Laptop recommendations, for student, advice needed

[meanders]

I totally agree TDub49. However educational establishments seem to delight in telling students the physical clicks rather than getting them to understand what it is they are trying to do. So it will say "open Excel" rather than "open your spreadsheet program".

 

[Reallyretired]

I think students can get Office licenses for practically nothing anyway. I know when I was working (NHS) we did too.

 

[EML]

How much? You're looking at £400, inc. VAT, or £450 if you can manage it. Anything more than that is likely to be a waste of money unless she has very specialised needs or wants to do gaming (the digital photography is a bit of a red flag, but I wouldn't worry too much about it at the moment). I buy laptops every few months for work/kids/wife and my list is:

• Don't even think about Apple; way too expensive, gives you nothing apart from a warm feeling and a nice shiny logo
• Ditto Chromebook; it's a good idea, but I don't think it really works in practice
• Try to get one with a proper network connector ('RJ45'). The newer cheaper laptops no longer have them, so you're stuck with WiFi or buying a USB-to-RJ45 adaptor. The Uni rooms I've seen generally come with proper network sockets (ie. RJ45), and WiFi is not a good substitute
• Cheap laptops come with 'Intel UHD graphics', or the AMD equivalent (I forget what that's called at the moment). These are useless for gaming (ie. high frame rate fancy moving pictures) but great for everything else, including digital photography, so don't spend more money on graphics cards
• You'll need to buy some variant of MS Office as well, which could add another 50% to the price. Don't do that. MS haven't done student deals for a few years, so this is tricky. Don't buy cheap Office 365 licences if you can help it; the cloud thing isn't great. You can get (very) cheap licences on Amazon, which generally work (check the reviews). These aren't legal, but I know lots of people who use them successfully. You'll need Word and Excel (only)
• I generally get Acer for cheap laptops. Dell is good, but almost always too expensive for student-level kit (but they do have good refurb deals). HP have some good deals at the moment. They have a good reputation, but the quality of their more expensive desktop kit has been on a downwards trend for years now, and I would think twice before buying one. Lenovo used to have a good reputation, but that was trashed when they started messing with security certificates. My current laptops are Acer (good, cheap), Asus (very expensive NVIDIA graphics), HP (high-spec expensive), and Toshiba (don't)
• Spec: you need a 256GB SSD drive, and 8GB DRAM. The basic processor you get with cheap deals (Intel i5/AMD Ryzen 3/etc) will be Ok for a student laptop. If you have spare money, go for a 512GB SSD drive, a faster processor, and 16GB DRAM, in that order
• Make sure it's got at least one USB-C port (the more modern symmetric one), and an HDMI port. Some may come without the HDMI because the USB-C can be used for your external monitor, but monitors which take USB-C are generally more expensive
• The big problem is getting the right display. You first have to decide if 14" is enough, or you need 15.6" - go to a shop and compare. If you can live with 14", you can spend the spare cash on more SSD/etc. I always used to buy 15.6, but my feeling now is that a laptop has to be small, and 14 is enough. The screen technology has to be some variant of IPS (there are several) - make sure it's not an old technology like TN
• My personal view is that to make a laptop usable for extended use, at some point you'll have to buy an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse (another £100-£200). This means that you should go for a cheaper 14" display to start with

Start at scan.co.uk, laptopsdirect.co.uk, ebuyer.com, and box.co.uk, and select your price range. I've used all 4 , and they're all good.

Oh, and under no circumstances believe anyone who says that OpenOffice is a replacement for MS Office. It's not even close, and you'll go crazy trying to get it to do anything more than the most basic stuff. Windows is next to useless, but MS Office is the thing that keeps it alive.

 

[MaidinDevon]

L-A275-UK-Z004, T1A Lenovo ThinkPad A275 | Box.co.uk

www.box.co.uk

What is your opinion of this refurbished Lenovo?

Or is the Dell preferable. It seems to be 2014 technology, does that matter?

Broken Link Removed

 

[AndyPK]

Ok, but screen resolution not too good - as she is a keen digital photographer, I’d try and get a Full HD (1920x1080) screen at least…..

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[EML]

L-A275-UK-Z004, T1A Lenovo ThinkPad A275 | Box.co.uk

www.box.co.uk

What is your opinion of this refurbished Lenovo?

Or is the Dell preferable. It seems to be 2014 technology, does that matter?

Broken Link Removed

They should be about the same speed. The Lenovo might be marginally faster in normal usage. The Lenovo has much better connectivity than the Dell (it has USB-C and an RJ45), but has a smaller screen (12.5" vs 13.3"). You'll need to check with your daughter if a 12.5" screen is enough. The thing to watch out for on refurbs is battery life. The Dell claims that it still has 40 minutes battery life (not enough for a whole lecture), but the Lenovo has no battery spec, so buyer beware.

I think it might be time to get your offspring out on a paper round to raise another £150...

 

[Reallyretired]

If you go for a refurb Dell, get a new battery, they are not expensive and user replaceable.

 

[Jamesh]

L-A275-UK-Z004, T1A Lenovo ThinkPad A275 | Box.co.uk

www.box.co.uk

What is your opinion of this refurbished Lenovo?

Or is the Dell preferable. It seems to be 2014 technology, does that matter?

Broken Link Removed

The lenovo is a smaller 12" screen, they were called X series bitd. T series were the bigger ones. Built like tanks and expensive when new, and every bank manager had one.

As I thought it's a rebadged x270 with AMD rather than intel hence the A275 which is a bit slow compared to an Intel model.

Lenovo ThinkPad A275 (A12-9800B, 256GB) Laptop Review

The A275 is geared towards a business audience. It's a hard sell though considering that for the same money similarly equipped yet faster Intel notebooks are available as well.

www.notebookcheck.net

Dell are ok but not in the same league as the X and t series were. Not sure of Lenovo have watered down the quality though.

 

[Gellyneck]

Check out the actual condition of the Dell if that's the one you're thinking of as your link show Grade A3 which means average condition however the item description says T1 which is excellent.
The Lenovo seems to be a more modern machine and appears to be in better condition.

 

[MaidinDevon]

Thank ypu everyone, probably better to keep looking then, if she had the extra £150, what eould you buy instead?

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[Jamesh]

Faster x270 brilliant machines!!

I maybe biased had X and T machines for years.

 

[Gellyneck]

After only a quick squint might be worth a look?
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[MichaelT]

I just put a new SSD disk in my old HP PAvillion laptop, now boots in 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes and is quiet. Cost just over £100 incudling the cable to clone the disk, works a treat and just took about an hour.

 

[mikebeaches]

This being a forum, you'll get lots of different opinions.

For what it's worth, I've become a big fan of Chromebooks. I'm on my second, and Mrs mikebeaches has become a convert too, with her own machine. They certainly cync nicely with our Android phones.

And no need for extra antivirus software.

Took a while to get used to, but as your daughter is already familiar, not an issue.

My first Chromebook did slow down after a year or two, but still works fine. It was cheap and lightweight, so use it when travelling. But I wanted a bigger, better one - mid-range - think I paid circa £375. It's an HP, has 8GB of memory and it flies. Works perfectly for zoom calls etc and has a reasonably decent screen.

Anyway, hope you can sort something suitable out, whatever is chosen.

 

[Wissel]

I bought a refurbed Dell last week and there's not much it won't do.

Great screen, 16gb ram, M2 SSD, USB Type-C - paid £330.

This was the one:
<Broken link removed>

(there was a 15% off deal when I ordered)

This will do most things, including photo and video editing with ease.

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[autorouter]

Have a look at exdemohut.com My daughter got her laptop from them 4 years ago and I've just replaced my laptop with them. Good service and quick delivery. My laptop has a non-standard UK keyboard which wasn't mentioned in the advert. They e-mailed before shipping with a picture asking if I wanted to cancel the order for a full refund.

For you or anyone else in the same situation, it is not so difficult to change the keycaps on the keyboard. I watched a couple of Youtube videos and found out how to do it. You may break the first one or two that you attempt to change, but the mechanism is interchangeable, and you should get the key caps and mechanisms when you order them. Found them on Ebay.

I changed all the keys caps required to make a German keyboard into a UK keyboard. I got the German laptop from a friend who was upgrading, and it's ideal for the grandson for GCSE work

 

[Vipar]

Get a refurbished Apple bug proof

 

[The Wino]

For you or anyone else in the same situation, it is not so difficult to change the keycaps on the keyboard. I watched a couple of Youtube videos and found out how to do it. You may break the first one or two that you attempt to change, but the mechanism is interchangeable, and you should get the key caps and mechanisms when you order them. Found them on Ebay.

I changed all the keys caps required to make a German keyboard into a UK keyboard. I got the German laptop from a friend who was upgrading, and it's ideal for the grandson for GCSE work

It's pretty easy just to change the keyboard

 

[Nanniemate]

I totally agree TDub49. However educational establishments seem to delight in telling students the physical clicks rather than getting them to understand what it is they are trying to do. So it will say "open Excel" rather than "open your spreadsheet program".

I put the hoover over........with a dyson, brand names have become the norm, problem I have found when clients using apple/iphones is the size of the files as anything with video or pictures seems to be huge and are not compatible with the e-portfolio as they will not upload as they are too big for they system this is overcome by using free compressor apps found on google
I was told the local primary school insisted all children have apple computers , why, it was claimed , apple had supplied FOC the staff's equipment
Brilliant piece of marketing if it was true 1 teacher laptop = 30 kids laptop/tablet

 

[LesW]

Get a refurbished Apple bug proof

No they're not.

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[Vipar]

I must be lucky then as I have had Apple products for over 10 years and never had a problem.

 

[The Wino]

I must be lucky then as I have had Apple products for over 10 years and never had a problem.

I can't recall ever having a problem with viruses on a pc.

 

[Nanniemate]

I can't recall ever having a problem with viruses on a pc.

the only problems I have had is when the' man from 'Microsoft' called me to say had a problem with my computer. After talking to me for over 45 minutes whilst I tried with great difficulties to follow his instructions to give him access to my computers so he could help me .
He got rather frustrated and shouted at me DO YOU HAVE WINDOWS my response was

Yes lovely double glazed ones

His response was not printable but he hung up calling me some rather rude names