School has recommended a Chromebook, BYOD year 7, with 8gb ram, 128gb HDD, and 13.3" screen minimum.
Budget is I don't want to have to buy one every year, but I don't want it to cost as much as a normal laptop!
Any recommendations?
BYOD Chromebook for Year 7
Comments
for an extra $50 odd get the Ryzen 5 i reckon, just for the extra storage. the chips are virtually the same (Zen 2 architecture interestingly)
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/asus-cm34-flip-14-wuxga-c…is zen 2 good or bad? lol
@JeremyOutlands: it's fine, certainly more than adequate for a chromebook. still going to be better than the ARM based chips for performance (eg Snapdragon)
just a couple generations behind (we are at Zen 4 now).
Do they have that same device till year 10/12, or does it change again later?
Do they have that same device till year 10/12
Doubtful. Chromebooks are very restrictive.
higher year levels are the same unless they are going into digital subjects like CAS/etc then they move to macbook/full laptops
One of my kids is doing Design, so needs some Adobe-type software installed. But everything else is in the cloud now. Window, Mac, ChromeOS, Linux … makes no difference.
Get a refurb…
Where from? That's great advice for Windows - lots of dirt-cheap ex-corporate laptops available that rarely left the desk.
But Chromebook? Kids destroy those.
They’re likely talking about a Windows refurb.
Worth checking the requirements from the school. There’s plenty of advice on older threads.
Had a similar requirement and went with an ex-corporate Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon i5 8th Gen 8GB/256GB SSD for ~300 from EBay. It's fast, light and does what they want to do, kid's happy.
You can check the discussion here - https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/826910
There is no big difference in Hardware between a Chromebook and Windows laptop, so cost will be similar for similar specs laptops. I suggest you to look at a i3/i5 based "Chromebook Plus" laptop which will be useful for a long long time. They are currently on special at JB.