laptop for schoolkid

[jas xjr]

my sister needs to buy a new laptop for her daughter,14, to use at school. the school spec seems pretty basic:

pentium 4 (1.5)

256Mb ram

20gb hard drive

10/100 ethernet card

windows xp professional

thats the minimum spec the school will accept. price is a critical issue as her mum is spending most of her spare cash to send said child to that particular school.
wlan would be nice but not essential,just thinking i could use it to access ph when she is at ours..

can anybody point us in the direction of a decent laptop?she is willing to pay extra for insurance and warranty.

hope somebody can help,thanks in advance

[GreenV8S]

I would at least double that RAM and hard drive if you want the PC to be good for anything other than web surfing and email.

[aldi]

Something hard to break! Second hand IBM Thinkpad?

[Zad]

Good grief, what apps do they run on the school laptops? Surely it can't be more than Word and a browser?

[thepassenger]

1.6Ghz chip for school work? 256Mb RAM and a 20Gb HDD?
Windows XP Pro?
I assume from the "spare cash to send the child to this school" its a private one... so yeah ok they can make it up as they go along.

Ignoring the specs I'd lean heavily on fleabay. A second hand IBM Thinkpad, P2 or P3 class processor.

But taking in to account the required specs I'd suggest a Dell Inspirion 1300, perhaps snooping around the dell site looking for where they sell of the 'B' grade and factory refurbs.

[greenlandy]

I work in a school as an IT tech you'll need a thinkpad or a toshiba(both have great battery life). Check with your home insurance policy that it's covered when away as accidents do happen. If the school is running the microsoft campus agreement you might be able to get all the latest microsoft products :-). Also worth checking if there is a safe area to leave the laptop at breaks etc..

[jas xjr]

thanks for the replies so far. my sis is a single parent and finds it hard to keep her daughter at the school. but my niece did well and won a scholarship so she can just about afford the fees.and she will not accept any help from me.
the school has an "approved supplier," but their cheapest machine is around a grand.
bit tired at the moment but will hit google hard in the morning.
cheers folks

[aldi]

I think you can do a bit better than a grand...

ebay

wireless wifi

brand new

this one's a pentium M rather than a celeron (assuming here they mean p4-class as opposed to P3-class, rather than specifically a P4...)

They haven't mentioned anything in the spec about office software, maybe they run a scheme?

Edited by aldi on Sunday 27th August 21:41

[GreenV8S]

I assume Pro is so they can join a campus domain? Don't pay a penny for Microsoft Office stuff, if it isn't free then get it without and download Open Office.

[greenlandy]

GreenV8S said:

I assume Pro is so they can join a campus domain? Don't pay a penny for Microsoft Office stuff, if it isn't free then get it without and download Open Office.

You could but the teachers don't have time in clas to teach more than one app. I know open office is very good and similiar to ms office but I hit many problems when I wanted to save cash and go open office.

[ultimasimon]

Just bought four of these for our office. They are NEC laptops, so are corporate grade.

They have biometric (fingerprint recognition) security, a Sempron 3100+ CPU, DVD writer, LAN and wifi on board.



They only come with 256meg ram, but you can upgrade for about £40 to 512, which is a necessary upgrade. Also they run XP Home, but for the price you have room to include XP Pro if required.

And the price? £368 including VAT. Everybody that has been given one thinks they are great value. Also the shipper delivered them next day

[GreenV8S]

greenlandy said:

You could but the teachers don't have time in clas to teach more than one app. I know open office is very good and similiar to ms office but I hit many problems when I wanted to save cash and go open office.

What do you mean by 'teach more than one app'? Surely the PC isn't there so they can teach you how to use it, it's there as a tool to help you learn. If you can write a document in Microsoft Word you can do it in OpenOffice Writer. It's not as if they're likely to be tackling any complex programming activities where the differences would matter.

[Bodo]

greenlandy said:

GreenV8S said:

I assume Pro is so they can join a campus domain? Don't pay a penny for Microsoft Office stuff, if it isn't free then get it without and download Open Office.

You could but the teachers don't have time in clas to teach more than one app. I know open office is very good and similiar to ms office but I hit many problems when I wanted to save cash and go open office.

Good idea to teach the free software in school, so people in future won't hit many problems. While we're at it, there's a lot of other brilliant free (as in freedom) software too, they could include in the lessons. I don't understand why public facilities like schools promote commercial software anyway.

[Plotloss]

Thinkpad or if they are properly clumsy a Toughbook.

Either on eBay.

[greenlandy]

GreenV8S said:

greenlandy said:

You could but the teachers don't have time in clas to teach more than one app. I know open office is very good and similiar to ms office but I hit many problems when I wanted to save cash and go open office.

What do you mean by 'teach more than one app'? Surely the PC isn't there so they can teach you how to use it, it's there as a tool to help you learn. If you can write a document in Microsoft Word you can do it in OpenOffice Writer. It's not as if they're likely to be tackling any complex programming activities where the differences would matter.

Thanks to Bliar etc all the exams are based on MSoffice. I've seen kids being taught to high levels in excel and access. If you read my message I wanted to move to open office I'm all for an open enviroment at school.

[billb]

a dell with all of that + good warranty would be about £500. am surprised if they dont want wireless in the spec.

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellst

make sure you're insured as i doubt the school would cover it. office pro for students is only about £90 although doesnt include access if she's gonna use that.

[page3]

Bodo said:

greenlandy said:

GreenV8S said:

I assume Pro is so they can join a campus domain? Don't pay a penny for Microsoft Office stuff, if it isn't free then get it without and download Open Office.

You could but the teachers don't have time in clas to teach more than one app. I know open office is very good and similiar to ms office but I hit many problems when I wanted to save cash and go open office.

Good idea to teach the free software in school, so people in future won't hit many problems. While we're at it, there's a lot of other brilliant free (as in freedom) software too, they could include in the lessons. I don't understand why public facilities like schools promote commercial software anyway.

Unfortunately the days of teaching instead of training seem to be long gone

On topic, I'd get suggest a Macbook. Easily matches the spec and adds a bit of street cred too Edited to add - Apple do large educational discounts too.

Edited by page3 on Monday 28th August 22:54

[bez_uk]

Dell do education discounts too unfortunately only for uni students which is fine for some of us...

(based on Inspiron 1300)
Celeron M 1.7Ghz 1Mb L2 400MHz FSB,
15.4" widescreen 1280x800
512Mb 533MHz DDR2
60Gb HD (5400rpm)
DVD/CD-RW combo drive
Intel wireless
15 mcafee antivirus
microsoft office
3 year next day warranty/repair + accident insurance

£443.41 << try beat that price without education discount!

[thepassenger]

page3 said:

On topic, I'd get suggest a Macbook. Easily matches the spec and adds a bit of street cred too Edited to add - Apple do large educational discounts too.

Personally I would avoid an Apple peice of kit. Not because they aren't any good, quite the reverse. The school specified Windows XP Pro, they are expecting people to show up with PC's. Yes I know BootCamp and other methods can get XP going on the Intel Mac's but... if this kid turns up with an Apple.. well, you know what schools can be like.

[bez_uk]

But on that note what kind of a school insists that the kids have laptop's anyway? Can they not afford 'school computers'?