I don’t know what to do

[Noah Wesselby]

I’m  young and I get £300 a year and I really want a decent laptop/pc. I don’t have a monitor and for an ok one its £100 and I just don’t know what to do.

Edited March 5, 2021 by LogicalDrm

[Master Disaster]

Talk to your parents/guardians since legally you cannot make this purchase without their permission.

[Bartandroid123]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

Talk to your parents/guardians since legally you cannot make this purchase without their permission.

I think he is asking for a reccomendation...

 

 

But i do get What you mean

[pythonmegapixel]

The answer is save your £300 per year for a few years and buy one then. If your family can afford it then you can maybe ask for the parts for christmas/birthday presents as well.

 

Alternatively if there is someone in your family who can give you an old one you can upgrade, then you might be in luck.

 

  

On 3/4/2021 at 12:41 PM, Master Disaster said:

legally you cannot make this purchase without their permission.

 

I am fairly sure this is false as I don't believe the UK has any law which would prevent an so young from purchasing a computer. I am happy to be corrected though.

Edited March 5, 2021 by LogicalDrm

[Noah Wesselby]

That’s just the easy bit, I would build a pc but I’m stuck on an old acer with an i5-3337u and a 750gb hdd

[Riley Howes]

How much money do you currently have? I would recommend having a tower with a b450 Pro with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600x and 16 gb ram. Also a 600w psu, If you are looking for RTX go for a 2060- 2060 super but if not a GTX 1070 ti.

 

[Noah Wesselby]

1 minute ago, pythonmegapixel said:

The answer is save your £300 per year for a few years and buy one then. If your family can afford it then you can maybe ask for the parts for christmas/birthday presents as well.

 

Alternatively if there is someone in your family who can give you an old one you can upgrade, then you might be in luck.

 

  

 

I am fairly sure this is false as I don't believe the UK has any law which would prevent an 11-year-old from purchasing a computer. I am happy to be corrected though.

I have a laptop but it’s old and slow and has a 3rd gen i5

[Bartandroid123]

7 minutes ago, Noahi5-3337u said:

I’m 11 and I get £300 a year and I really want a decent laptop/pc. I don’t have a monitor and for an ok one its £100 and I just don’t know what to do.

Right now its a really idea to build a pc because the compoment parts are really high. Its best to wait for the prices to go back to normal.

[Noah Wesselby]

Yeah I noticed for an i3 10th it’s the same price as a ryzen 5

[Bartandroid123]

Just now, Noahi5-3337u said:

Yeah I noticed for an i3 10th it’s the same price as a ryzen 5

If you can go for the ryzen 5

[pythonmegapixel]

3 minutes ago, Noahi5-3337u said:

I have a laptop but it’s old and slow and has a 3rd gen i5

Do you know if it's possible to replace the HDD with an SSD? That's a reasonable upgrade to make and should make the experience a bit better. Unfortunately some laptops are difficult to upgrade.

 

If you need the full 750GB of storage though that might be a bad idea.

[Noah Wesselby]

Yeah it costs a fortune to get windows 

[Noah Wesselby]

7 minutes ago, Riley Howes said:

How much money do you currently have? I would recommend having a tower with a b450 Pro with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600x and 16 gb ram. Also a 600w psu, If you are looking for RTX go for a 2060- 2060 super but if not a GTX 1070 ti.

 

I currently have £100 and I’d sell my laptop for £125

[pythonmegapixel]

6 minutes ago, Noahi5-3337u said:

Yeah it costs a fortune to get windows 

??

 

You don't have to buy a new windows license if you replace the drive. Not unless you're still on Win7 for some reason. I can't remember exactly how you transfer the license, but it's definitely possible to do.

In any case with a machine that old you should seriously consider a lightweight linux distribution if your games will work with it - a lot less heavy on resources than Win10.

[Noah Wesselby]

I’d rather a new laptop/pc I might save up for a m1 MacBook Air for £899 as I’m a student

[Cheburek]

6 minutes ago, Noahi5-3337u said:

Yeah it costs a fortune to get windows 

Dont buy windows,its pointless,download windows off the official microsoft  site and you dont need to pay.

[Noah Wesselby]

What about activation 

[Master Disaster]

On 3/4/2021 at 12:42 PM, pythonmegapixel said:

I am fairly sure this is false as I don't believe the UK has any law which would prevent - - from purchasing a computer. I am happy to be corrected though.

In the UK, for a child between the ages of 11 & 16 to have a bank account in their name it must be countersigned by a parent/guardian. Children can have a bank card (though some banks have a no card until your 16 policy) but there are strict limits on how much they can spend in one go and the banks will stop any large purchases until they've sought confirmation from the parents.

 

You can't just have a child walk into a shop, unaccompanied and spend £300 on a laptop. The parent/guardian will need to be present otherwise the shop will refuse the sale.

 

I didn't say a child cannot purchase a laptop, I said a child cannot purchase a laptop without permission.

Edited March 5, 2021 by LogicalDrm

[Noah Wesselby]

Yeah, it’s a pain

[akio123008]

I know what it feels like to not be able to buy a computer.

 

Then people come in with this sort of reply;

28 minutes ago, Riley Howes said:

I would recommend having a tower with a b450 Pro with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600x and 16 gb ram. Also a 600w psu

At your age and with that budget, this sort of PC isn't even close to being within reach.

 

The reality of it is that you just can't afford shiny new stuff, and saving up for something for many years is going to be an absolute pain. Not only is it just not worth the wait in the end, it's also useless to ask for any purchase advice now because in 2-3 years everything will be different.

 

Instead, here's what I would do; get something affordable, low end. Or even better, if you're willing to take some risk, get something used. Sure you won't have the nicest computer, but you'll have something to tinker and play with, and something better than a cheap laptop.

 

In a few years you'll be older and have more money and nice computers will be an option, just be patient for now, and don't waste your savings on what would inevitably be a mediocre computer.

 

Don't let guys like Linus on YouTube put you off telling you what counts as a "good" computer; their standards are for grown ups with plenty of money to spend. Don't worry in general about the public opinion on what is a "good computer", just focus on what gets the job done for you.

[pythonmegapixel]

  

13 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

In the UK, for a child between the ages of 11 & 16 to have a bank account in their name it must be countersigned by a parent/guardian. Children can have a bank card (though some banks have a no card until your 16 policy) but there are strict limits on how much they can spend in one go and the banks will stop any large purchases until they've sought confirmation from the parents.

I've no idea where you are getting this information from. When I was in that age group, I had a card - the only limit on it was a £300 cash machine withdrawal limit per day. All correspondence happened with me not my parents, and I was even able to go into the branch and order a new card without my parents being present (though obviously I told them I was doing this beforehand).

 

Yes my parents had to countersign but other than paying in a regular allowance and me occasionally paying them for various things that's the only involvement they had with it.

 

I'm aware that some banks may impose different limits or have different policies - however, having the payment held because it looks too big doesn't make it not legal to carry out the purchase.

[Levent]

22 minutes ago, Riley Howes said:

I would recommend having a tower with a b450 Pro with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600x and 16 gb ram. Also a 600w psu, If you are looking for RTX go for a 2060- 2060 super but if not a GTX 1070 ti.

Suggesting someone who has no budget and no adequate savings to get a RTX card or a GTX1070 alongside a 3600X definitely makes sense. I guarantee OP would have been more than happy with my current computer at his age. 

[pythonmegapixel]

1 minute ago, akio123008 said:

I know what it feels like to not be able to buy a computer.

 

Then people come in with this sort of reply;

At your age and with that budget, this sort of PC isn't even close to being within reach.

2 minutes ago, Levent said:

Suggesting someone who has no budget and no adequate savings to get a RTX card or a GTX1070 alongside a 3600X definitely makes sense. I guarantee OP would have been more than happy with my current computer at his age. 

Completely agree with this. I understand recommending things slightly over budget if it makes a big difference, but telling someone on a £300 budget to buy a £1500+ machine really isn't helpful.

 

Modern low end hardware is really good. Sure, you won't get as many frames per second as the higher end stuff but it will still be very usable.

[Master Disaster]

Just now, pythonmegapixel said:

I'm aware that some banks may impose different limits or have different policies - however, having the payment held because it looks too big doesn't make it not legal to carry out the purchase.

That's not what I said, I said legally a child cannot spend £300 without permission from their parent/guardian first.

 

I will concede that legally is not accurate and you are correct when you say there are no laws preventing it however OP still won't be able to walk into a shop and buy a laptop without a parent/guardian being there.

 

My point is still valid, OP will need permission.

[gloop]

Keep your current laptop and invest your earnings into improving yourself or into something that will make you money in 20 years. Buy some courses online for stuff that interests you,  or invest in index funds that makes you money constantly. If you really want to, buy an older prebuilt off eBay and mess around with it if you are interested in computers.