Reasonably Robust Laptop for College Student

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Earbanean

945 posts

Ultimate Geek

#303193 23-Jan-2023 21:20

Our son has had a Lenovo Ideapad 3i for school for the last two years. It has been powerful enough and done everything needed, etc. However, a drop onto its corner has left it malfunctioning. We sent to Lenovo for repair under warranty before we knew the malfunctioning was due to the damage. Anyway, since the damage isn't covered by warranty, Lenovo are quoting around $1,000 to repair. I suspect we can get it repaired a lot cheaper elsewhere, but regardless of that, we won't have it repaired in time for the school year anyway. Also, we've got another son who will need a laptop from next year as well.

So long story/short we're looking for another school use laptop. I guess the specs of Core I5 (or similar AMD), 8 or 16 Gb, 256 or 512 Gb are about right. however, this time round, I guess ideally we'd want something a bit more robust - due to the use case. Does anyone have any good suggestions on suitable candidates?

Also, any good suggestions on getting a laptop repaired would be much appreciated too?

Earbanean

945 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3026432 24-Jan-2023 15:35

So anyway, looking around at new laptop pricing, Lenovo have some fairly attractive looking discounts on slightly older models. So, in the interests of ticking time, I grabbed a ThinkPad E14 Gen 2, with 58% off what they say is retail price.

That's an 11th Gen Intel Core I7, 16 Gb RAM, 512 Gb SSD, GeForce MX450 for $1,099. I think that's not bad and my experience of ThinkPads from work is they're pretty good. I hope the aluminium outside body will be a bit more robust for school use too.

Still need to think about getting the IdeaPad repaired for less than the price of a new laptop though. So any suggestions much appreciated.

Silvrav

469 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#3026437 24-Jan-2023 15:46

Home content insurance? wont they cover the damage?

MS surface laptops are also quite good, thin and light so make it carrying around over a full day at school easier. However, needs proper protection. Most laptops/notebooks would as they are inherently fragile unless you want to spend mega $$'s for specialised laptops that weighs a ton.

Earbanean

945 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3026441 24-Jan-2023 15:54

Silvrav:

Home content insurance? wont they cover the damage?

MS surface laptops are also quite good, thin and light so make it carrying around over a full day at school easier. However, needs proper protection. Most laptops/notebooks would as they are inherently fragile unless you want to spend mega $$'s for specialised laptops that weighs a ton.

Yeah, we've got Contents, but the excess is $500, so I wanted to get some other quote(s) for the repair first, before going with over $1,000 from Lenovo.

I currently have a Surface for work and like it, but they're probably less robust and not generally that cheap. I think the ThinkPad I got is probably a pretty good solution at the price.