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Looking fora laptop for my daughter, usual student requirements nothing too intensive (doesn't want a chromebook) would prefer lightweight as her old one is a bit of a brick. Normally I would be looking to pick up a good condition second hand but just looking around at whats available new - there are a couple on Currys that look okay -
Anything better out there? Would you go new or second hand?
Cheers.
Was going to suggest the Dell outlet store as an option I've had a couple of decent laptops from, but with those discounts I doubt you'd get better value there.
That Curry's website is hateful, making you scroll past numerous up selling offers before getting to the specs right at the end of the page.
I'm always suspicious of discounts like that, thinking they've artificially bumped the price up for a few months, but still they seem like okay deals.
I'll check the dell outlet as well, thanks.
Refurbed MacBook Air M1 can be had for £400+
M1 processor is still really fast for everyday applications, very light, and excellent battery life.
What are "usual student requirements"? You've basically asked "recommend me a laptop" to which the answer is "buy a laptop, then." My daughter wants a bike, what should I buy?
Do you want a cheap bargain; something which will last her years; something that she can used for 3D modelling on her Engineering course; something suitable for 4k video editing on her Media course; something which will cope with complex maths on her Game Design course; or something to run Microsoft Word and a web browser?
For "usual student requirements" with no further qualification I'd be down at Cash Converters looking for something with a good screen and a nice keyboard.
Refurbed MacBook Air M1
... would likely be a terrible choice for most students.
… would likely be a terrible choice for most students.
Why? Unless there's Windows specific software needed, then Office365, Adobe, etc. all run fine on Macs.
They're fast, light and run cool and quiet, what's not to like?
What screen size does she want?
This could be a an option..
14" really wins on portability over a 16" one... I'd not go back to a bigger one now but I do have the option of plugging it into a monitor at home if I want.
I do like the yoga above as it has a 2.2k screen rather than 1080
Why?
Because,
a) As you say there may well be "Windows specific software needed," buying a Mac to run Mac-specific software hasn't existed in decades.
b) A student with a desirable piece of tech is liable to be a target for theft.
c) If she's not used to it, the OS is one extra thing to learn on top of everything else.
d) The instructions provided by a lecturer may well differ from what she's seeing.
e) "Buy a Mac to run Microsoft Office" said no-one ever.
f) Why would you pay an Apple premium for a student laptop? What would it gain outside of fanboyism?
g) Where are you finding £400 Macbook Airs?
h) The first time she drops it, it's f'ked.
i) The first time she wants to upgrade it, well, see h).
j) Need I continue? Macbooks have their use case but "my daughter is starting college" is not one of them.
My daughter reckons that two thirds of the students on her first year course at Durham (Law) have Macbooks so very few students seem to subscribe to the ideas in the previous post. Portability and battery life are the essentials and many students also have USB C connected second screens that they can take to study areas. If you are paying nearly £30 grand tuition fees plus lots more for living/accommodation then not having a decent laptop is a false economy.
@Cougar2 I respectfully disagree with most of your points...
a) As you say there may well be “Windows specific software needed,” buying a Mac to run Mac-specific software hasn’t existed in decades.
But unless there is a prerequisite for Windows software then a Mac will be perfectly fine
b) A student with a desirable piece of tech is liable to be a target for theft.
No more so than any other decent laptop and/or smartphone.
c) If she’s not used to it, the OS is one extra thing to learn on top of everything else.
I think you are doing most modern tech savvy kids a disservice, it's not much of a change really. In fact I showed a 45 year old friend with a new Mac the basics in under 30 mins the other day.
d) The instructions provided by a lecturer may well differ from what she’s seeing.
Again, see Windows specific software above, but the worst that can normally happen is a slightly different layout in PowerPoint for example.
e) “Buy a Mac to run Microsoft Office” said no-one ever.
But the office apps run perfectly on Mac, and saved docs open perfectly on a Windows machine.
f) Why would you pay an Apple premium for a student laptop? What would it gain outside of fanboyism?
Because they're fast, light and quiet. Good bits of reliable kit.
g) Where are you finding £400 Macbook Airs?
Back Market and Hoxton Macs have refurbished ones between £400 and £500.
h) The first time she drops it, it’s f’ked.
Nope, they're surprisingly tough, but the same goes for any tech...if you treat it badly it'll probably break, be it windows or Mac.
i) The first time she wants to upgrade it, well, see h).
Regular free OS updates, and tbh I've felt no need to update the ram in my M1. Decent external 1TB SSD runs as fast as the internal drive for extra storage.
j) Need I continue? Macbooks have their use case but “my daughter is starting college” is not one of them.
Nope, but you obviously just don't like Macs. That's fine, but it'd be perfectly good for general use by a student.
My daughter reckons that two thirds of the students on her first year course at Durham (Law) have Macbooks so very few students seem to subscribe to the ideas in the previous post.
To be fair, if you are studying law, then you only need a laptop that is capable of browsing the net, and typing notes and documents. Literally any laptop will be fine as long a it's not a total pile of crap and has a fairly good screen.
f) Why would you pay an Apple premium for a student laptop? What would it gain outside of fanboyism?
Because they’re fast, light and quiet. Good bits of reliable kit.
Also very expensive for what they are..
I have an ASUS expert book, it cost me £600 quid brand new.
It weighs 1.4kg
It's an i5 11th gen, with 8gb RAM (expandable to 16gb+ for about £30 if I need to) and a 500gb nvme M.2 (it also has a second M.2 slot so I can slip a cheeky second drive into it for pennies if i want to).
It has an OLED screen which is also a touch screen and is 180 degrees flippable.
How much would an equivelent spec Mac cost?*
*Spoiler alert, it will cost you a thousand quid. https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/13-inch-m2
Asus Vivobooks I rate for a cheaper laptop. Currys had last year's Ultra i5 one at £600, 3K 120Hz OLED, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB storage, metal case. This one I think...
https://www.asus.com/uk/laptops/for-home/vivobook/asus-vivobook-s-15-oled-s5506/
@mattyfez nice specs but you're missing the point. The mac would utterly wipe the floor with your Acer on battery life.
Is that the main need? Maybe, if it's not then I'd be putting my money on the best Lenovo T series that fit within the budget. But that's ignoring the list of possible requirements Cougar listed.
you’re missing the point. The mac would utterly wipe the floor with your Acer on battery life.
Point of order, my laptop is an Asus, not an Acer.
Maybe a random acer of unknown specification doesn't have as good a battery as a £1k+ Macbook?
I wouldn't know as I don't own either 😉
Nope, but you obviously just don’t like Macs.
I don't really know enough about them to form such a strong opinion. But nothing you've written there has been a reason to buy Apple, just a rebuttal of my reasons not to. Which is fair enough and all, but despite "doesn't want a Chromebook" it ticks all the boxes at a fraction of the budget.
Point of order, my laptop is an Asus, not an Acer.
Potaytoe potato, still an x86 chip with all the inefficiencies that brings. It nothing to do with the battery and everything to do with power draw.
ARM chips in pcs are a thing but windows is still catching up, a Snapdragon CPU is nowhere near the OPs budget.
We're just talking amongst ourselves whilst we wait for the necessary details.
It's a bit like asking what bike for £500 and everyone starts flinging suggestions without asking whether it'll be up a moor or run round a velodrome.
The daughter I mentioned has an Asus Zenbook with 13" screen i5 CPU, 8 GB DRAM and 500 GB SSD. It was bought when she started 6th form and has been great so far but is currently overheating so I am taking it in for repair which I hope will be a replacement fan. It was £400 which was great value compared to Apple.
I know there are great options (and also a lot of dross) in the Windows laptop market but I do cringe sometimes at what is posted on here. Why buy a refurbished boat anchor with a battery life that will require multiple charges a day? If doing a degree the student will be using it intensely for three years and carting it around to lectures so weight and battery life are key.
If for whatever reason the Zenbook cannot be repaired then we will be getting a MacBook Air as a replacement and buying it via interest free credit. I have recently started using a MacBook Pro at work and have been impressed by the build quality (but a little underwhelmed by MacOS. With my daughter studying 250 miles away from home then reliability is an important factor.
TBH I'd go for a £250 refurb job and keep the extra £250 budget aside for a replacement, when she destroys/has it stolen/fills it with malware...
currently overheating so I am taking it in for repair which I hope will be a replacement fan
The ducting is probably just full of fluff - young people's laptops spend a lot of time being used on the floor, on their laps or on the bed rather than on a desk. Fluff ahoy! IME, YMMV etc as usual.
The ducting is probably just full of fluff – young people’s laptops spend a lot of time being used on the floor, on their laps or on the bed rather than on a desk. Fluff ahoy! IME, YMMV etc as usual.
Yup, it'll be one or the other assuming the diagnosis is accurate. I had ongoing issues for a while with mine, couldn't the to the bottom of it for ages then saw a bit of fluff in the vent. Got tweezers on it and excavated a dust bunny the size of my thumb.
still an x86 chip with all the inefficiencies that brings. It nothing to do with the battery and everything to do with power draw.
We digress, but my laptop has 'EVO' certification, which among other things means:
It can reach 9 hours of battery life or more with an FHD (1080p) display
It can wake back up from sleep mode in less than a second
You can get at least 4 hours of battery life out of a 30-minute charge
It can charge over USB-C
It supports Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6E
What use case are we envisaging where battery life is going to be a concern? When is a modern-day student going to be more than a metre from a power outlet? Is she doing her homework in a field?
What use case are we envisaging where battery life is going to be a concern? When is a modern-day student going to be more than a metre from a power outlet? Is she doing her homework in a field?
Do lecture theatres have charging points?
Is there necessarily going to be one in a tutorial room?
It's been a few years since I was near a bricks and mortar uni (within the last decade) and there were bugger all sockets around then. I'm sure with how they love to splash cash on lecturers and estate upkeep they've no doubt refurbed everything with USB PD everywhere by now though.
@mattyfez and how does that stack up in real world usage? I'm sure similarly grand claims could be made for my laptops, neither of which will run for more than 2 hours at their best. There's a reason the ARM macs did so well and the similarly equipped PCs are doing well. If yours can really run for 9h without making it borderline unusable in real world conditions (backlight at lowest setting, all radios off etc.) then the battery must be as big as the laptop itself.
What use case are we envisaging where battery life is going to be a concern? When is a modern-day student going to be more than a metre from a power outlet? Is she doing her homework in a field?
My last gen 12 i7 laptop wasn't bad, but it spent most of its time on the desk plugged in. On batteries, it would last a few hours, get hot and run slower. Have a Snapdragon one now which gets unplugged first thing, lasts all day, has pretty much the same performance when on batteries and runs cool.
So, it may be nice to have, but I could see it being useful in lecture halls, libraries, coffee shops, etc.
and how does that stack up in real world usage? I’m sure similarly grand claims could be made for my laptops, neither of which will run for more than 2 hours at their best.
I've never really tested it off battery for more than 4 or 5 hours at a guess, but with a fair bit to spare, so all I can really say is it comfortably lasts longer than that.
If you're not getting more than 2 hours battery from a laptop, the battery is either toast, or it's a power hungry chip and/or GPU and your doing heavy compute or gaming tasks on it etc.
My last gen 12 i7 laptop wasn’t bad, but it spent most of its time on the desk plugged in. On batteries, it would last a few hours, get hot and run slower.
That's an i7 though...even the cut down lower power laptop varients are the wrong chip for typing documents & web browsing, did it have a dedicated GPU too? that won't help either.
It's not going to open an office suite, or load web pages any faster than a lower powered device, assuming the lower powered device isn't a complete potato and/or several generations old or something daft.
did it have a dedicated GPU too?
12th-gen was the first hybrid chip with efficiency cores. Graphics were integrated. Even though it was better than previous Intel stuff, Snapdragon, Apple Silicon (and Ryzen? not tried one) are streets ahead with efficiency.
Ryzen you can get for this budget. Snapdragons start at £600 in the sales.
As I hinted... You can't really compare an i7 to that kind of thing... They are quite niche usage cases for laptops, for heavier tasks if you need the horsepower on the go... and in excess of requirements for general desk jockeying.
My angle is spending over a grand on a Mac book just to write documents and use the internet is equally bonkers.
I mean if you just want to look cool in Starbucks then that's fine but don't pretend you are getting value /efficiency when you are paying probably more than twice as much as you need to!
Do lecture theatres have charging points?
Is there necessarily going to be one in a tutorial room?
It’s been a few years since I was near a bricks and mortar uni
I've been in lecture theatres in Leeds, Sheffield and Lancaster Universities for conferences in the last couple of years. There's at least one power point at every desk nowadays. OK, I'm not a student, but in the last ~15 years the only time I've had a laptop on battery has been either because I'm moving between power outlets or I'm diverting usage of the charger to juice something else.
It's not the 1990s any more, I can get the X43 bus from Burnley into Manchester and it has USB, regular 3-pin mains and proximity mobile charge points. If you're using "hours" and "only" in the same sentence regarding laptop battery life then something has gone wrong.
Just because there may be power points available in multiple places doesn't mean that there is great value in not being tethered to one. With the advent of USB C charging things have become simpler but chargers get left places, forgotten etc. Why would anyone not want all day battery life if it can be had for a reasonable price?
Anyway, to answer the original request, there is an Asus Zenbook 14 with 2.8k display, i5 CPU, 8 GB DRAM and 512 GB SSD for £360 on Amazon. That would leave ££ in the budget for an upgrade to 16GB and for a second charger that could be used whilst out and about with the supplied one left in the room.
My angle is spending over a grand on a Mac book just to write documents and use the internet is equally bonkers.
But nobody is saying that. Someone said you can get an M1 for the £500 budget.
If you’re using “hours” and “only” in the same sentence regarding laptop battery life then something has gone wrong.
If you’re not getting more than 2 hours battery from a laptop, the battery is either toast, or it’s a power hungry chip and/or GPU and your doing heavy compute or gaming tasks on it etc.
Forum sweetheart Lenovo T series, supplied brand new. Running VPN which may be the issue but still, even on a light load with radio off it doesn't offer all day power.
I'd had an array of work provided windows laptops over the years from expensive to really expensive.
Bought myself a 13" M3 MacBook earlier in the year, rather than updating my phone and it is by a long way the nicest laptop I've ever had.
Genuine all day battery life. fantastic build quality and the trackpad is actually pleasant to use. If I do have to plug in, I can do it with the same charger I use for my phone.
Instant on, fanless, touch-id. great quality display and sound. handoff from iPhone is actually quite useful.
The main office apps are now identical to the windows version.
was £850 from amazon. Pretty sure you should be able to pick up M1/M2's for a lot cheaper than that now the M4 is out.
Do students still get a decent discount from Apple?
As I hinted… You can’t really compare an i7 to that kind of thing… They are quite niche usage cases for laptops, for heavier tasks if you need the horsepower on the go… and in excess of requirements for general desk jockeying.
What heavy tasks are you thinking of? I now have an i7, an Apple M1, and a Snapdragon X Elite. The i7 doesn't beat the ARM chips at anything. Either on the mains or on the go. What niche use demands a slower, hotter laptop?
I'm not suggesting ARM really for a student's first laptop BTW. That depends if there are any software requirements for the course and budget. But I wouldn't dismiss ARM if it met the requirements.
Do students still get a decent discount from Apple?
10% I think.
but still, even on a light load with radio off it doesn’t offer all day power.
But again,
So what? Under what scenario do you suppose that all-day power is going to be a necessity? It's not a phone.
once you have it, it feels pretty archaic having to scrabble around trying to find a plug socket everywhere you go..but if it works for you.
Thanks for all the suggestions, sorry I haven't replied sooner I had difficulties logging in, password reset didn't seem to work, I've managed to login on one device but no idea what my pw is now....
So daughter is still in high school so requirements are low level stuff but with a view to keeping whatever I buy at least until college. She has now.though thrown in a couple of curve balls.
No.1 She is pretty adamant she wants mouse buttons on the touchpad rather than as completely flat pad that most have these days. This seems to rule out 95% of options
No.2 she has only just spotted that 14" laptops don't have a separate numpad so she is umming ahhing about that.
External keyboard and mouse will solve that, when she's at home at least.
Back when I looked after a fleet, all our Lenovo laptops had proper mouse buttons (and a nipple which is far superior to a trackpad IMHO). Whether that's still the case with current machines I don't know.
Current Lenovos still have buttons and a nubbin. 16" models have the full numpad, refurb or previous gen should come into your budget.
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadl/thinkpad-l16-16-inch-intel/len101t0097
So what? Under what scenario do you suppose that all-day power is going to be a necessity? It’s not a phone.
I already gave my scenario but the TL:DR is lectures, tutorials and general work. If at school read that as classes and study periods. One charger per desk as you describe will not cut it. Besides, that's always assuming the charger isn't buggered. Anyway, I don't know if that IS a consideration but only that it is a possible one. Try not to be so dismissive of something that doesn't fit your own requirements. I can live with charging but it would make my life much easier if I didn't have to.
It's nothing to do with my requirements. Rather, it's not the OP's requirements either, someone made it up along the way in the middle of the previous page.
One charger per desk as you describe will not cut it.
Why not?
The attraction of Mac’s is for recording with an audio interface.
unlike a windows pc, there’s zero latency when recording music.
to swing me into purchasing a Mac, it would need a touchscreen.
Steve,
Separate mouse buttons have disappeared from top end laptops and now only seem to be a thing on cheap laptops or business focused models like the Lenovo Thinkpad series.
Having a separate number pad means that a laptop would be a 15.6" or larger device. This means more weight to carry and a bigger bag is required - she would have to really want the numpad for that trade off to make sense.
I would suggest you offer to get a small, stylish mouse if she does not like the idea of a touchpad. The Logitech Pop Mouse is a quality option for this - works off Bluetooth, powered by an AA battery that will last for over a year and comes in a variety of colours.
Numpads are practically essential if you're doing lots of work with numbers, I'd hate to be without one that's for sure.
I do second a mouse but again, this is a personal preference
Why not?
This might be a misunderstanding, did you mean one per individual or one per table cluster?
No.1 She is pretty adamant she wants mouse buttons on the touchpad rather than as completely flat pad that most have these days. This seems to rule out 95% of options
No.2 she has only just spotted that 14″ laptops don’t have a separate numpad so she is umming ahhing about that.
Theres a couple of possible cosiderations there..
1a. You're going to want a seperate mouse regardless, even if it's one of those mini laptop/travel ones - they are just so much better.
1b. As above, 99% of the time the left/right click buttons are integrated into the touch pad, just seem to be they way thigs are these days.
2.a There are a few options here, you can buy a seperate USB number pad gor not much - good if you are doing a lot of numbers, accounting or spreadsheets etc, but it is an extra thing to carry around, something like this maybe (not a reccomendation, just an example) https://www.onbuy.com/gb/p/bluetooth-wireless-numeric-keypad~p59317966/?exta=gshp&extac=gshpfa
2.b Another option is to get a laptop like mine which has a touch sensitive numpad built into the trackpad that you can turn on and off, its quite nifty. You can also flip it round to use as a tablet as it has a touch screen:
This might be a misunderstanding, did you mean one per individual or one per table cluster?
University lecture theatres don't have table clusters, or at least the ones I visited didn't. They have rows of seats like a cinema with some form of flat surface in front, each seat with its own individual power provisioning.
I went round my old high school on an open day a few weeks ago. They call themselves a "technology college" these days but it's still a high school. They had fully-fitted IT suites with dozens of desktop PCs. What provision or even requirement they had for laptops in regular classrooms I couldn't say.
You seem very keen to challenge me at the moment for some reason, but I'm afraid you're operating from out-of-date knowledge. It's not the 1990s anymore, someone has actually thought about this. You don't need a separate charger for your phone even (which is what I thought you might be getting at), you can charge directly from the laptop and USB-C <-> USB-C power delivery is likely as fast as any wall charger.