this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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With the preface of "cheap", do not ever buy a laptop under $500. They are simply underspecced by the time they get that low, and will give a bad experience.
I would also recommend something like a Lenovo ThinkPad, they are pretty damn tough. Maybe a ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 Intel. Spec it out to 16gb of memory and even the i3 processor will get your job done fine in Linux, while landing in under $650. Plus they have removable M.2 SSD's that can be changed out for a higher capacity very easily, and much much cheaper than the $300 they charge to kit it with a 1tb drive...
This is a lot less true than it was five years ago. Web browsing and basic word editing has not become harder to do in the past ten years, but hardware has made some major leaps. (thanks amd) So as long as it has an ssd and a semi modern (within five years) processor, it will do a great job of handling homework and 4k video. With windows replaced with linux, it'll do all those things and feel snappy while it does it.
Avoid sub 100$ laptops, and keep a skeptical eye on anything between that and 400$, but it can absolutely be done.
I'm biased, but the dell inspiron laptops that businesses offload are perfect for this sort of task. They have connectivity out the wazoo (useful for that outdated projector in the seldom used classroom) and their batteries are easily replaced.
Basic word editing and especially web browsing absolutely has gotten harder to do in the past ten years. Word processors used to fit on a floppy disk, now they wouldn't fit on a Blu-Ray, and web pages are heavier than they have ever been, even basic text is some fucking java applet.
I'm sorry, but, no, you're not even close with the size comparison. Office 2021 is 4gb, libreoffice and office 365 are smaller than that. The cheapest bluray will hold 25gb.
Obviously office programs have not become easier to run (with libreoffice maybe being an exception), but processing power has vastly outpaced whatever new requirements they've gained.
Shit like teams needs a supercomputer to run well, and will be slow on everything else. There is no point in buying a top of the line laptop just to keep teams or a badly made website from lagging.
People haven't seriously used floppy disks for twenty years now.
Well my point was less of an indictment of modern computers, and more an indictment of web designers and to an extent application programmers, who are increasingly the same crowd with shit technology like Electron.
Seems like we had a lot of computing tasks SOLVED in the 90's, but they expand to take up their container. A Raspberry Pi will run laps around the PC I grew up with, but it's considered pathetically underpowered by today's standards.
My point is that for office tasks, a 150$ laptop isn't just an option, it honestly will run office tasks incredibly well. Telling someone to not spend less than $500 on a laptop because it will run horribly is almost ten year old advice, and not helpful in 2023.
The latitude 5490 sells for 150$ and has everything a person running office stuff would want.
To add to this, if $500 is actually your budget:
Get a good second hand laptop. I picked up a 2020 model X1 Carbon a few months ago for ๐ฆ๐บ$200 and paid another $90 for a new battery for it. Came to about $300 for a great little laptop.
This was for the kid to take to school, so I didn't want to be buying a $1,000 thing that he'd destroy.
My suggestion is to get a device that can do the stuff kids want, but just barely do the things they want.
I probably spent more time tinkering around the family computer than anything else as a kid just to get games way over-spec to run on it. Throughout that process I learned programming, hex editing, and some Linux system administration, which eventually led me to my current career.
These days, it's probably a lot easier to get started with a raspberry pi. But without something to motivate people to learn tech, why would they do it in the first place?
Holy shit, that is a great deal regardless of where in the world you are. How'd you get it so cheap?
It had a dead battery. Didn't hold charge at all when you unplugged it. On the second hand market, that makes this laptop 'faulty'.
How is a laptop with a dead battery usable for school? Do they spend the whole time in a single classroom which has sockets?
Dang, lucky you! Though also what in the world did the previous owner do to it to kill the battery so dead in just 3 years.
if you do go for a thousand thing get a framework, incredibly modular pc
To add to that, a used ThinkPad can be really good even under $500. Companies mass buy and replace them so they get sold for really cheap considering their specs
I've bought sub $500 laptops several times in the last 6 years or so, and they were all great. Lenovo puts (or at least used to put) out Ideapads with Ryzen processors that are crazy cheap, and fairly upgradable.