I noticed that a lot of the cheaper laptops come with OpenOffice. I have no knowledge of that software. Is it similar to MS Office? Are they compatibe, e.g. if you draft a doc using OpenOffice can it be read with MS Office software? Excuse my ignorance.
OpenOffice is a free alternative. It has most of the features that most people would use in an office software suite.
For the most part, OpenOffice and Microsoft Office are compatible. Problems arise when people save documents in proprietary formats (in Microsoft Office). While these documents are still readable in OpenOffice, much of the formatting is often lost.
I've never had issues opening an OpenOffice-created document in Microsoft Office. Formatting is preserved.
So if he will be working with (mostly) mainstream features, OpenOffice is more than sufficient. In addition, for interoperability with Microsoft Office, would it be too much to ask people to keep to standards with regards to document types (.xls, .doc, .pps instead of .docx, for example).
And if Office is for creating documents for submission, then he should have no problems. Especially since PDF is a better way of submitting the documents (post script usually is), and OpenOffice has built-in support for exporting as PDF. Then your documents can be viewed with no loss of formatting on any other computer that can read PDFs.
He studies through UNISA.
He should find out if UNISA offers what Tuks offers, software-wise. I'm not sure what their policy is. At Tuks, students can just go to the relevant people and sign a register to get a license for Windows or whatever.
He wants Internet access. Would it help if he then rather chooses the "with Internet contract" option or is it better if he signs a seperate contract somewhere else?
The "Internet access" they mean is usually a dialup account. So if you took the offer of "Internet access", he'd end up having to pay for that PLUS the cost of phone calls (at super slow speeds).
If he has access to a DSL-enabled line, then the best for him would be to go prepaid (IMO). Then you pay beforehand for what you use, and as long as he isn't downloading movies and series, for general browsing and research, 1GB @ R70 from Webafrica (or cheaper elsewhere) would last quite a while.
If he doesn't have access to a DSL-enabled line, then GPRS/3G is likely the way to go. If he has a GPRS/3G enabled cellphone, then it should have come with software for connecting to a PC. He can use this to connect to the Internet. If he doesn't have a GPRS/3G enabled phone (unlikely for teenagers these days, let's be honest; especially one who is able to attend university), then you could look at a notebook with built-in 3G support. These are, however, more expensive.
There are 2 more options for 3G connectivity:
1) Buy a modem then go month-to-month with Internet usage through Vodacom / MTN, etc
2) Sign a contract to get a modem for free, but then be tied to a contract where you pay exhorbitant amounts for relatively little usage. And the usage doesn't carry over.
Of course, there is one more course of action that could work. Incredible (and many other places, including Vodacom; check out Vodaworld) offer deals whereby you sign a data contract and get a "free" notebook. These notebooks are fully-featured, but aren't high-spec (but for R4500, the notebook wouldn't be high-spec anyway). The specs of these notebooks are adequate for most peoples' needs. The "price" of the notebook (after calculating the extra cost on the contract per month over the length of the contract) works out to be around the budget of R4500, obviously depending on the specific notebook in question.
Plus, you'd get 3G Internet usage (plus a modem) thrown in.
The downside of this is that you get tied to a contract. They usually work it in such that the contract period is 36months (although AFAIK, they aren't actually allowed to do this anymore).
An example of the kind of deal I'm talking about can be found at:
http://www.vodacomdirect.co.za/FindItFastHome.aspx?Search=Phone&PhoneCodes=VDELLD630V
although, this is a higher-spec notebook than you are looking for.
The price of the contract alone (over 36 months) would amount to R9000. The price of the contract with the notebook (over 36 months) amounts to R19764. Which means that the notebook "cost" is approximately R11 000. Not bad considering the notebook (if bought outright) actually costs much more than that.
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