Best laptop deal for teachers?

[GinWithRosie]

I'm looking to buy a new laptop to use at home...school one is horrendous!

I don't like Macs (just can't get on with them) so, what do you all use to work on at home? Also, does anyone know if there are any deals/discounts available to teachers at the moment?

Thanks 😊

I don't have a specific recommendation but have a look at Argos. My DD has being doing her school work since March on a laptop from them which was all of £100! Another idea would be to identify a small local IT shop to help you shop around. My local one has been really helpful over the years. Check your union website for deals too I guess.

Do lots of research into what processor, storage, and RAM you will need. Lots of cheap laptops out there that just won't cut it. Also stay away from Chrome books. My 2015 Macbook Air (in hindsight I should have bought a Pro) has struggled with running online games while video calling for live lessons, and I've filled the 120GB hard drive with millions of PowerPoints!

Thank you both.

I have a Macbook Air too @rillette and agree. It just wasn’t up to the job through lockdown (and my crappy school laptop was barely coping logging in most days!)

I’m just looking ahead and thinking ‘what if’ in the event of another lockdown. With the new guidelines issued this week, there’s just no way the technology I currently have would be up to the job 🤦‍♀️

Do you actually need a laptop? Is it going to travel about?

I recently bought an AcePC for £135. It's tiny can handle two screens and has 5 USB slots. You would also need a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Vastly outpowers a laptop at 3 times the price.

Hi @cdtaylornats I guess not...I hadn’t actually thought about a PC to be honest. I’ll check it out 👍. Thank you 😊

I have just bought a Dell Inspiron with quite a good teacher discount. All you need is a school email address.

I borrowed a Chromebook from school - useless!

It's frustrating isn't it @PenOrPencil ? We have to do vast amounts of work at home, and yet the equipment provided to do this is useless!

Honestly, the chrome book was like a joke computer, I might as well have tried the one in the pic...

At least you get some equipment..... We get nothing!

I always use John Lewis for their guarantee with 2 small kids around. Currently have a lenovo mid range which was about £350 3 years ago.

@PenOrPencil at least the V-Tech is pretty ☺️

@Hercwasonaroll oh that’s rubbish! You get nothing? 🤦‍♀️

School has desktops fitted and no laptops. It was expected we had our own devices to set work on. Frustrating but hey Ho!

We got nothing although school did reimburse me for £100 of webcam, USB hub and headset to make my Lenovo desktop suitable for live teaching. Top tip for.yjose of you struggling with capacity - get an external hard drive. Much cheaper than a new PC and safer as if the PC or laptop fails you don't lose the data. They have simply enormous capacity these days. Mine's taken me nearly 10 years to fill!

That was supposed to be 'those' not the word salad I actually typed. Do consider getting a headset, by the way. I nearly lost my voice!

I did wonder about a headset @Phineyj. I will add that to my list 👍

It might just be me but I think I was overcompensating for the faint crackly student voices. Also I think talking a lot sitting down is harder. You do have to remember you're attached though if you leap up e.g. to shut the window when the neighbours start powerwashing/strimming/drilling! Something else you might find handy is a 4 way USB hub. I quickly ran out of USB ports with a mouse, external drive, printer, headset and webcam plugged in.

Oh good point! There’s definitely not enough USB points on my current laptop (2!!).

I bought a cheap (£15) set of Bluetooth headphones with a microphone to go to the gym, they have been amazing for lockdown! The sound on my loom videos is very good, I use them for all online meetings and they connect to my phone as well. Great for long phone calls.

Our PC is regularly serviced by a husband and wife team who live locally.
This week we sent them our very old laptop to be cleaned up and (as it would have been £££ to make good) asked them for a recommendation for a new replacement.

On their advice we bought the Lenovo V145 A6 - £359 from Amazon.

Thanks @rosegoldwatcher I will take a look 👍