Which laptop for Uni

[RuthieR]

Need to buy a laptop for DS for Uni but we have no idea what he needs. We have never had a laptop in the house, just old fashioned desk top computers. Looking at PC world there is far too much choice and just don't know what is to pick. Not sure what he will need it for as Uni have been quite vague.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[jndt]

PC World will probably be expensive. last year when ds started university we looked direct on HP, Dell etc websites. You can get end of line laptops cheaper. Look up the model numbers and see how much they sell for through stores/shops.

We got my son a laptop selling for £800 on curry website for just over £600. I have no idea on the spec though - I leave that to dh and my sons!

[wanye]

it all depends on the course they are doing, and whether they need to run any specific software or not

personally i love my new macbook air, its so small and lightweight. but i can see that may be above some budgets... plus, its better waiting to get a mac with educational discount than full price

what course is it, and roughly what sort of budget do you expect to be spending?

[Bozza]

MacBook Air M1. Buy from the Apple refurb store, something like this >>> apple/uk/shop/produc...a796660f9671d1

You won't know it's not brand new - and it very probably is - and comes with full Apple warranty.

Powerful, lightweight and will last for years.

[Carrotcruncher]

Depends on what he's using it for. If it's just for interweb and writing essays on then pretty much anything will be fine - I'd go for the largest screen size you can afford - I'd heartily recommend Chromebooks for this purpose. I've lost count of the amount of times fellow students have had to apply for extenuating circumstances as their laptop has crashed and they've lost their essays they were typing in word etc - whereas on my Chromebook I work in Google Docs and it's always safely in the cloud, so I never have such issues.

If they are doing CompSci or sciences requiring a lot of computational ability, then they'll need something better.

If they want to be part of the crowd, then you have to buy a style over substance apple and a matching fjallraven kanken overpriced backpack - or at least that's how it appears at my university

[Reunion]

I'd agree to try and afford the Macbook Air - all 3 of ours had them through Uni and the outlived all the more traditional laptops.
Our youngest has just replaced her original Mac - which we bought in the USA from the Refurb site in 2013 - it still works, she just wanted a new one.

[kathrynmc]

If your DS has Student Beans they have 10% off Apple.

We got our eldest DD an iMac with the student discount last year and she also received free AirPods, she is going to take it with her to university. She decided on the Mac rather than MacBook as the screen on the cheapest MacBook was quite small.

[BevS97]

My dd has a HP pavilion. It wasn’t cheap but she does a lot of design work and needed the power.

What you will find is everyone will suggest what has worked for them. Macs are great as are Chromebooks. It really depends on what they need to achieve on the laptop and your budget.

[RuthieR]

DS is doing a Policing degree.Will need to write essays and access online lectures, pre recorded stuff, and take with him to lectures and group work. Also Teams should covid stop in person studies. We were looking at PC world just for screen / keyboard size rather than looking online and guessing. Will buy from online when we know what he needs.

[RuthieR]

Price range up to about £700 ish I guess. We have saved some money for it and DS got a small bursary in 6th form which was to cover bus pass for school but as he was in lockdown for most of it then finished in May we never bought the bus pass.