Budget Laptop for University reccomendations.

[GriffinLord]

I just built my first custom PC at home, for gaming and video editing I7 13700k, rtx 4070 and all that.

It replaced my old crummy 2009 HP laptop that keeps crapping out all the time, and I'm so glad I made the upgrade. 

Problem is I still need a laptop for university, and I don't want to get anything unreasonably powerful/expensive since any arduous task i'll just do on my PC at home. 

Any recommendations for a fast enough laptop with good battery life that doesn't take a century to open or load things on google chrome? (preferably under $500 US)

[NeverNotExhausted]

Look around for a Thinkpad that has finished up it's lease? I have a x260 Carbon (I think, I can't remember the model of my own laptop). But whatever it is, it cost me $200Aud, has an i5-6300u, then I put a 2.5 inch SSD in it. It's snappy enough for general use, web browsing, programming, etc. I get about 5-6 hours of battery life out of it because it has 2 batteries. Plus because it was cheap I don't mind throwing it in my bag and the potential for it being stolen/damaged etc.

 

It's lasted me about 3 years now and the keyboard is starting to shit the bed. But I've used it so much that the legends on the keycaps wore off and the keys went shiny from use about 2 years ago. I'm probably going to end up putting a new keyboard in it, maybe upgrade it to 16gb of ram, and use it for another 3 years

[Brooksie359]

I would look at asus vivobooks or acer aspire laptops and find one you want or look at renewed Lenovo ThinkPads. 

[Brooksie359]

Also good it's good to know that some of the lower priced laptops will do windows 11 in s mode. Don't worry about that because you can switch out of s mode for free so it shouldn't matter. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

Whichever ones you do buy, try to get one with:

• Upgradeable memory or storage
• Easily repairable components

If buying used, look for latitudes and thinkpads. Buy them, run battery and storage health checks, and replace the components that aren't working as well. Buy a used one preferably from dell or lenovo, since replacing used parts is cheaper for them. You can score pretty good machines, if you are willing to keep an eye out, since many IT departments wholesale dump them into warehouses and cause momentary crashes in price for a few weeks.

 

For new, I have heard good things about thinkpads and am daily driving a new one. Vostros and latitudes are good too. Asus is good if you want something thin. Don't buy HP or lenovo ideapads, because their low end machines cut corners in really bad ways(shit batteries, storage etc etc)

 

And also wipe your copy of windows and reinstall. The amount of crapware that manufacturers load on budget machines is obscene.

[GriffinLord]

15 hours ago, NeverNotExhausted said:

Look around for a Thinkpad that has finished up it's lease? I have a x260 Carbon (I think, I can't remember the model of my own laptop). But whatever it is, it cost me $200Aud, has an i5-6300u, then I put a 2.5 inch SSD in it. It's snappy enough for general use, web browsing, programming, etc. I get about 5-6 hours of battery life out of it because it has 2 batteries. Plus because it was cheap I don't mind throwing it in my bag and the potential for it being stolen/damaged etc.

 

It's lasted me about 3 years now and the keyboard is starting to shit the bed. But I've used it so much that the legends on the keycaps wore off and the keys went shiny from use about 2 years ago. I'm probably going to end up putting a new keyboard in it, maybe upgrade it to 16gb of ram, and use it for another 3 years

Are thinkpads in general upgradable devices? They seem to be the standard choice around these parts.

[NeverNotExhausted]

19 minutes ago, GriffinLord said:

Are thinkpads in general upgradable devices? They seem to be the standard choice around these parts.

Most are, yes.

 

I just did a check over mine and ordered some parts due to the keyboard failing. I have access to 2 SoDIMM slots, a 2.5 inch Sata port, the fans are easily removable/replaceable/cleanable. My specific model (x260) has an upgrade option for the screen that looks easy enough to put in and is 1080p (mine is 768p, doesn't bother me for a throw around laptop not being 1080p, but while I'm in there and fixing things I might as well), the keyboard is replaceable. The x260 also has 2 batteries, one of which is hot-swappable without needing to unscrew anything, the other is internal and easily replaceable.

Thinkpads are generally more so aimed at business use. So they tend to be user serviceable and upgradable. This is also why they're quite popular as a model to obtain as an ex-business unit cheaply and use them for lighter workloads for long periods of time. A lot of people in IT I know have one or two Thinkpads lying around for various uses for those reasons.

 

As always, make sure to do a bit of research into what is user-serviceable, and what parts availability/costing is like for whichever model you look at. For example, the majority of components for the x260 are readily available and cheap where I'm located. But the 1080p screen upgrade costs more than 3 times the price of a replacement 768p screen. This will differ from region to region, so check out what parts you can obtain and which of them are ones you might care about upgrading/replacing down the line