Laptop life? What to get for A-levels and Uni?

24

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  • FifiAnne
    FifiAnne Posts: 15 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    Thanks for all your repllies, it's all teally helpful.

    Fi
  • fred246
    fred246 Posts: 3,620 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    edited 10 July 2018 at 3:05PM
    Desktop PCs are the best for money saving. Just upgrade components as needed. My son made himself a gaming PC with fantastic components. My daughter inherited an old PC. I give my kids plenty of pocket money and they buy their own phones, tablets, laptops. My son just uses his phone and desktop PC at university. My daughter uses her desktop and phone but also wanted a laptop to type on. She bought a cheap Lenovo which is adequate. She wanted it to be cheap because laptops are hard to repair. After the warranty expires any issue means buy another cheap laptop. They look after things so much better when they buy them themselves.
  • EveryWhere
    EveryWhere Posts: 3,249 Forumite
    FifiAnne wrote: »
    Hi

    I've done a search but can't find anything on this, hope someone can help.

    My daughter is 16 and about to go into sixth form and then hopefully on to university. She will need a computer to use at home for A- levels then I think she will need something she can carry around at uni.

    I thought it would be better and more cost effective to invest in a decent laptop now to last her the 5 years rather than a cheap one which might be obsolete in 2 or 3 years. I went into PC World for advice and one person agreed and showed me some eye-wateringly expensive machines, but another said that 5 years is a long time to expect a laptop to perform well and I should consider getting something cheap and cheerful for A-levels and then get something better if and when she goes to university. Both recommended windows rather than Mac.

    Any advice would be appreciated.

    Thanks.

    Fi

    https://mcscom.co.uk/product/dell-inspiron-15-5570-pentium-4415u-2-30ghz-8gb-120gb-ssd-15-6-fhd-win-10-1yr-rtb-wty-mln493/ is ok as a starter laptop until she needs something a bit more specialised.
    Would she prefer a smaller machine/screen?
  • macman
    macman Posts: 53,088 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Post First Anniversary
    How about a Chromebook?
    No free lunch, and no free laptop ;)
  • FifiAnne
    FifiAnne Posts: 15 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    What would be the benefit of a Chromebook? Aren't they a bit limiting?
  • FifiAnne
    FifiAnne Posts: 15 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    Hi that

    Sorry to be a thickie on the techie forum, but i searched for EveryWhere and the only thing it brought up was your post. What did I do wrong?

    Thanks.

    Fi
  • zagubov
    zagubov Posts: 17,885 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic First Post
    FifiAnne wrote: »
    Hi that

    Sorry to be a thickie on the techie forum, but i searched for EveryWhere and the only thing it brought up was your post. What did I do wrong?

    Thanks.

    Fi

    EveryWhere is a regular poster who answered your in post 14 at 6.40
    He's posted many times; you can click on his username and then click on Find all posts by EveryWhere.
    There is no honour to be had in not knowing a thing that can be known - Danny Baker
  • that
    that Posts: 1,532 Forumite
    FifiAnne wrote: »
    Sorry to be a thickie on the techie forum, but i searched for EveryWhere and the only thing it brought up was your post. What did I do wrong?
    Fi
    No problem, and there is no need. Everywhere did a decent search and his above offering is quite good!

    I did check Dells site and found only 1 scratched/dented, and it was too expensive for what it was, so no deals there at the moment. to get to it type https://www.dell.com/en-uk > Deals > Dell Outlet (refurbished products) > for home > outlet home > laptop and tablet > view all laptop and tablets > sort by lowest price
  • FifiAnne
    FifiAnne Posts: 15 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    Oops! I knew I'd embarrass myself! Thanks though.
  • macman
    macman Posts: 53,088 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Post First Anniversary
    FifiAnne wrote: »
    What would be the benefit of a Chromebook? Aren't they a bit limiting?

    No, not really. No need to worry about installing and updating AV programs. No endless waiting for Windows Updates and patches to install. Near instant boot-up (Chromebooks have SSD's).
    Compatability with Word/Excel is fine for the vast majority of users. Storage is limited compared to a conventional hard-drive equipped laptop, but cloud storage takes care of that.
    When I bought mine 3 years ago, I thought that the limitation would be when no wi-fi was available, but in practice this is hardly ever a problem these days, with so much free wifi available.
    For a student who needs email, web surfing, Office type tasks and not much more, it's completely adequate: and about 25% of the cost of a MacBook.
    No free lunch, and no free laptop ;)
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