Laptops for under £200?

[CookieDoughNice]

Hi, I need some recommendations of laptops (or perhaps chrome/cloudbooks, though I’ve heard they’re worse) for under around £200? My primary aged DC needs one. (Home educated)
It will be used for zoom meetings/ classes, Microsoft office and educational games.

I’ve had a look at Lenovos, it’s very overwhelming as there’s so many. Thanks to some help here, I now know which ones definitely aren’t good. But for example this one, I can’t see where it says if it’s windows 10 or 11.
Would it be better than the new dell one I posted about just before this comment?
I really appreciate the help, please let me know if there are particular models etc I should search for! There are so many.

I think you've moved on / up anyway but under no circumstances get the HP stream. We had two in lockdown as they looked like the perfect neat little bit of kit but they were 2gb and literally fell over trying to run Teams. Hopeless. You're getting great advice on here and it is daunting. Maybe make a simple checklist of processor, generation, GB, Windows 11, screen size, at least 2 USB ports and anything else and work from that.

We have a home educated primary child who prefers to type, we have found it best to have an elderly iPad for the zoom meetings and apps as it can be used at the same time as typing notes on another device (or for playing Minecraft whilst on zoom to other players on your team...). It is also more portable for taking apps and tv on holiday/to grandparents house etc without having to bring your whole "desk" and schoolwork with you (and you don't risk losing everything if it gets damaged out if the house).

I was still considering it, but a bit on back burner as everyone suggested other brands! I’m no longer considering it! That’s awful!! Thank you! I’m very tempted to order the dell Inspiron 3000 which is over budget (🙈), but new and from a reputable brand etc!

Does your child not find typing in the class chat a pain on the iPad?
On our Samsung tablet (broken), the zoom chat would take up the whole screen which annoyed DC because they still wanted to see the presentations. But maybe it’s a different set up with iPads? Or perhaps it’s just unusual DC finds it annoying!
I had considered replacing it with another tablet, but I think a laptop would be better, so they can work on typing skills etc more regularly and like I said, there are small things they’ve found annoying with a tablet I think would be better with a laptop. Unfortunately we can’t get both! Maybe a tablet could be on the cards for a future birthday if it’s something they miss.
We rarely took our tablet elsewhere, so I don’t think it’ll be a huge issue if it’s less transportable.

Inspiron 15*, the one I screenshot above.
Clearly been looking at too many things today and in a muddle. 😂

Lenovo do some good cheap laptops. Also suggest c-ex. The staff tend to give good advice too.

Yes! Typing in the chat is fairly annoying on a tablet (as is most typing)! Mostly tbh he doesn't use typed chat, or not for more than a few words per session.
We use a family desktop for the office suite so that it has a full-sized keyboard/monitor/more ergonomic setup and can be used to practice 'proper' touch typing (I appreciate you can also touch type on a laptop but it always seems more crowded - although also, children do have smaller hands).

Have a look at Argos. I found nine for under £250. I've found the larger the screen the cheaper it is surpringly but I guess it makes it less portable. If its staying on your dining table then it won't matter being a bit bigger. Some come preinstalled with Win 11.

I’ve bought the dell!
There’s a Wowcher offer to buy Microsoft office for £20 (lifetime for one device).
Are things like this legit? 🙈 or should I stick to open office?

These can be fake (may work or may lock out after a while) or can be legitimate
I don’t know the particular offers but an old way was to sell OEM licences, which are a discounted method to enable shops to include ‘free’ or discounted software with a PC/laptop. It advantages the shop in selling a product ready to use and advantages Microsoft / Software companies in getting new users committed to their product

An OEM licence sold on its own at a cheap price would mean that the buyer gets a cheaper version without the shop selling a physical machine - if the sellers get caught out then software companies could disable their licences

In the olden days there were legitimate tricks, such as the upgrade price being cheaper than the full package - in one government system project we bought our licences as a full price copy of MS Word plus an upgrade discount copy of MS Office. The ‘upgrade’ terms required any element of MS Office, and Word qualified making the combined price cheaper and rules compliant

The £20 discounted copy may work perfectly well, but they are typically a trick

The official Microsoft prices for home use are:

Office 365 single subscription £5.99 per month / £59.99 per year
Office 365 family subscription £7.99 per month / £79.99 per year (up to 6 users)
Office 2021 one off payment £119.99

Office 365 gets upgraded while your subscription is active, Office 2021 is just that one copy of a fixed version but if that’s good enough for two years or longer then it works out cheaper
A £20 one off version will be Office 2021

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/buy/compare-all-microsoft-365-products

Lenovo do good cheap laptops. Also highly recommend CEX, their staff can give advice and everything comes with a guarantee.