I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet. If you have decided that your school needs laptops for your pupils, you will need to ensure you get the best value for your budget. You may be part of a larger organisation that has a procurement department or you may be buying them through an IT provider, but in either case, it is well worth making sure you are getting a good deal.
If you are too busy to do this for yourself, you can always send me the quote you’ve been given and I’ll look it over for you. I’ll let you know if I think it’s a good deal or if there’s anything better available. I don’t charge for this and I don’t make any money from this. I literally just want you as a school to make the most of your budget.
I have written a full buying guide which is pinned to the top menu, but in a nutshell, you will need to check the main sepcifications (CPU and RAM), then other specifications:
Main Specifications
The specification of the laptops you are looking at are usually the best indicator of the value you are getting. I recommend that you check CPU (also known as processor) and RAM (also known as memory) as the two best indicators of how fast the computer will be and therefore how long it will be before it becomes obselete.
CPU: Find out what the exact model of the CPU is and Google it. The top result should be the CPU manufacturer page. Look for when it was released. If it was released within the last year or two, it should be fine. Older than that, be wary. More than four years since it was released, don’t buy it unless you get an amazing price.
Then check processor type. It should be part of the model name. Anything with i3, i5, i7 or i9 should be fine. Ryzen 3, 5, 7, or 9 are fine too. Beware of Celeron and Pentium processors, they are significantly less powerful and will likely need replacing much sooner. I tend to find i3 or Ryzen 3 the sweet spot between price and performance for primary schools.
Memory (RAM): 8GB or higher. Don’t get any less than this.
Other specifications
Storage (NOT MEMORY!): Anything 256GB or higher will be fine, but make sure it uses an SSD. Any laptop that uses a traditional hard disk (HDD) will be much slower.
Screen size: Smaller laptops tend to be 13.3″ or 14″, larger ones 15.6″. Smaller than this will be, in my opinion, too small. Larger than this will be much less portable and probably unnecessarily more expensive.
Other features
You may be looking for something with particular features, such as build quality or specific ports. A headphone jack is extremely useful for schools but not a given on laptops these days, I’m afraid. I’ll also just say that most laptops these days do not have DVD drives, so if you need this feature, your selection might be extremely limited and you might consider buying external USB DVD drives instead.
Other things to consider
- How are you going to store and charge the laptops?
- Are you going to buy more than you need for one full class set so that all children have access even when one or more laptops are out of action?
- Do you have a long term plan in place to replace the laptops? I know you haven’t even got these ones yet, but if you make your plan for the next hardware expenditure when buying now, it will make future budgeting much easier.
- How will you store and manage peripherals such as headphones?
James
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