Laptop for student

[Bruce Almighty]

My son is about to start at Harper Adams & needs a laptop.
Any recommendations please ?
He's sure to need MS office on it, I know open office is free but is it suitable.
Thanks in advance

 

[Boysground]

I have bought a number of pc and laptop from pc specialist over the years. All have been good machines including for 2 kids at uni. My son used a laptop to start with at uni. He did then buy an iPad which he synced with the laptop using his iCloud account. He took the iPad into lectures and took notes with that. He found it much more portable when on campus.

If you go the laptop only route the advantage with a company like https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

Is that you can spec exactly what you need and want to spend. Make sure you have a cloud based backup that will be used (it’s no fun when your child phones to tell you they have lost work because it’s not been backed up properly, believe me have had it happen) get a solid state drive they boot up quicker in lectures. Don’t go for a mega gaming machine the fans annoy the other students I am reliably told. You don’t need mega storage because it will all be backed up in the cloud.

Both my kids run iPhones and so have used iCloud for storage they can then see everything on their phones. It works so well I now do it with the farm system. A windows pc will backup to iCloud.

Hope this helps
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[Bruce Almighty]

Thanks
He already has an iPad & like you say I think that’s better for notes

 

[Henrythefarmer]

Definitely get MS office , saves all the hassle not being able to open documents you have been emailed

 

[Timbo]

Laptops direct. Do NOT pay for office by subscription, buy it outright. There's the home n student 3 licence pack for about £150 but you'll have to hunt for it. Make sure he has a cloud based backup strategy in place for when it goes tits up .

 

[J B]

Laptops direct. Do NOT pay for office by subscription, buy it outright. There's the home n student 3 licence pack for about £150 but you'll have to hunt for it

I bought a 5 user Office 365 package from eBay for about a fiver - seems to work OK.

 

[Oat]

I bought a 5 user Office 365 package from eBay for about a fiver - seems to work OK.

I thought O365 was annual maintenance payments only, so you have to keep paying each year. I bought Office 2017 ( I think this was last version which was standalone without annual renewal) off ebay for a one off £5.

 

[Steevo]

https://softwaregeeks.co.uk/product-category/microsoft-office/

 

[Oat]

looks as though there is now an Office 2019 which is a standalone product with no annual cost

 

[ollie989898]

If you can afford it buy an MS surface- its tablet and laptop in one.

MS office is free for students.

 

[Chris F]

My son is about to start at Harper Adams & needs a laptop.
Any recommendations please ?
He's sure to need MS office on it, I know open office is free but is it suitable.
Thanks in advance

I have just got a new Thinkpad T580. Was £525 plus vat and is a great laptop so far. Very impressed with how fast it is for just normal day to day tasks.

 

[B.Will]

https://itzoo.co.uk/products/dell-e7250-laptop-i5-5300u-2-3ghz-8gb-256gb-ssd-windows-15

Use a discount code TWITTER10 or THANKS10

Bought a refurb laptop for student work and got a lot more bang for my buck than buying new. 12 months warranty

https://www.hotukdeals.com/tag/laptop is useful for others opinions on deals

 

[steveR]

Been through 3 sprogs now, all had to be fitted with a lapdog.

My son was the most recent, doing Civils, and in fact found a Windows notepad was ideal for everything he did mainly because it was so mobile to carry about, the big laptop got left in his house (or even here) most of the time! The lack of big power and HD storage was not an issue, as he seemed to back up on the Uni intranet.

For reports and WP he increasingly used the Google office suite as it was so easy to move around and access the files and documents wherever he was. I spent many a "happy hour" going through a report or his dissertation, proof reading and editing on the fly with Google docs...

Agree totally on having a VERY transparent and automatic saving and backing up of all work.... I had a less than fun evening rescuing No.1 daughter who had lost a major report on her laptop. So worried, she came back the very same evening the problem occurred, which at least meant it was recoverable.

 

[ollie989898]

Been through 3 sprogs now, all had to be fitted with a lapdog.

My son was the most recent, doing Civils, and in fact found a Windows notepad was ideal for everything he did mainly because it was so mobile to carry about, the big laptop got left in his house (or even here) most of the time! The lack of big power and HD storage was not an issue, as he seemed to back up on the Uni intranet.

For reports and WP he increasingly used the Google office suite as it was so easy to move around and access the files and documents wherever he was. I spent many a "happy hour" going through a report or his dissertation, proof reading and editing on the fly with Google docs...

Agree totally on having a VERY transparent and automatic saving and backing up of all work.... I had a less than fun evening rescuing No.1 daughter who had lost a major report on her laptop. So worried, she came back the very same evening the problem occurred, which at least meant it was recoverable.

Which device did your son use?

Totally agree, any academic work MUST be saved to the cloud, if your laptop is stolen or destroyed completely you can still access your work from any other computer.

 

[Cowabunga]

Personally and for a student, I'd get a Chromebook. If the wi-fi goes down, it could still be connected to a phone hotspot short term to keep going. It is all cloud-based and automatically updated and backed up as you go. Tends to be cheaper than Windows and much much cheaper than a Macbook.

Other alternative is a large capacity iPad with keyboard cover. This could be used in a variety of ways, even using Office 365, Google Documents or Apple's own suite. Or any of literally tens of thousands of available apps. The new 10" with 256Gig memory is £374+VAT + the pencil and keyboard. I would go for a relatively cheap bluetooth keyboard rather than Apple's but do check compatibility.

 

[steveR]

Which device did your son use?

Totally agree, any academic work MUST be saved to the cloud, if your laptop is stolen or destroyed completely you can still access your work from any other computer.

Little HP Windows notebook, upgraded to a bigger screen and bit more oomph under the bonnet in the 3/4 year. He actually preferred the small screen as it was so transportable.

 

[steveR]

Personally and for a student, I'd get a Chromebook. If the wi-fi goes down, it could still be connected to a phone hotspot short term to keep going. It is all cloud-based and automatically updated and backed up as you go. Tends to be cheaper than Windows and much much cheaper than a Macbook.

Other alternative is a large capacity iPad with keyboard cover. This could be used in a variety of ways, even using Office 365, Google Documents or Apple's own suite. Or any of literally tens of thousands of available apps. The new 10" with 256Gig memory is £374+VAT + the pencil and keyboard. I would go for a relatively cheap bluetooth keyboard rather than Apple's but do check compatibility.

I like Chromebooks a lot and have had a couple now. Now that they are fitting a wifi card that last more than 18months, they are very reliable bits of kit. The User needs to consider just what they need from their device, and if they can deal with using the non MS offerings, I agree with you a Chromebook will do the job nicely, especially if they are already using an Android phone and are in the Google ecosystem.

Charlie needed Windows to run a small bit of software for his course, but other than that, he seemed to live in the Chrome browser. I loaded a basic Office suite and removed all the faff to save memory for him.

 

[Cowabunga]

I like Chromebooks a lot and have had a couple now. Now that they are fitting a wifi card that last more than 18months, they are very reliable bits of kit. The User needs to consider just what they need from their device, and if they can deal with using the non MS offerings, I agree with you a Chromebook will do the job nicely, especially if they are already using an Android phone and are in the Google ecosystem.

Charlie needed Windows to run a small bit of software for his course, but other than that, he seemed to live in the Chrome browser. I loaded a basic Office suite and removed all the faff to save memory for him.

You can open Office files in Google Docs to edit and re-save as Office DocX files to re-submit to others quite easily.
Most, if not all education establishments have excellent wi-fi, so documents need not be saved to the Chromebook. Save instead to the Google cloud. If storage space is at a premium and large files do need to be saved locally, then removable fairly large capacity SD and USB memory is now very cheap. 128GB 100mbs microSD with adapter cards for £14 for instance.

MyMemory 128GB V30 PRO microSD Card (SDXC) A1 UHS-1 U3 + Adapter - 100MB/s £9.99 - Free Delivery | MyMemory

MyMemory Premium High Speed Micro SD cards are the perfect partner for your high-spec smartphone or tablet. Enjoy more space for photos, videos, music and apps. 128GB Capacity UHS-I, U3 Performance Adapter Included Lifetime Warranty

www.mymemory.co.uk

 

[steveR]

You can open Office files in Google Docs to edit and re-save as Office DocX files to re-submit to others quite easily.
Most, if not all education establishments have excellent wi-fi, so documents need not be saved to the Chromebook. Save instead to the Google cloud. If storage space is at a premium and large files do need to be saved locally, then removable fairly large capacity SD and USB memory is now very cheap. 128GB 100mbs microSD with adapter cards for £14 for instance.

MyMemory 128GB V30 PRO microSD Card (SDXC) A1 UHS-1 U3 + Adapter - 100MB/s £9.99 - Free Delivery | MyMemory

MyMemory Premium High Speed Micro SD cards are the perfect partner for your high-spec smartphone or tablet. Enjoy more space for photos, videos, music and apps. 128GB Capacity UHS-I, U3 Performance Adapter Included Lifetime Warranty

www.mymemory.co.uk

Yeah, I advised him to use a big USB drive, much handier that a portable HD!! They are twice the size and half the price now!!

Isn't it ever so with computer kit...

 

[Cowabunga]

Yeah, I advised him to use a big USB drive, much handier that a portable HD!! They are twice the size and half the price now!!

Isn't it ever so with computer kit...

Apple, for instance, charge £1 per extra Gigabyte memory above the basic minimum on their latest devices. Yet the card I gave as an example above costs less than £0.11p per Gigabyte storage.
MyMemory fast SD card for 128GB cost £14 whereas to buy 128GB extra for an iPhone 11 costs £128. Daylight robbery in my opinion. If it wasn't for the operating system I would not contemplate Apple devices and would go for Chrome or Windows, both of which have similar ecosystems, Chrome through Android.

Having said that I do use Chrome on my Apple devices as both a browser, for backing up Photos [Apple to Google in the Cloud automatically] and for my herd management software, which is Cloud based through Chrome browser. On the iPad or any other tablet, it all works through Chrome but it also has an App and records offline and synchronises with the Cloud and any laptop etc after logging in through the browser. Sounds much more complicated than it is.

Point being, nobody really need be too concerned about which operating system they use today. They can all work together seamlessly with no worries. Chromebook and Android is an economic choice that works as well as any and probably better than most. That Microsoft no longer have a mobile phone operating system but Windows computers and tablets work well with Apple and Android phones rather proves the point.