College Laptop

[SB1971]

DD is heading off to college to do A Levels and we want to get her a laptop. Budget is around £500 and needs to be lightweight and doesn’t need to be good for design type.
We bought a cheap laptop at the start of lockdown and it was huge and not great so I want to avoid doing that again.
Thanks!

Sorry you haven't had any replies to this.

My advice, which others might disagree with, is to avoid Chromebooks and similar. This is mainly based on problems that arise with them in online tutorials, when running things like Teams/Zoom alongside other apps can cause the camera to switch off (also an issue with iPads). I know most sixth-forms don't expect students to have cameras switched on but universities do. (Students are still reluctant to turn cameras on at university. Teaching a class when you can't see anyone is a truly miserable experience.)

So I would say something with a decent amount of storage (256 Gb absolute minimum, either hard disc or SSD). I would try to go for 8Gb or more of RAM, too, as 4 Gb is associated with slower running speeds (the processor might be fast enough but getting data into & out of memory slows things down). Young people are generally happy with small screens (e.g. 13"). My eyes can't cope with less than 15.6" but I'm sure they could have when I was 16. Note that laptops with smaller screens and thinner profiles are usually more expensive but lighter and easier to carry around.

Depending what else she does with the laptop, she might have other needs. Both of my daughters are gamers, so I always tried to get them laptops with dedicated graphics cards (e.g. AMG Radeon). This might not be an issue for yours.

Amazon had a few good asus ones - I look for an intel i5 as I've had problems with other types, and advice as above- at least 8gb ram.

Also I like something sturdy like asus tuf or a metal case.