What should you pay attention to when buying a tablet, laptop or desktop computer for your child?
First of all, you should review these 5 items thoroughly;
School: Does your child need their device for face-to-face lessons and study in different settings, or will they be homeschooled in the near future?
Extracurricular: What technical capacity is required if your child is taking extracurricular courses such as coding or design?
Entertainment : What are his hobbies? Editing games, videos or photos, writing or making music requires different amounts of processing power.
Cost: What is your budget? There’s a huge price gap between a low-end tablet and a best-in-class gaming laptop.
Space: Does your child have a private workspace and reliable internet connection?
Remember the old days when a desktop computer was shared among the whole family? The tastes of dial-up internet, quarrels over who’s next, and – if you’re lucky – a parent had a work laptop, giving the kids more screen time. Now that seems a world away. We carry the entire world of human knowledge in our pockets, and even young children have unlimited access to screens.
Tablet
Advantages
Tablets are the most portable type of device. They are very useful for easily taking notes with a tablet pen on the go, in environments where children do not have access to a desk, or in the classroom.
Because tablets have weaker CPUs, smaller screen sizes, and less hardware, their batteries last longer than laptop batteries.
-Some tablets are compatible with add-on keyboards which are great for taking on more intense tasks.
Tablets for lower-end models start at much cheaper prices than laptops.
-Tablets are actually more popular with 6-10 year olds than laptops or desktops. A 2019 Comparitech survey found that 34% of 6-10 year olds own a laptop or desktop computer, and about 62% own a tablet.
Disadvantages
-Due to their screen size, touchscreen, limited processing power, and lack of a mouse or keyboard, tablets are not suitable for any activity or multitasking.
-Tablets have fewer ports and some don’t.
-Large glass screens are more prone to damage.
Laptop
Advantages
-The main advantage of a laptop is its portability – perfect for working at the kitchen table or in the bedroom, library or classroom.
You don’t have to compromise on quality for portability. Best-in-class laptops have similar processing power and storage as their desktop counterparts, and games or other large programs can run without sacrificing performance.
-If your child only needs basic programs like email, internet and word processing, a cheap laptop with a smaller CPU is fine.
You can find laptops of all sizes and weights to suit your kid’s lifestyle, whether they want a bigger screen and more performance, or they want a smaller, lighter laptop that they carry in their bag all day.
Disadvantages
-A laptop with CPU and RAM similar to a desktop will be much more expensive than the desktop itself.
-What you make up for in portability, you often lose in functionality. The thinnest laptops – even the very expensive ones – often come without multiple USB, HDMI, ethernet ports or disk drives.
-Laptops don’t have great battery life. This can be problematic at school when children do not have reliable access to a power source.
– Those who work from home know very well that using a laptop for long hours every day is not good for your eyes, neck or posture. If your child has a desk at home but needs something portable for school, set up a monitor and ergonomic keyboard on their desk and connect the laptop via HDMI and USB.
Desktop
Advantages
-Desktops are the most powerful of the three, making them much better for running multiple programs at once, such as gaming, programming, video editing or other design applications.
Because desktop computers contain multiple pieces of hardware, they can be repaired more cheaply and more easily than laptops.
-They can also be upgraded and customized for less than a laptop – instead of replacing the entire unit, you can simply buy a new CPU, display or keyboard or add an extra hard drive as needed.
Working on a desktop with a wired connection to your home network ensures that poor Wi-Fi connection doesn’t hinder your child’s learning.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of desktop computers is that they are not portable.
-The online/offline/blended learning situation is unpredictable and you may end up having to buy a laptop.
– Setting up a desktop, display, speakers, mouse, keyboard, webcam, CPU, etc. includes buying all the separate parts, such as
