Budget laptop advice needed

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by Littlepeahead

Thanks for the tips. Still looking. Too many options I think my brain has melted. Also how much should she budget for Microsoft office? Nephew says he'd find Word and Powerpoint useful for homework. In my day I was still using a fountain pen!

I get a list of the Refub units that Laptops Direct have, I'll get a copy to you.

Office is £90, thats Home and Office Version, which allows you to install it on 3 machines.

You could use LibreOffice, which is Sun's free, Open Source Office package that is in many ways better than Microsofts, or Google Docs allow you to 90% of what the installable packages do, and that 90% probably covers 99% of what the average user will use.

Only downside is having to learn the slight differences in the software, and not using MS might not be cool for a kid (or it may be uber-cool)

[Littlepeahead]

Hm, I have Office on one PC at home only - so does that mean I can install it on her laptop when she buys it?

Thanks Dave, that will be a big help.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by Littlepeahead

Hm, I have Office on one PC at home only - so does that mean I can install it on her laptop when she buys it?

Thanks Dave, that will be a big help.

Probably not - the key being "Home" and Microsoft usually tie these things down in legalese, however if it had been your laptop that you gave to your Nephew (a Student) then...

You will need to confirm you have the right license to do that - I believe its an Office 2010 thing, maybe 2007 versions too.

You can also pick up a copy of Office 2003 for about £30 from Ebay. In fact I have an uninstalled copy that I may not need at all soon.

[NTECUK]

LibreOffice, has a few issues with some of the Microsoft documents that David is set as homework.
Open office is only slightly better.
So best stump up for the Gen kido if you want an easy life.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by ClunkintheUK

You can also pick up a copy of Office 2003 for about £30 from Ebay. In fact I have an uninstalled copy that I may not need at all soon.

And then if the school is using Office 2007 or newer, prepare to fight with the wonders of the new .docx format.

[yorkie_chris]

Pay actual money for a microsoft program? What a quaint idea...

[timwilky]

I would say it is wrong for a school to dictate any format unless they are providing the hardware/software. My kids hated it the only computers they had access to ran linux, Solaris or VMS. Daughter had Oracle and forms, when she asked if she could submit her project using that her teacher said no she had to use industry standard tools????

[NTECUK]

Well you do have a point ,but unfortunately we have to jump through hoops

At least the Home version is fairly cheap. Wait until they come home with a file done in Publisher. Which nothing else on God's earth will open. I told the eldest that if he wanted to work on it at home, he was going to have do use Power Point instead!