Laptop computers

[swindontony]

I'm thinking of buying my children a laptop each but have been told that windows vista is experiencing teething problems, would I be better looking for Windows XP, thanks in advance.

[joewetherill]

It would not be a bad idea to buy an XP system - XP is more reliable at the moment. Having said that Vista does look a lot nicer and your children may feel a bit left out when their friends have a nicer looking OS.

No doubt there are issues with Vista.

Even better if you can get one second hand that was bought between 26/10/06 - 15/03/07 you can get a free upgrade. (not sure if that applies with newer ones outside of those dates)

Quote from Micro$oft website:

"If you purchased a PC between October 26, 2006, and March 15, 2007, you may qualify for an Express Upgrade to Windows Vista from your computer manufacturer."

I am using Vista right now and have had no problems, but if you are a heavy user it will take time getting it set up (disabling UAC, unlocking admin accounts)

[fo3nix]

What do you want them to do on it?

If you want them to be able to play games that you can buy in the shops for PC, then go for Windows XP.

However, if they're young, or if they have a playstation or something for games, and the laptops are for typing and browsing the web and listening to music or watching videos, then take a good looke into Ubuntu:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

It's a free system (with free upgrades too) that's more secure than Windows is, with less problems (once set up), and is more stable. It comes with an office suite (like Microsoft Office), browser, email client, etc. Very good, and very popular.

And, if they're quite young, you can get a variety of Ubuntu called Edubuntu, which is more or less the same but more kid-friendly, with lots of learning games and things (I'm thinking ages 6 or so...):

http://www.edubuntu.org/

[ACtheTROLL]

lol fo3 are you on comission from ubuntu?
you never miss an opportunity to sing it's praises..

Thing is ... for kids of any age ... at school they will be introduced and use windows from primary to university.

unless they turn to graphic design or publishing windows rules ... the alternative is MAC osx

ubuntu may be the best system in the world ... but it's an enthusiasts os (useful for moving to unix etc) but not for kids ...

[fo3nix]

For very young kids wanting to play educational games, I think there's a real market for Edubuntu (especially as Ubuntu is set out to copy Windows so much too).

But yea, I agree, Windows is the defacto sadly, so is required for learning practical skills (like where menu items are in Word, for example).

(I'm a Mac OS X user myself.)