Laptop advice please

[SistemaAddict]

Hi, dds would like laptops for Christmas. I'm on a tight budget and have no idea what would be suitable for their school work and the odd game. It doesn't need to be fancy, just do the basics (they get office free with school). I need to start saving now if I've any chance of getting them one. Any advice gratefully appreciated.

No advice unfortunately, but just came on to say dd1 has also asked for a laptop as she has now started secondary school. She likes the chrome books they had in her primary. But I haven't heard good things about them. Anyway, she already has access to a shared laptop with Dd2, so 🤷‍♀️

My Brother in law is a teacher of computer studies in secondary

I have just asked his advice on this for our DD2 going into year7.

Any of the laptops on this list perfect for the school.
Don't need to go further than the cheapest option. If you can hold off until October the prices may drop by about £50 from the lockdown inflation.
The link will only show the recommended ones.

Follow this link - company is called laptop direct.
If someone opens a laptop and turns it on and then decides they dont want it this is where they end up!
All full checked etc.
www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/nav/pt/laptops/screenband/13-to-14/screenband/15-to-16/ssdgroup/240gb-and-above/mc/48361/procgrp/core-i3-and-better/brd/hewlett-packard/brd/dell/ramgr/4gb-and-above?sortOrder=1

We also needed to buy a laptop for secondary school. After long research on the web, we finally settled on an Honor Magicbook 14 (billed as Huawei equivalent of MacbookAir, but at half the price), which more than suits school needs. My daughter also just started Yr7 and I am hoping it would last for a good 2-3 years. At the moment, it is on offer on the manufacturer’s website, where they throw in a free set of Bluetooth headphones as well. Seems well made, thin, lightweight at 1.35kg, long lasting battery (up to 10hr), fingerprint power button, pop up webcam, and an internal memory of 8GB (I read that anything lower than that is not really worth buying, as whenever Windows updates need to be downloaded, those would take most of the internal memory, leaving nothing for games and the odd applications). We are quite happy with it so far. Here is a link to it:

m.hihonor.com/unitedkingdom/product/honor-magicbook-14

If you're prepared to buy a used laptop, you might have a look at the Dell Outlet Store. Like a PP said, many are basically untouched, returned when a buyer didn't like the feel of the keyboard. Dell checks them over and provides a full warranty. Note that the quoted prices are ex-VAT, so you need to add 20% to them.

They also have sales which change every week.

I'd suggest at least 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for a Windows 10 machine.