Recommendations - Sub £500 student laptop

I've a lenovo idea pad 340s. My mum had a 320s. I would recommend them but I'd say you need an i5, definitely ssd and if you get one with 8gb ram probably switch that up to 16 if you can. The 320 can't have 16 in it. For our older generations anyway.

Both the laptops we have have space for a 2.5 inch hdd inside as well as the nvme so it's easy to smash some extra storage in which is handy.

One thing to bear in mind with whatever you get is how well will she treat the machine. My mum's one got abuse and had a chunk missing out of part of the case near the hinge it must have been squashed or something. They're plastic cases.

I would also imagine that she doesn't need a network port on it in this day and age but it's worth just considering that as not everything has one.

Official refurb could be a good shout and a dell is a good option too. Some of them can have monster battery life too. A friend of mine has a lenovo yoga so you can make it into a kind of pad and touch the screen that may be handy and to be considered too. But in my mind that's more to break, this thing needs to be strong and reliable first off. And make sure it gets backed up!!

Don't forget to use her student discount on most sites.

Used Dell Latitude 7400 i5 laptop from eBay or Dell for £150-250.

When my top of the range HP booted up one day with an inop keyboard and track pad I swore I would never spend serious money on a laptop again

I found a company up in Scotland that recycles laptops and managed to get a good spec Dell for about 25% of its RRP.

Dont currently have much in the way of Dell in stock atm but they have a few Think pads for £420.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235525344556

That was a £1500 machine new, AFAIK.

They're actually s340 and s320, typo sorry! But yeah looks like it's as you say.

My god its a lot more money I paid 300 hundred and something pre pandemic. Certified refurbished has to be the way to go.

She's at least half your age, USB-A probably isn't even a thing for her, but Bluetooth and WiFi are part of daily life like certain apps. I bought an iPad and magic keyboard for the eldest a few years ago and she's not tech savvy at all, hates it but is very artistic. She loves it, got an iPhone to go with it, recorded lectures etc, Apple stuff just works however you need it to work and there are so many options for apps. Windows is very old fashioned in comparison.

This is a great choice. I had my eye on something like this for a media server. This cpu can transpose 4k on the fly.