School Laptop Suggestions

[JA1019]

Hey, so I know i'm asking a lot here, but I'm looking for a laptop that I can use for school than will run decently fast, doesn't have to go a million miles a minute but I also don't want to be waiting 20 seconds for a webpage to load. I'd like to try to stay away from Chrome OS because I'm not too much of a fan. I think it is ok, but not great to the point I'd use it all the time. The reason why I say im asking for a lot is because I'm looking for something in the $250 USD and below range, which is kinda hard for a non chrome os laptop. I am open to chrome os, but wanted to ask here before I go and buy a chrome laptop. I'm okay with pretty much any form factor. Thanks!

[Needfuldoer]

Look into refurbished or off-lease corporate laptops, like a Dell Latitude, HP ProBook, or Lenovo ThinkPad. You should be able to find something with a recent i5 within your budget, and it will be made better than a new "home" laptop in the same price range.

[Pixelfie]

Check for some used and refurbished options. You'll probably be able to find something with a 6th gen i5 and 8gb of memory which would be perfect for this use. If battery is important ask the seller if the battery is in good state and if not try to get a replacement battery. An 8th gen i3 or new Pentium should also do (N6000 or better)

[Emblem]

Check out the ThinkPad 11e Yoga Gen 6 (11”) 2-in-1. It is an 11 inch, which may be to small for you, but it is on sale for $349 at Lenovo.

Or you can get an IdeaPad 1 (14”, Intel) laptop on sale for $249, it is a pretty good laptop, but light on the specs(Intel Pentium Silver N5030 Processor and 4GB RAM)..   Lenovo also offers student discounts which may help a bit.    

[JA1019]

5 hours ago, 8tg said:

You can get an X230 and a new battery for around the low end of that price range.

  Hide contents

I’d recommend something like that or an equivalent, modern enough to handle just about any regular day to day usage, performance equivalent otherwise to do like, Minecraft pretty ok, lighter games in general such as Insurgency, TF2, older titles like GTA San Andreas, whatever.

I daily used an X220 for ages until recently, your average “browse the web and watch YouTube videos” will be identical to any current gen system since that kind of stuff isn’t that demanding.

Thanks for the suggestion. Looking at the picture, the keyboard looks a bit small. Obviously I'm nitpicking and beggars can't be choosers, but I was just wondering if you felt like the keyboard or any other element of the computer was a bit small?

[AudiTTFan]

10 hours ago, JA1019 said:

Hey, so I know i'm asking a lot here, but I'm looking for a laptop that I can use for school than will run decently fast, doesn't have to go a million miles a minute but I also don't want to be waiting 20 seconds for a webpage to load. I'd like to try to stay away from Chrome OS because I'm not too much of a fan. I think it is ok, but not great to the point I'd use it all the time. The reason why I say im asking for a lot is because I'm looking for something in the $250 USD and below range, which is kinda hard for a non chrome os laptop. I am open to chrome os, but wanted to ask here before I go and buy a chrome laptop. I'm okay with pretty much any form factor. Thanks!

I'd recommend an used Dell Latitude 3340 or 3350. They were designed for schools so they're basically indestructible, and they're probably one of the last laptops to actually include a hot-swap capable battery. The 13" display definitely leaves a lot to be desired though, since it's an old-school 760p screen. I believe some of them even had touchscreens to take advantage of the Windows 8.1 interface, but that it was only an option if you got the plain grey and black model rather than a red or blue one.