getting a laptop in south africa

[viggen]

Hi everyone,

My daughter (lives in SA) needs a decent laptop for school. (so no fancy stuff, just needs to run windows and Ms Office). I live in europe and my daughter has no clue when it comes to buying a computer. So the only option to me seems to buy one online for her. Does anyone know some reputable sites were i could look for one?

cheers and thanks
viggen

[weeks]

I would suggest she buy the computer herself with X amount of money. This is not a casual purchase. She needs to do some research. See what brand the school admin folk use. And where did they buy it? Good place? Then OK. Maybe. (Have her ask three people, one of them an adult. It's a great topic to get people talking.)

There is a LOT going on in the laptop area now. There are some new players coming on that deserve serious consideration. For a student, however, I'd stick with one of the major brands.

Consumer Reports recently did a review of laptops, which should be a good starting point. They were keen on HP. HP recently came out with new laptops models after that article. And Dell is playing a hot hand as well.

She's a big girl, so she can do this herself. But, Dad, you MUST then get her a BIG flash drive and tell her to backup everything on it. Always. It's a machine. It will break. It will get lost and "misplaced." And dropped.

Don't tell her to buy a backup--YOU buy it and then tell her to use it. It's a nasty world that doesn't love laptops but does not tolerate lost research, lost addresses, lost links, lost assignments, lost budgets. See if she can learn this lesson from listening and not having to have it taught with pain and suffering.

Good luck.