The Future is Bright – How to pick a good laptop for your children

In these times of ever-improving technology, most children are becoming increasingly familiar with laptops, smartphones, and more, often putting parents to shame with their digital know-how. Having an accessible device at home for them to use, then, is crucial to their development, and future prospects. Perfect for both homework and, when that’s all finished, a bit of fun, a decent laptop is a wise purchase. But, with so much choice out there, what makes a good child’s laptop? What are the important features to consider?

What to look for in a laptop for your kids

Online Safety

Before you even think about the technical specs of any potential laptop, it’s worth giving some thought to effective parental controls. Not all laptops include these options as standard, but, unfortunately, they are becoming increasingly important in order to protect our children from inappropriate material, or online predators.

Enabling you to control the content they have access to, limit downloads, and even set a timer for an allotted time on the laptop, Apple and Windows have this covered completely. With fully adjustable and personalizable settings, both these big name brands are taking this issue very seriously and using secure passwords and PINs to gain access.

Virus protection

Unfortunately, with viruses and malware becoming more sophisticated, it’s easy to inadvertently download one, or visit the wrong website and allow something nasty to infiltrate your laptop, where they can do untold damage. Most big laptop brands include highly effective antivirus software as standard, which will run in the background whilst your child works on their homework.

Ask your child

By engaging with your kids, you can find out exactly what they require for school. Do they need awesome graphics for projects and art, great audio for writing songs and music, or expansive storage to save files, films, and other downloads?

Operating system

There are three main operating systems (OS) – Apple, Windows, or Chrome, each having different properties. Windows runs the much-admired Microsoft Office, which is chock full of programs that are just perfect for projects and presentations. The ever-popular Apple MacOS includes apps specifically designed for school projects and studying, and Google’s Chrome system allows Cloud access, making them both affordable and with limitless storage capabilities.

Laptop build and size

It’s important to consider the robustness and size of any device bought for your kids. It needs to withstand the knocks and bumps associated with being crammed into a backpack and carried around all day at school. You also don’t want something that’s too huge; if your chosen laptop is too big and heavy, not only will your kids be reluctant to take it to school, but small hands are more likely to drop a device that’s too large and weighty.

Budget

While you should look for a laptop that has the capabilities to do the work that’s required, you don’t want to break the bank on a device that may get broken, stolen or lost – these things happen with gym kits or smartphones all the time, so why not with more expensive and harder to replace laptops?

There are so many things to think about before we even get onto the actual specs of any given laptop, and this useful video will give you some more ideas for buying your child a laptop:

 

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