Question Need some buying advice for my kid

[bcemail]

Hello all, looking to get a laptop for my daughter who is going to be a senior in high school and then will use it in college. I'll post the questionnaire below. I know about desktop PCs, but not about laptop processors, etc. It looks like most can't be upgraded, but if there are some that I can add extra RAM or another SSD, I'm happy to do so.

Not sure which way to go, either trying to spend a little more now in hopes that it will last through college, or get something more budget based and plan to upgrade in 2-3 years. Here is what some of my searching has found:

On the cheaper end ($400), this Acer Aspire 5 with an i5 13th gen, 16gb ram, and a 1tb ssd, which I would expect to replace in a few years:
Acer i5

They also have one for $600 with an i7
Acer i7

There are a few ASUS ones I've seen around the same price
Vivobook

I see Lenovos recommended for durability. I would either get a refurb ThinkPad or maybe a new ThinkBook. I don't know enough to tell the different lines apart

Last option is a MacBook Air. Somewhere around $900 for a 13" with 16GB of RAM. Maybe this would last longer than some other options? I know opinions are divided on Macs, but I had a hand me down Macbook in the past that seemed to last a long time.


1. What is your budget?
I'm a bit flexible. Max of about $800, unless there is something really good

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
I think we need to go look at screens. I first thought as big as I can afford, but she might like something smaller and lighter

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Not really an issue

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable? Normal school stuff

5. How much battery life do you need?
Whatever is standard, I'm sure she will be around outlets most of the time

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
No

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Maybe light photo touch up, but she is not planning on doing any kind of visual arts, engineering, etc.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I also have like 8 TB of storage on this PC, but maybe she doesn't need as much since she does so much online! What's the minimum I should go for?

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Anywhere reputable.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
See above. If it makes it 5 years or more that would be great

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
None

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Any good brand

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Nothing

 

[logainofhades]

I wouldn't do anything with less than 32gb ram and 1tb storage, to get her through college.

https://www.newegg.com/lg-electroni...ory-1-5-tb-ssd-titan-silver/p/N82E16834325125

 

[bcemail]

I wouldn't do anything with less than 32gb ram and 1tb storage, to get her through college.

https://www.newegg.com/lg-electroni...ory-1-5-tb-ssd-titan-silver/p/N82E16834325125

Thanks. Didn't think about 32 of ram. Is LG good with laptops?

 

[geofelt]

Some thoughts

When it comes time for college, the college may have required specs for a laptop.
Think of the current purchase as temporary. If you buy what you think is a 5 year laptop it might not make it.
Requirements change and price/performance will get better over time.

Laptop screens come in different brightness capability. From 250 nits to 500.
If the laptop might be used outdoors, brightness counts.

A 1tb m.2 ssd is probably a good size. A m.2 device can usually be upgraded by you later if needed.

Integrated graphics is fine. It can handle HD movies and such. Even some gaming.
Discrete graphics is more expensive, and when pushed can overwhelm the puny laptop coolers.

I like the Lenovo units. They have excellent keyboards . Call Lenovo and talk to one of their sales people.
They are knowledgeable about their offerings and may have deals that are otherwise not easily found on their web site.

Ram size is increasingly fixed. Partially to save component weight. 32gb would be good; ram is cheap enough.
Buy what you think you might need up front. Adding ram later might not work. Ram must be matched.

14" is about the right size for portability.

 

[LordVile]

Depends what they’re doing in college. Without gaming a MacBook is the default answer because they’re fairly bulletproof and beat out pretty much anything in value, battery life, performance per watt, build quality etc. Only issue is for things like CAD they don’t support software like solidworks.