Laptop for year 7 student

[NeedSleepNow]

I'm looking to get my son, who has just started year 7, a new laptop for all of his school work as I hadn't realised that pretty much all of his homework would be online, text books are all online etc.

The one he has been using recently is a rather slow Dell E5400, that only works when plugged in, the screen doesn't work properly on one side and he has to share it with his younger brother and sister.

I would like to get him a laptop of his own that he can keep in his room for all of his homework, research and for playing the odd game and watching Netflix on. The absolute top budget is £800, this is to include any software needed (MS office, virus checker, security software etc...)

I have no idea what to look for really. Can anyone recommend anything please?

Thanks

I got my daughter last year a Huawei laptop which was about £800 and has been brilliant.

In fact I had a thread last year and bought a Huawei matebook 14 on the recommendations from it.

Thank you, I hadn't looked at Huawei ones. Will take a look now

Just checked and it cosy £540 as Huawei website had an additional 10% off as well.

That's a good price. They have the matebook 16 reduced down to within my budget so am tempted to order that one.

Does anyone else have any recommendations?

We got DS a chromebook at the start of lockdown as his school does lessons and homework via google classrooms. It doesn't have much storage on the chromebook, but it links to your google account so storage is on the cloud. It wont have space for lots of extra software, but if you dont need that then its work a look. We only paid about £200 for it. He uses google docs, sheets etc which is all compatible with the MS equivalent.

I think I would prefer something with enough internal storage that I don't have to worry about that. At the moment he shouldn't need too much software on there but I will need the laptop to last him a good few years and his computing needs might be slightly different by then so I'm hoping whatever I buy now is fast enough and has plenty of storage space to meet his needs then too.

Yep fair enough. Ds didnt need the storage so it wasnt an issue for him. Just thought I'd throw it out as a suggestion as they often get overlooked 😁

Thank you for the suggestion though. I really know nothing about computers so am feeling rather clueless about it all!

I don't have any advice on laptops but just wanted to say the my DD's school has given all the new year 7's a Chromebook so they are probably fine for school.

DD is in year 8 and her DGdad bought her a chromebook for her birthday that she can draw on. She seems to love it but I can't say how it is for school work although it seems a lot faster than the family laptop.