Laptop for high-schooler

[papaschtroumpf]

I haven't bought or thought of laptops in over 5 years so I am completely out of touch.
My kid needs a laptop for high school, Requirements are pretty vague except that it must have 802.11a worker (5GHz) and must be able to use Google Docs. I would like the kid to be able to run OpenOffice and similar apps, and a simple development environment for development since my kid is interested in Java programming.
The kid would like something a little more beefy than a netbook, I think that means running windows not ChromeOS. I have never upgraded anything at home beyond Windows 7 so I have no idea what is required to run Windows 10 well.
The intent is for the laptop to continue running well for 4 years (through high school).
The kids have limited charging capability in some classes, so something that is battery efficient would be good. I think an SSD would be good in that regard? I don't expect him to have to use a ton of storage beyond homework, etc... Although he may take a movie making class (they would use the school workstations for work, but may want to store and play the project on the computer)
Lighter is better since you carry it all day but it needs to be relatively sturdy (probably rules out 2 in 1s?)

I'm having a hard time figuring out how that translates into specs or possible devices.
Price is not a huge factor but it seems that I should easily be able to keep it under $500, possibly quite less.

Can you help? What else can I tell you to help spec/pick it?

 

[papaschtroumpf]

I saw a bunch of "75% off" computers on newegg for around $280. They come with Windows 7 so I'm gussing they're older models, but does that make them a good value? Will running Windows 7 be an issue in 4 years?

By the way, 15" may be the right screen size trade-off between portability and real estate?

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you want all-day battery life, then you either want a modern Netbook (Atom CPU), an Ultrabook (expensive, with a U CPU), or something like a ThinkPad with an extended battery.

Edit: DON'T buy a "gaming laptop".

 

[fire400]

thinkpad x220 (sandy i5, 8gb, 128gb SSD)
$200 shipped

new 9 cell battery (12:30 battery life)
$25 shipped

new 19+ slice battery (w/9 cell + slice, 20:00 battery life)
$130 shipped

the x220 can dock with the slice battery if and when the student needs extended battery life when stationary at a desk or study area for long periods of time.

can dualboot w/128gb mSata SSD for extra OS options for wXP, w7, w8.1, w10
$40 shipped

as far as going super cheap, a lof us have been here before, sitting and watching the load screens, hoping to squeeze the nickels and dimes out of super low end systems.

based on what I've seen across low end units, win10 runs slightly better on minimum of intel core2duo T series or AMD A6, both CPU's w/SSD's +64gb, and 4gb RAM (+6gb RAM recommended), for laptops.

as far as the netbooks with win10 are concerned, most of them, even the w/64gb_2gb_RAM_Celeron models, and after so many trial and error episodes, i've just given up on the them, for these reasons;
units with 32gb can barely receive win10 upgrades like 1511 update, especially when split with manufacturer recovery partitions, and barely enough left over space for optimizing for OS data swap.
pentiums/cel/atom/e1/e2 + 32gb ssd/500gb hdd, 2gb RAM - for win10, horrendously insane and ultra slow?
manufacturers tweak drivers to the max to try and get these systems to run at all, and raw installs of win10 don't get all drivers from microsoft auto update and can cause inconvenient crashing even after recovering original sys32 driver folders.
the celerons, even newer 2016 ones, barely contain enough advanced instruction sets for the win10 environment to properly handle dual threading in just idle mode, regardless of frequency speed. with the exception to the pentium 4405u, which is the exact same product as the i3-6200u with 1mb less cache and a few less instruction sets, that's the absolute bare minimum 'cheapo CPU' i would recommend for win10 when paired with an SSD. atom x3 1st gen, is minimum for atoms.
for whatever reason, older pentiums and some celerons can run better under win8.1 x32 with 4gb (3.25 on 32-bit) of RAM depending on native driver availability compared to win10.

got a toshiba netbook one time, 128gb mSATA and 2gb, with 3000 series Celeron on win10, clearance from best buy for $110. found it operational after hammering the software environment, but the keyboard was terrible, drivers for the touchpad was terrible, and the system took 30 minutes to just install office 2007 standard SP-0, compared to an i5 in less than a few minutes. the laptop ran 1080p video smoothly offline, that's about the only highlight. took several hours tweaking the OS and modifying services, to get it mostly responsive with as little glitching as possible.
ended up returning it, 'cuz i couldn't stand the stupid keyboard and the thought of a computer slower than a $100 core 2 duo thinkpad was embarrassing, and not to mention, it felt like a fisher price toy from toys R US, lol...

 

[papaschtroumpf]

Yeah I'm not worried about going super cheap, I'm fine spending $350 or more if that's what meets the needs.
The x220 is a 5 year old model, so it would be 9 years old by the time the kid gets out of hight school. One the other hand the specs are better than many modern units.

 

[Darknite39]

Does he want to run games?

 

[papaschtroumpf]

No no games (that's my call, I'm sure the kid would disagree)

 

[Darknite39]

The x220 is actually a good bet, then, if he can deal with the 1366x768 screen. It's durable, easy to repair as needed (given his age, that might be a plus), and about as fast CPU-wise as more recent laptops due to intel's focus on power management. I'm a college prof, and I have been happy with my T420s (basically the same machine with a bit larger form factor, but from the same generation).

 

[Puffnstuff]

Your local Walmart will have some good prices on laptops as will best buy if you catch them on sale. Just set your budget and see what's available in your price range.

 

[papaschtroumpf]

The kid did his own research and decided he wanted between 14 and 15 inches after looking at some models. He thinks battery life if very important to him and he came up with:

ASUS VivoBook E403SA-US21

Reviews seem decent except that some models seem to have a bad Spacebar but people have been able to get those exchanged. 1080 is good, HDMI output also, drive is only 128G and not upgradable but probably OK to store windows and homework.

I have no idea what the processor means in terms of power. The eMMC drive is definitely no SSD but I can't find any major flaw with his choice except the price is on the high side but not out of budget. So I'm tempted to go with it to reward him for getting involved in the search.

Anyone has experience with that model and why I should avoid it?

 

[Commodus]

The Pentium inside is enough for basic tasks, but not much more than that -- which is fine, since your kid isn't going to be using it for games (at least, nothing intensive). It's better than an Atom, at least.

From what I can tell, the VivoBook is a pretty good system for the money. A pleasant surprise, actually, since many systems in the price range are pretty mediocre.

 

[Chapbass]

14" is a good choice for HS/college. Any bigger, might as well get a desktop, as itll just sit around. Any smaller, hard to work with.

 

[xgsound]

Bad about his choice: No fan, soldered in eMMC drive, no sata ports, no optical drive.

For the same price: Also Asus, GOOD : 15" display, has fan, 50% better cpu i3-5010u, 2nd sata optical drive to replace with HDD Caddy, 500GB drive.
BAD : 15w CPU instead of 6W, no 3.1 (HDD Caddy better) USB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011KFQASE/ref=psdc_565108_t1_B01B9APNG0

SSDs are cheap, fast, and plentiful, especially if you or a friend clone the drive and put it in. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14GuDrFcCoM

The optical drive is important because you can add new programs easily from CD/DVD or remove (one screw when disassembled) the DVD drive and replace with a (10$ shipped) hard drive caddy for cloning, backup or additional storage: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005G4RZN...UTF8&colid=34BQE2EDP8Y07&coliid=IYYAJ7GPIMNXD

Jim

 

[Puffnstuff]

I have an asus tablet transformer t100tam with a 64gb emmc drive and it works just fine. Remember that this is a school oriented machine so it doesn't need gaming grade components and I would get one with a large enough screen to run productivity applications on it. I prefer a desktop for my school work but have a 17" alienware laptop for backup just in case I should need it. The tablet allows me to take my e-textbooks anywhere with me but is really too small for doing any productivity work.

To be honest I would take the kid to any local store with laptops of varying sizes and let him interact with them to get a feel for different screen sizes before committing to anything. I feel like 17" is too small when using excel or word or when trying to use two open windows simultaneously. Even the keyboards vary between models so hands on is the best way to judge some of the features of these machines.

 

[Commodus]

The optical drive is important because you can add new programs easily from CD/DVD or remove (one screw when disassembled) the DVD drive and replace with a (10$ shipped) hard drive caddy for cloning, backup or additional storage: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005G4RZN...UTF8&colid=34BQE2EDP8Y07&coliid=IYYAJ7GPIMNXD

Jim

With all due respect, this is 2016 -- why would a high-school student need an optical drive when he'll probably download all his apps or use them in the cloud? And is it really a wise idea to put a backup hard drive in the laptop, so that both the original data and the local backup are gone if the laptop drops or gets stolen?

You do have a point about the faster processor, although whether or not it's on the priority list is another matter.

 

[xgsound]

With all due respect, this is 2016 -- why would a high-school student need an optical drive when he'll probably download all his apps or use them in the cloud? And is it really a wise idea to put a backup hard drive in the laptop, so that both the original data and the local backup are gone if the laptop drops or gets stolen?

You do have a point about the faster processor, although whether or not it's on the priority list is another matter.

Also I forgot the PRO that the Vivobook has excellent battery life. Many commenters love that.
Forgot a con too: Memory and eMMC are soldered in.
You are right, an optical drive is of much less (not zero) use now, but the SATA ports are useful for a real SSD, cloning the new SSD at SATA speed, and backup. The computer should be off for most laptops to do this, but the DVD or HDD Caddy are easily exchanged once the single screw is removed.

The HDD Caddy also is very easy to change the HDD once removed. This allows making an A, B, C backup plan possible with extra drives at other locations. I don't know anyone that does this, but we all know it's a good idea to have one copy elsewhere.

Jim