Best allround laptop for college?

[Patio]

Budget is about £400

For daughter to use for college plus household stuff

I've always had a dell work laptop which has been easy to work with

Thanks

[Mont Blanc]

Apple MacBook Air. £899 on Amazon for an Air M4 model.

No contest IMO. Will work perfectly for years and blow everything else away for capability, battery life, etc and it will hold its value way more than anything else. I appreciate your budget is less, but it's worth spending a bit more.

I paid £799 for my M1 Air 4 years ago, and I could get £350 on Ebay for it right now. That is mega value for money.

I'm still sat here working on my M1, which has been heavily used daily, and it is as blazingly fast as the day I got it, and the battery still lasts for 10-11 hours straight, down from about 15 when it was brand new.

Edited by Mont Blanc on Thursday 3rd July 11:02

[captain_cynic]

Budget is £400... Without fail one of the Johovas Witnesses of the internet have come on and suggested a laptop that's twice as much and not half as useful.

[AB]

Point was you could get one for £350 now on eBay, I dare say that's where my £350/400 would go too.

[boyse7en]

I bought my daughter a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad to do her A-levels - 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM

The things I looked for were portability (as she needs to take it to and from college every day so we went for a 14in screen), good battery life, clear and easy read screen, Windows 11 (as this is required for her course software). Cheap too (I paid £250) in case it got dropped/wet/nicked

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235699577138 was what i bought

[JoshSm]

I always got on well with things like the HP 250 which fit the budget.

They aren't mega spec machines but they're more than adequate for most purposes and pretty robust and easily supported with spares etc.

Just keep an eye on the exact spec as there's a lot of combinations and some are much better than others, and some can be bargains for what they include vs other versions at a similar price.

Otherwise buy something used/ex corporate.

[Shnozz]

boyse7en said:

I bought my daughter a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad to do her A-levels - 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM

The things I looked for were portability (as she needs to take it to and from college every day so we went for a 14in screen), good battery life, clear and easy read screen, Windows 11 (as this is required for her course software). Cheap too (I paid £250) in case it got dropped/wet/nicked

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235699577138 was what i bought

Big fan of these and the Carbon ones. Lightweight and robust.

[captain_cynic]

Patio said:

Budget is about £400

For daughter to use for college plus household stuff

I've always had a dell work laptop which has been easy to work with

Thanks

Dells are good but expensive because they're targeted at business users, so they'll have that level of support which is what you're paying for with a Dell. Lenovo is also good, as other suave suggested.

For £400 you're better off with a consumer brand like Asus, Acer, et al.

Anything with an i5 and 8 GB of RAM is fine. This one has 16.

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/acer-aspire-3-15...

Edited by captain_cynic on Thursday 3rd July 11:14

[boyse7en]

AB said:

Point was you could get one for £350 now on eBay, I dare say that's where my £350/400 would go too.

I'd love to know where you are finding an Apple MacBook Air M4 for £350! The cheapest starting price for an auction on eBay is £650+

[Shnozz]

I am no techie admittedly, but an ex convinced me to get a macbook and I absolutely hated the bloody thing. Couldn't wait to get back to a PC and its familiarity.

[AB]

boyse7en said:

AB said:

Point was you could get one for £350 now on eBay, I dare say that's where my £350/400 would go too.

I'd love to know where you are finding an Apple MacBook Air M4 for £350! The cheapest starting price for an auction on eBay is £650+

Mont Blanc said:

I paid £799 for my M1 Air 4 years ago, and I could get £350 on Ebay for it right now. That is mega value for money.

I'm still sat here working on my M1, which has been heavily used daily, and it is as blazingly fast as the day I got it, and the battery still lasts for 10-11 hours straight, down from about 15 when it was brand new.

M1 Air, like MB said...

There's an M1 Macbook Air for sale on TZ UK today for exactly £350.

[JoshSm]

captain_cynic said:

Dells are good but expensive because they're targeted at business users, so they'll have that level of support which is what you're paying for with a Dell. Lenovo is also good, as other suave suggested.

For £400 you're better off with a consumer brand like Asus, Acer, et al.

One thing I've appreciated with Dell/HP/etc vs brands like Asus has been it's much easier to keep them supported. Broke Asus laptop, tough to get bits. Broke an HP, off to HP/Lambdatek/Amazon/Ebay for new or used replacements for everything.

Not related to price either - cheapo HP is trivial to get bits for, expensive Asus not.

[Mr Pointy]

captain_cynic said:

Dells are good but expensive because they're targeted at business users, so they'll have that level of support which is what you're paying for with a Dell. Lenovo is also good, as other suave suggested.

For £400 you're better off with a consumer brand like Asus, Acer, et al.

Anything with an i5 and 8 GB of RAM is fine. This one has 16.

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/acer-aspire-3-15...

So buy a refurbished Lenovo P or T series & get the benefit of excellent build quality & cheap to repair rather than buy new & take a hit on the depreciation. PCs like that T14s linked to are ten times better value & it's not the end of the world if it's lost, stolen or dropped.

[ATG]

Almost any laptop will be fine. People have been doing real work and number crunching on laptops for decades. Similarly, an incompetent user can make almost any laptop virtually unusable regardless of its specs and construction.

[wyson]

Should ask her college really. They usually have recommendations, depending on the sort of work she needs to do.

What I do like about the witnesses is they believe unbelievers merely fade away to nothing rather than burn in hell for ever.

Edited by wyson on Thursday 3rd July 15:49

[poppopbangbang]

Patio said:

Budget is about £400

For daughter to use for college plus household stuff

I've always had a dell work laptop which has been easy to work with

Thanks

Plenty of refurned 256GB M1 Macbook Airs on Amazon for £400 - £425. They might be four years old but I'm still dailying one and it's still more than powerful enough for daily use.

Great battery life (even when a few years old), well built and will still be getting OS updates for a few years to come. A far better proposition than a £400 Chromebook or Windows laptop.

[beko1987]

boyse7en said:

I bought my daughter a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad to do her A-levels - 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM

The things I looked for were portability (as she needs to take it to and from college every day so we went for a 14in screen), good battery life, clear and easy read screen, Windows 11 (as this is required for her course software). Cheap too (I paid £250) in case it got dropped/wet/nicked

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235699577138 was what i bought

3rd'ed. I bought a T480s for my tech illiterate step-sister when she wanted 'an laptop' and was amazed at how good it was, and how slim it still felt! (was a midrange i5 with 8gb of ram and a 250gb ssd and under £120 posted.) When my dad's HP Probook finally fully dies I'll probably do the same with him

[Abc321]

boyse7en said:

I bought my daughter a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad to do her A-levels - 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM

The things I looked for were portability (as she needs to take it to and from college every day so we went for a 14in screen), good battery life, clear and easy read screen, Windows 11 (as this is required for her course software). Cheap too (I paid £250) in case it got dropped/wet/nicked

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235699577138 was what i bought

Despite being an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch everyday user, I cannot get on with Macbooks/AppleOS on laptops. Its an absolute nightmare I find.

I have a Thinkpad which was a cheaper option but seems indestructible and never misses a beat. When this does eventually break, I will be buying another.

[Shnozz]

Abc321 said:

Despite being an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch everyday user, I cannot get on with Macbooks/AppleOS on laptops. Its an absolute nightmare I find.

I have a Thinkpad which was a cheaper option but seems indestructible and never misses a beat. When this does eventually break, I will be buying another.

That describes me also.

Love Apple products for phones/watches and pads - computers I found Apple to be horrible.

[wyson]

They are really much of a muchness in terms of OS for general stuff.

Just have to get used to how they work.

Apples advantage is in the hardware at a laptop level at any rate. The Apple silicon architecture is far superior to any Intel or Amd x86 system for efficiency, which is really important with a mobile device with a battery. Not to mention the touchpad and its OS integrations. Just far superior to any Windows system.

But a moot point, if your college or uni wants you to run software that will only work on Windows.

Another thing I like about the witnesses, is they have singular vision of god. Non of this holy trinity stuff. Dave Allens comedy, about the mental somersaults he had to do to square this away was hilarious.

Edited by wyson on Thursday 3rd July 15:56