Help choosing laptop, please

tomandkath

My son has just started college and to spur him on to a spot of GCSE revision, I promised I would buy him a laptop when he started college to do AS in ICT, Business Studies and PE. He obviously doesn't need anything too flash at this stage, but I don't want to waste my money on something that won't be of much use. I have no idea really what this laptop should have. We use broadband on our home computer, but I have it in my mind that this laptop should be wireless compatible (?) needs a decent memory (what is decent) rewriters of various sorts (?) and not too small a battery life (?) Needless to say my budget for this is about sixpence, so any recommendations and advice would be very welcome indeed! :undecided

albertross_2

you may as well get wireless, you'll need a wireless router to use it on broadband.

512MB of ram upwards should be ok (you could get 256 and upgrade it cheaply at https://www.crucial.com)

DVD writer

Battery life is all pretty similar across brands, 2 hours if you are lucky.

See the cheapest laptop hunt sticky thread above for some examples, or https://www.dmxcomputers.co.uk if you fancy a Dell.

A_Nice_Englishman

As your budget is limited, why not get a desktop? They are cheaper than a laptop of the same spec.

I wouldn't recommend taking a laptop to college and risking it getting lost/damaged/stolen, along with his woirk.

The college should have computers for students' use and he should keep one copy of his work saved on the college network and another at home. Move it between home and college on a USB flash drive or by email.

If you do decide to get a laptop, albertross gives good advice above.

barnabee

Best I know of at the moment for under £400 is at Currys at £399.

Free delivery, decent spec for the purpose required and there are a couple of codes about to get a further £20 off that and 3% off via Quidco making it a possible £366.