is available to them through school and the library.
3.They can use the laptop to write their projects and then print out professional work.
4.They can keep in touch with friends through email, much cheaper than being on the phone.
5.They could learn how to edit video and photo content and share their creations online through sites like youtube.

Those are just five possible uses, off the top of my head. With younger children you might want to keep them away from certain web pages and restrict the amount of time that they can spend on the laptop, on any given day. For tips on how to do that read our review of internet filter software.

If your child is reasonably young, I would go for a budget model. The older your child the more power they will need in their laptop. As they will want and be able to do more with it.

Deciding what laptop to buy, really depends on what your child wants to use it for. Below I have written down some common sense guidelines, to help you find the right laptop for your kid.

What to look for in kids laptops:

• The laptop should be cheap, a good laptop for a kid runs in the area of £300.
• It should be small and light.
• It should run Windows XP or Vista. Realistically considering that you want to keep the price down, you are looking at Windows XP home edition. The problem of Vista is not only the cost but the increased hardware requirements that it has.
• It needs to be powerful enough to run Microsoft Office 2007 Student and most other educational software packages.
• The laptop should be age appropriate.
• It should have an internal wireless network card. This allows the child to connect to the internet on a wireless network. Your child can use this at school or wherever a wireless network is available.
• It should have more than three hours of battery life. If it has less, mobility can become a big problem.

I would recommend that you get some cheap insurance for the laptop, against theft and accidental damage. You know how kids can be.

Why not leave a comment and tell us how your purchase worked out. Were your kids able to use the laptop successfully, was the laptop powerful enough for them to do their school work on?