Recommended for teenager a notebook or tablet?

[CHWells]

1ST TIME ASKING FOR HELP THIS WAY:
Wanna get our 15yr. old either a tablet or notebook, I truly dont know which would be the better opt. Money is very slim & there are 5 kids between the both of us. I'm wanting something she can do homework on as well as play games & social networks.? Thanks

 

[Ace_Jambo]

Tablets are very popular at the moment. That's all anyone wants these days. Personally I find 'Nettops' / Notebooks easier to use and usually more powerful. They are more practical because they have the keyboard.

 

[Barney6262]

For homework it is going to be a laptop/notebook.
The one issue you could find is that laptops that offer good gaming performance are reasonably rare and often cost a fair amount. However this issue would be even worse with a tablet. What exact games will she be playing?

As for homework and social network pretty much any laptop will do that so don't worry about that. Just make sure it either comes with Microsoft office or you have the ability to buy and install it.

 

[azm-mjza]

if you could tell us your budget it would be great since i could attempt to supply you with a detailed suggestion.

however, if you have a pc at home your kid can use when need be, forget the notebook.laptop.

ive had notebooks, as great as they can be, unless your kid is into some serious hacking or coding i wouldnt recommend it. screen is to small and will overheat to do homework for extended periods of time. i would not recommend laptops for the overheating issue, investing in a desktop pc or hackintosh would be my recommendation.

sorry for making matters confusing, but i would definitely suggest a tablet, if you could make it an ios tablet much better due the quality, simplicity, and overall smoothness of use.

i have ipad 2 and there are great apps for productivity,

 

[jaguarskx]

I would recommend a laptop for homework. It is possible to get a convertible laptop that can switch between a laptop and a tablet, but they are generally more expense. I actually recommend a 15.6" Lenovo ThinkPad E545 which starts at $429 for the base model which has a dual core AMD A6-5350m and the integrated Radeon HD 8450g. It is a pretty decent deal, but adding $20 will get a quad core A8-5550m and the intregrated HD 8550g which is actually pretty good in term of performance for an integrated solution. For $70 you can get the A10-5750m which comes with the Radeon HD 8650g and is currently the most powerful integrated graphics core on the market. However, this does bring the price up to $509.
The A8 will provide good game performance for an economical cost. The A10 will provide better performance at a more expensive cost.

To get the real benefits of the graphics, there needs to be two sticks of RAM to work in dual channel mode. A single stick of RAM (default) will mean the RAM will only operate in single channel mode which could mean a 15% - 20% decrease in overall performance.

In addition, being a ThinkPad you get the business side technical support rather than the normal consumer side. So that is a plus.

http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/e-series/e545/#customize

Lenovo's Yoga series their hybrid laptop tablet series. The least expensive is the Yoga 11 for $399. However, it runs Windows RT, not Windows 7 or 8 and uses a nVidia Tegra 3 ARM processor used in many tablets. Win RT cannot run normal Windows programs, it can only run programs developed specifically for Win RT. Personally I would avoid it.

The next cheapest is the Yoga 11s and it is actually a hybrid ultrabook, but the price jumps up to $699.

http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/yoga/


A final suggestion would be the Asus Transformer Book T100. It is a Windows 8 tablet with a keyboard that can be attached and used as a netbook. I say netbook because it uses Intel's Bay Trail generation Atom CPU which is low power consuming CPU meant to netbooks and tablets. Compared to the processors in the ThinkPad E545 and Yoga laptops (with the exception of the Tegra 3 ARM), Bay Trail is a weak CPU. It's not meant for PC games unless it is really old or a really non-demanding game. Your daughter can play the Sims 3 on the ThinkPad E545 or the Yoga 11s, but she will not be able to play it on the Asus Transformer Book. Keep in mind that this is designed to hit a certain price point so there could be quality issues with this newly released product.

http/reviews.cnet.com/tablets/asus-transformer-book-t100/4505-3126_7-35827544.html

http/recombu.com/mobile/reviews/asus/transformer-book-t100/

 

[g-unit1111]

A final suggestion would be the Asus Transformer Book T100. It is a Windows 8 tablet with a keyboard that can be attached and used as a netbook. I say netbook because it uses Intel's Bay Trail generation Atom CPU which is low power consuming CPU meant to netbooks and tablets. Compared to the processors in the ThinkPad E545 and Yoga laptops (with the exception of the Tegra 3 ARM), Bay Trail is a weak CPU. It's not meant for PC games unless it is really old or a really non-demanding game. Your daughter can play the Sims 3 on the ThinkPad E545 or the Yoga 11s, but she will not be able to play it on the Asus Transformer Book. Keep in mind that this is designed to hit a certain price point so there could be quality issues with this newly released product.

http/reviews.cnet.com/tablets/asus-transformer-book-t100/4505-3126_7-35827544.html

http/recombu.com/mobile/reviews/asus/transformer-book-t100/

The Transformer book is a pretty sweet little device. And it's surprisingly affordable since it comes with full Windows 8, and a full keyboard and trackpad. I'm trying to talk my dad into getting one since he wants a laptop replacement tablet. He currently uses an iPad 2 and it's incredibly frustrating for what he wants to do with it. He wants the Surface Pro but if we can't afford one, I'm suggesting this as an alternative. You can't say that about the Surface Pro which runs minimum $899. The only biggest downside that I can tell from using the device personally is that you're only left with 32GB of storage after formatting and OS installation, despite that Asus lists the capacity as 64GB. But it does have an SXHD expansion slot that can hold an additional 128GB SXHD card.