Best laptop for sixth form?

[minxthemanx]

DS1 has just started sixth form and is 27 soon. Our home laptop is old and a bit unreliable and we need to get him something suitable. A lot of his friends have MacBook but this is beyond my price range plus someone told me they're not ideal as don't have Microsoft word/excel/publisher etc. Anyone have any thoughts?

[minxthemanx]

He's 17 soon not 27!

[CognitiveDissonance]

Macs can have Microsoft office put on them just as any windows laptop can. I'd say the first step is to find out if his sixth form uses Google apps for education. Lots of places are going that way and if they are, a chromebook is a fab way to go.

[ambostraw]

Ours access office through a website attached to school so they don't actually need a laptop that has it. Check in case they have similar before you spend money on something they might not need.

[minxthemanx]

Are MacBooks worth the money?

[MrsChollySawcutt]

Entirely depends what he wants it for. I bought DD a Mac because it is compatible with the music software she uses (and her school uses).

For standard MS Word, PowerPoint etc it is absolutely not necessary to spend ££s on a Mac.

Look for something light (15 inch screen and a solid state hard drive will make for a lighter machine) and with enough RAM than it isn't sluggish.

Try the HP student store A they offer discounts for students over 16 if you log with a student email address.

[MrsChollySawcutt]

Sorry posted too soon..,

I bought this one for DS11 as his school have started a Bring Your Own Device scheme so he has to take a laptop to school. It's light, has a touchscreen, it's quick as it has 8MB of memory and has a high quality look and feel. For £649 it's a very good spec.

https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=2ZH43EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

[minxthemanx]

Thanks for that I'll have a look.