Tank Slap - Motorcycle Forum

So Byron is off to high school in less than two weeks and I need to buy him a laptop. It is compulsory that he has a laptop on day one.

Minimum requirements are
-Windows or Mac (though I keen to keep him on windows as that’s what he’s been using at school)
-11.6” screen
-4 Gb RAM
-128 Gb HD

The school has a cloud and all school work is expected to be stored in there so huge HD space isn’t a requirement.

My biggest question, you parents of high school kids, what is the best screen size, I’m guessing it’s a compromise between viewing area and lugging a lump about.

Is 4 Gb RAM enough these days?

I’ve been never owned a laptop and my Mac is 8 yrs old so I’m a bit out of touch these days.

I'm also looking into laptops as my current one has a smashed screen.

I personally would look for something a bit bigger than the specs you gave.

An 11 inch screen is quite small, 13 inch is much more usable.

The rest of the specs depend on how he will be using the laptop. If it's just word processing then you don't really need to go mad, but if it's going to include image and video editing and maybe a game or two then you probably want to upgrade.

I would avoid any CPU that isn't an Intel I5 or I7, and I would personally recommend 6-8gb of ram and a 256gb SSD.

The bigger you go the better it will work, but obviously the more it will cost.

Most laptops will be fine these days, especially for school work as it's mainly using a browser or office tool.

As Jon has said, i'd go 13 inch minimum and 6 GB plus RAM.

Look at touchscreen laptops too - some fold backwards to become a tablet which may help him with visual work.

Don’t get.anything that isn’t solid state hard drive, I’ve killed 4 old type rotating HD’s in the last 12yrs because my lappy gets moved about when running, kids inadvertently abuse kit just as badly as I do.

Don't forget a small screen means a small keyboard as well. Our 13 inch laptops at work are a pain to use without a proper keyboard attached to it

I think my lads laptop is 15 inch which is great t9 use but the draw back is it's quite large to carry around. Has your lad got a long walk to school as that could be a factor if he's got to carry it?

This is my laptop.. 4 years old I think and still takes 3 seconds to boot from completely off.

Good enough for video editing, photo editing, could play games but not recent ones.

15" is the best of both worlds IMO, i've got a designated number pad on my keyboard too which is a big deal for me on Excel.

120GB SSD which isn't big but a 1TB external drive is useful. Just make sure you get SSD for a high school because it will get dropped and a HDD won't last all that long.

My lad has just started high school and I got him an iPad with a Microsoft 365 account. 5 months in and so far there's nothing he hasn't been able to do. Plus being dyslexic they let him use the camera to scan the white board.

After I posted the OP I discovered I had a flyer with the high school about partnership deals they had with HP. I also rang and talked to Byron and he used 11.6” and 13.3” screens at primary school and said he wants the smaller one as it’s easier to carry about. So the 11.6” laptop on offer was the 2 in 1 style HP x360 in an education edition (gorilla glass, rubberised cover, water resistant) with 3 yr next day onsite service and accidental damage protection for less than I could find it standalone anywhere else. So gone for that. SSD and smaller screen will be good for battery life (can’t charge at school -policy for HSE issues.
Thanks for all your advice and I fully expect I’ll be upgrading this in two years but would rather something that is more robust for his first laptop, he is my son after all and you are fully aware of my track record