Laptop or Laptop & Desktop?

pollycat on 21/10/2020 - 11:38

Looking for some advice on which way to go.

Backstory, I have spent the last 12 months extremely unwell, losing my sight in one eye permanently (and with it, my depth perception which is really important!) & also losing some mobility in my legs for a period of time. I basically have a Neuro-Immunoloigal Disease which is like a crappier, turbo-charged version of MS. So 12 months in & out of hospital hasn't been fun.

It's also been incredibly tough on my 11-year-old son who has been an absolute champion & really stepped up to the plate & has acted as my carer for a lot of the time in those 12 months.

He's heading into secondary school next year & will be needing a laptop as the school has a BYOD program. Like most 11 (almost 12!) year old boys, gaming is LIFE! After everything he has been through & everything he has been doing for me, he really deserves some spoiling. I would dearly love to spoil him with either a gaming PC…Or do I go ahead & get a gaming laptop that would double as his school laptop? They are allowed to game on their laptops at lunchtime when they're at school.
Which way should I go?
A Desktop & a Laptop?
Or just a Laptop?
My budget would be around $2500 all up so feel free to recommend something because I am totally clueless when it comes to this stuff

Computing Computer Desktop Computer Laptop

Comments

  • 87percent on 21/10/2020 - 11:43
    +6

    decent desktop and just a general use laptop imo

    1. desktop can be upgraded when needed
    2. gaming laptops are normally pretty big, so would be a pain to carry around at school

    also, sorry to hear about your health issues, but sounds like your kid has a good head on his shoulders

    • SgtBatten on 21/10/2020 - 12:14
      +2

      Agreed, Gaming laptops are heavy and excessively large for school work. Plus separating the games from the work may be a benefit for his learning

    • scrimshaw on 21/10/2020 - 12:17
      +4

      this is also my recommendation, a gaming laptop will also be heavy and their battery lives tend to be fairly short. So less practical when you're trying to get it to last a whole school day.

      With a budget of $2500, you can buy a $1k laptop (e.g Thinkpad E-series with Ryzen 4000) and a $1k desktop with enough money left for a 34" ultrawide monitor or nice peripherals

    • AndyC1 on 21/10/2020 - 12:47

      Grab a 14" or 15.6" laptop. Go into Hardly Normal and Officeworks to check out the different laptops for screen size and text clarity, weight and then go home and research laptop based on what your son likes.
      As for a desktop I would wait for the new AMD Ryzen 4000 series desktop CPU's are out and make a PC up based in one of them. I would advise NOT buying a very expensive graphics card at the moment as they are in short supply and therefore are not discounted. Save the money in order to buy a GPU upgrade in 2 years when your son will be playing games allot more than now and need more grunt.

      I am in the same boat w.r.t. my son will be going to high school next year and have started looking at laptops and it looks like the sweet spot for a decent laptop for starting high school is around the $600 mark as it will get broken or damaged and I only expect to get 1 to 2 years out of it. Laptops should be replaced every few years if they are used daily as the batteries will fail, connectors will be bent/broken and dust may damage the laptop. As such I will also budget to get another $600 laptop in 2 years.

      Some laptop's have optional insurance to cover kids breaking the laptop, but I have not looked at this to see what it covers or how much it is. Something to think about.

      Good luck.

      • scrimshaw on 21/10/2020 - 14:32

        Accidental damage prevention is not cheap, for a basic Dell Inspirons (non-business grade) they charge $94.50 for a single year of coverage.

        It's something I would consider for more expensive and premium laptops ($1.5k upwards), but if you're only looking at budget laptops, the adp coverage is proportionally expensive to the cost of the device.

  • pharkurnell on 21/10/2020 - 11:52
    +2

    Our kids school had a list of specific laptops that they would "allow" us to use as they image the laptops with the schools image.

    It might be worth checking there first before lashing out.

  • CyberMurning on 21/10/2020 - 12:04
    +3

    laptop,
    with proper monitor keyboard and mouse

  • H E B on 21/10/2020 - 12:16

    Our kids aren't allowed gaming on their school laptop. I think its also better to remove that temptation during designated school hours.

    Also laptops can get damaged with daily commute and risk getting lost stolen at school too.

    What is the current setup? True gamers i hear always prefer pc, easy upgrades and more affordable.

  • Jolakot on 21/10/2020 - 12:47

    For an 11 year old kid, I'd say get him a top range gaming desktop, and a cheap laptop/chromebook.

    Three core reasons for mainly getting a desktop:

    1. Way better bang for buck, a $2000 desktop will beat a $4000 laptop
    2. For school, having a big heavy gaming laptop would suck, he'll be carrying it around all day. Schools aren't gentle environments for tech, the odds of it being dropped and breaking are pretty high compared to a light ultrabook.
    3. By 15-16 it'll be 4 years old and he'll probably want to start upgrading it for new games. Fantastic way to teach kids how the tech they use actually works (i.e. what upgrades are needed to make it play the new game, maybe even do the upgrade himself), and a rock solid teachable moment for the value of money/frugality if you're the sort of parent who'd get them to take up a casual summer job to buy the parts themselves.

    Here's a solid deal for a new gaming desktop, almost the same price as building yourself: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/566770
    An R5 3600 CPU and RTX 3080 GPU combo is the best bang for buck you can get for top range parts.

    For the laptop, I'd check out renewd.com.au, got my last few from there. Plenty of solid options under $600, never had a single issue.

  • cameldownunder on 21/10/2020 - 13:12

    11 Year old ? 2-in-1 tablet ( ~1000 ) and gaming PC ( ~ 2000 ) gets my vote

  • smashman42 on 21/10/2020 - 14:42

    My kid is going into a high school with a BYO program too next year too and I got her a Ryzen 4000 powered light laptop for about $1k (check the school's BYO specs, as heaps of ppl have mentioned true gaming laptops might not have good enough battery life to last all day) and she already has an older i7 pc with a 1650 super for gaming at home, so you could easily split the $2500 budget and give him both a lightweight U CPU based laptop with long life that is capable of some light gaming, and leave the upgradeable/customisable desktop PC for the serious action.

    Sorry to hear about your health probs.

  • Ghost47 on 21/10/2020 - 22:51

    Really sorry to hear about your situation.

    As mentioned I would also say the best course of action is to buy a gaming desktop and a laptop that is just good enough to do work. The reason for this is to create two environments, one computer which he works on and one computer which he can game on. If he games on his work computer he may not be able to task switch easily and could be tempted to game instead of work (e.g. if he's doing homework at home).

  • pollycat on 23/10/2020 - 14:43

    Thank you all for your help & advice. Looks like he'll be getting a Desktop & a Laptop. He will certainly be one very happy kid

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