Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post

DoubleF · 03-08-2021, 12:28 PM

Business grade laptops can be had for less than $1K and they should in theory last more than 4 years. The XPS mentioned for instance is a business grade laptop it's a good baseline laptop, but yeah, it's a little higher up around $1500+. Lenovo/HP also have good business grade laptops.

One pretty important benefit of business grade (IMO) is that you don't end up with a keyboard that is junk. It will be a keyboard designed to be typed on a ton which is excellent for writing papers etc.

Make sure to get a laptop with a SSD vs HDD. This is basically non-negotiable. A computer without a SSD is awful and slow.

Part of the question is how much more than a Chromebook she needs and how she uses it. If barely more, the main specs you pay attention to is basically i5 processor with 500GB SSD minimum size. This should be fine for 4-5 years. Size wise, ultra portable vs standard size aren't as big gaps as they used to be as long as the resolution is better than 1080. But 13.3" vs 15.6" may be a bigger concern. The smaller is better for porting around in a bag (ie: lighter with a bag full of textbooks), but if she's watching movies etc. on the side, or lots of data on the screen (ie: full screen spreadsheets) it's kinda small (can be addressed with a cheap $150 projector via HDMI).

If she's doing much more intensive stuff, then dedicated graphics card and i7 might be something she wants. This IMO might be very unlikely.

Software related, I am guessing she can get student version office 365 for significant discount, so don't get suckered in on an upsell by that. I also highly recommend that dropbox or onedrive is used to store/automatically back up all of her academic work. The free version should be enough space for academia. This means if her computer dies or is stolen etc. She just has to login via another computer browser and she can continue her work without too much tears and crying and losing too much work. I've met way too many people who don't know this trick who had to redo tons of work when the computer failed or was stolen.

03-08-2021, 12:28 PM	#5
DoubleF Franchise Player Join Date: Apr 2014 Exp:	Business grade laptops can be had for less than $1K and they should in theory last more than 4 years. The XPS mentioned for instance is a business grade laptop it's a good baseline laptop, but yeah, it's a little higher up around $1500+. Lenovo/HP also have good business grade laptops. One pretty important benefit of business grade (IMO) is that you don't end up with a keyboard that is junk. It will be a keyboard designed to be typed on a ton which is excellent for writing papers etc. Make sure to get a laptop with a SSD vs HDD. This is basically non-negotiable. A computer without a SSD is awful and slow. Part of the question is how much more than a Chromebook she needs and how she uses it. If barely more, the main specs you pay attention to is basically i5 processor with 500GB SSD minimum size. This should be fine for 4-5 years. Size wise, ultra portable vs standard size aren't as big gaps as they used to be as long as the resolution is better than 1080. But 13.3" vs 15.6" may be a bigger concern. The smaller is better for porting around in a bag (ie: lighter with a bag full of textbooks), but if she's watching movies etc. on the side, or lots of data on the screen (ie: full screen spreadsheets) it's kinda small (can be addressed with a cheap $150 projector via HDMI). If she's doing much more intensive stuff, then dedicated graphics card and i7 might be something she wants. This IMO might be very unlikely. Software related, I am guessing she can get student version office 365 for significant discount, so don't get suckered in on an upsell by that. I also highly recommend that dropbox or onedrive is used to store/automatically back up all of her academic work. The free version should be enough space for academia. This means if her computer dies or is stolen etc. She just has to login via another computer browser and she can continue her work without too much tears and crying and losing too much work. I've met way too many people who don't know this trick who had to redo tons of work when the computer failed or was stolen.