Solved Best student laptop that doesn't cost £2,000

I think it was the right choice in the end. Service guide available here too - battery can be replaced if needed as well. Hope the accidental damage/theft/breakdown policy isn't needed! With any luck it will do 5 years and see him through university as well. It's worth shopping around on price and specs though. I think it works out a lot cheaper to get a 256gb one and upgrade the storage, than to buy one with larger storage.

Different colours are going for different prices (although that might just be while the sales are on). So for example you can get the Core i5 with 16gb ram and 256gb storage in Graphite colour for £1,089 inc VAT. The Core i7 with 16gb and a 250gb ssd is £1,399. But increase the storage to 500gb on the Core i7 with 16gb ram and the price goes up to £1,899. So that is £500 for an extra 256gb of storage. When you can buy the Microsoft 500gb ssd for about £100 and the 1tb ssd for about £200.

So I paid £999.99 from Amazon. The additional cost bump up was for the keyboard and pen - another £260 (currently on sale at £233 ish). The Core i7 would have been an extra £200 to £300. The 16gb is worth having though I think.

Hazel123 said:

I think that is quite expensive though isn't it?

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Yeah, that model is very pricy.

Hazel123 said:

I think he might think it's slightly uncool however with the red knob in the middle!

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Every boy loves the nipple!

...seriously though...it's a very useful tool once you learn to use it. Keeps the focus on the keyboard while writing text and you need to click something in between.

I do agree that the Surfaces are very well built. They have great screens and overall they feel very premium.

All change lol! He’s been thinking about it and he wants a MacBook, not a surface pro. Because it’s a proper computer. So cancelling the surface pro.

My only gripe is that although the base model is the same price - it’s only 256gb and only 8gb ram and to me that’s just not future proof. To get 500gb is an extra £200 and to get 16gb ram is another 200. So it does work out more than the surface pro.

Think we’ll have to fork out £1500 to get 16gb ram and 500gb hard drive. Even with cloud storage, 250gb really isn’t a lot. There are posts all over Google saying people have fun out of storage to do updates. It’s netbook scenario.

Hazel123 said:

All change lol! He’s been thinking about it and he wants a MacBook, not a surface pro. Because it’s a proper computer. So cancelling the surface pro.

My only gripe is that although the base model is the same price - it’s only 256gb and only 8gb ram and to me that’s just not future proof. To get 500gb is an extra £200 and to get 16gb ram is another 200. So it does work out more than the surface pro.

Think we’ll have to fork out £1500 to get 16gb ram and 500gb hard drive. Even with cloud storage, 250gb really isn’t a lot. There are posts all over Google saying people have fun out of storage to do updates. It’s netbook scenario.

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Keep in mind, being a Mac on an ARM processor, 16GB of RAM here is not the same as 16GB of RAM in Windows. I have a Mac mini that I use, and I personally got a 512GB drive, but went with just 8GB of RAM and no regrets.

I've only used about 64GB of space total on my Mac. As i said previously, you can get a docking station with an NVMe integrated drive that can run at pretty much the same speed as the onboard storage. So, storage is probably less to worry about than the integrated memory which you cannot expand. If anything, that is what I would upgrade.

As long as your son is not storing tons of pictures, movies and music directly on the macbook, you shouldn't have a problem.

Thanks. He knows it’s an expensive purchase and the deal is it will be for at least 5 years (unless he gets earning and decides to upgrade himself).

Thanks for explaining that 16gb is not the same as with windows. However I remember when the base used to be 4gb for MacBook airs and looked at used ones and they were just too slow with only 4gb as they got older - and I’m going back 10 years or more.

So I’m inclined to think the 8gb might just not cut it in say 5 years time. It’s frustrating having to get everything upfront rather than upgrade storage later but again I’d feel concerned with just 250gb. But then I don’t use cloud storage.

I guess in the long run - paying for a new ssd in future on a windows laptop is just spreading the cost as opppsed to buying the storage upfront. He’s not sure what line he’s going into yet - whether creative or otherwise but I can’t imagine running video software with 8gb ram? In 3 years say. Although I do that myself at the moment.

But £200 for an extra 250gb storage is extremely annoying!

It would need to be the 500gb ssd upgrade anyway as reviews say the 250gb on the M2 model is very slow but the 500 is ok. Tried to persuade him to get the M1 which is £150 cheaper but obviously he wants the ‘M2! Better graphics apparently.

I bought a macbook pro in 2014 and it had 8 gb of ram. My Mac mini I bought 10 years later has 8gb of ram.

The speed of that hard drive in the m2 while slower, won't be noticeable in much other than a benchmark.

And don't just focus on cloud storage for extra space. You can plug into a dock that has an nvme in it and easily expand that storage. Just use a thunderbolt 4 dock and you can easily add more storage. Store stuff you don't need while traveling on the dock.

Thanks. I!d rather he had opted for something like a dell xps 13. Seems better value. Anyway will sit on it for a few days

Hazel123 said:

All change lol! He’s been thinking about it and he wants a MacBook, not a surface pro. Because it’s a proper computer. So cancelling the surface pro.

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The M.2 Macbooks are amazing. Yeah they're expensive, but I'd say it's worth the price. They're fast, silent, have long battery life without sacrificing that performace and the screen is on par with the Surfaces. Also the apps are on a completely different level compared to Windows ones when it comes to getting school work done.

I don't like Apple at all, but I've been seriously thinking about getting a Macbook Pro M.2 for daily work.

I really don’t like Apple computers! Never have done. Phones yes, computers no. So the idea of spending all that money lol. Anyway - the thing that annoys me most is being forced into paying more for upgrades up front because I don’t think the base model is worth it long term.

Another concern is the reports about overheating. Now maybe that’s for intensive tasks that it’s not intended for but teenagers do like to use them for things they’re not intended for. He was wanting the version with the better graphics for another £100 - I said no.

I would rather get the tried and trusted M1 and put the extra £150 towards more ram. But this is the other annoying thing - it might stop being suppprted in 2 or 3 years as it’s already 3 or4 years old - and that’s why I don’t like Apple computers as well.

Hazel123 said:

Because it’s a proper computer.

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{snip}

Hazel123 said:

My only gripe is that although the base model is the same price - it’s only 256gb and only 8gb ram and to me that’s just not future proof. To get 500gb is an extra £200 and to get 16gb ram is another 200. So it does work out more than the surface pro.

Think we’ll have to fork out £1500 to get 16gb ram and 500gb hard drive. Even with cloud storage, 250gb really isn’t a lot. There are posts all over Google saying people have fun out of storage to do updates. It’s netbook scenario.

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Holy cow! To me, this sounds more like proper theft I mean.. I paid ~£197 (229 Euros) inc free shipping for my 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe SSD on 29 November 2021 and ~£50 (57.86 Euros) inc free shipping for my 16GB (2×8GB) G.Skill Ripjaws DDR4 3200 MHz RAM a week later.

Exactly. I just spent £134 on a 2TB Samsung M2 to upgrade my laptop. I am struggling with this one. I don't like Apple computers personally and have never wanted one. I don't like not knowing how long that version will be supported, and that you can't upgrade it. I also don'; like enormous trackpads. The boy just knows it's apple and they're cool and people think they're the best. To me, it's a computer. Surface Pro I accepted - but a macbook - well I might have accepted it if had better specs for the base price if it's what he really wants but I still don't like them! There is a few weeks to go yet so I might ask him to look around at other options as he can get a Dell XPS 13 with top specs for less money - just to see what alternatives there are and maybe check them out - and I'm not sure the idea of a laptop syncing with your phone is a good reason to get one.

So I've been keeping him in computers since he was 5 or 6 after his first VTech innotab. Followed by netbooks with linux on and a Windows 7 Fixxbook (bigger indestructible netbook) then the second hand HP Spectre X360 which is now getting on for 10 years old - and has hardly been used. And that's another issue. I knew this was going to be expensive, but wish he had chosen something else lol! Even if we were rolling in money, it's still daylight robbery!

Hazel123 said:

I really don’t like Apple computers! Never have done. Phones yes, computers no.

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It's funny, I'm totally the opposite. While not a huge Apple fanboy, i tend to like their computers and OS, but don't care for their phones. I'm an Android guy, but my wife and daughter are iPhone users.

Hazel123 said:

So the idea of spending all that money lol. Anyway - the thing that annoys me most is being forced into paying more for upgrades up front because I don’t think the base model is worth it long term.

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I spent about $1500 on a 13" MacBook Pro back in 2014. It was close to a base model, had 8GB of RAM and 256GB drive. It still works to this day. Retina display is gorgeous, battery still holds a charge, touch pad has been one of the best i have ever used. Now, it's an older Intel based model and due to it's age, it doesn't run the latest versions of the OS anymore....so i'm not really using it as of 2023.

My daughter got a new M1 based MacBook Air in 2022 with the M1 chip and i was amazed by the performance and the battery life. The Apple Silicon is amazing. This got me wanting to get a new M series mac for myself, but I didn't have a need for portability with a laptop, so I instead went with a Mac Mini. Got it as a refurb on Amazon for $599 with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB drive. It's been a great little machine for my tasks. I think at idle, it only draws like 5 watts of power. That's a watt less than my 8 port netgear switch I have on my desk.

Hazel123 said:

Another concern is the reports about overheating. Now maybe that’s for intensive tasks that it’s not intended for but teenagers do like to use them for things they’re not intended for. He was wanting the version with the better graphics for another £100 - I said no.

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I'll be honest I haven't read that much into the M2 overheating stuff, as we are on M1's at my house. But from what I have read, I think the concern is when running long intensive tasks (like a hardcore benchmark for 30+ minutes), because the Air models don't have active cooling that the unit throttles and slows down to the point where it's no faster than an M1. So thinking about it, it's always faster than the M1 except under very intensive long running workloads which are not common and then it's about the same. So, while not ideal that it has to slow due to heat, it's not blowing up, catching fire or unusable. for normal tasks from a college student, i wouldn't worry at all about pushing the laptop.

Hazel123 said:

I would rather get the tried and trusted M1 and put the extra £150 towards more ram. But this is the other annoying thing - it might stop being suppprted in 2 or 3 years as it’s already 3 or4 years old - and that’s why I don’t like Apple computers as well.

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At this point, I would stick with the M2 if I were buying something today. Typically Apple's are supported for a pretty long time. Support usually gets spotty after a big architectural change, like when we went from PowerPC architecture to Intel and then went from Intel to the Apple M series silicon. The difference from M1 to M2 is not as substantial, but I think we are on the M series silicon for the foreseeable future so I certainly wouldn't worry that any M1 or M2 is going to be unsupported in just 3 years. I'd say you have 5-7 years+

Also keep in mind, Apple does get good resale value too. It's another thing that makes me appreciate them, people always seem to be willing to buy older models, Apple often takes a trade in of an older model for new (for example, my daughter previous to her M1 macbook air, had a 12" macbook we bought as a refurb in 2016 for $999. When we upgraded her 6 years later, apple gave us $200 for that MacBook, so 20% of the price back after 6 years of use...that's really not bad).

Be sure to look at the apple certified refurbished section on their website. You can sometimes find great deals there and apple really stands behind these devices. And remember, as a student apple offers discount pricing, and I think it was 10% off when we purchased my daughters 2020 macbook air.

Hazel123 said:

Exactly. I just spent £134 on a 2TB Samsung M2 to upgrade my laptop. I am struggling with this one. I don't like Apple computers personally and have never wanted one. I don't like not knowing how long that version will be supported, and that you can't upgrade it. I also don'; like enormous trackpads. The boy just knows it's apple and they're cool and people think they're the best. To me, it's a computer. Surface Pro I accepted - but a macbook - well I might have accepted it if had better specs for the base price if it's what he really wants but I still don't like them!

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For many, people often hate on apple out of principal, and you typically find those who really hate the most haven't ever actually used one. I'm not a long time Apple user, my first mac was purchased back in 2014. There are some things that I absolutely love about it, and other things I don't love. If I had to pick 1 and only 1 computer, it would be a PC because I want to game. But if I could have more than 1 computer, for a laptop I would highly consider the Mac.

I agree it stinks that you cannot really upgrade the Apple laptops. But a lot of small form factor PC laptops are not very upgradeable either. And I don't like how much more expensive the hard drive and RAM prices are from Apple when you get them. They have you over a barrel and you don't have much choice. But past that, the hardware for the price is solid. Apple doesn't really sell a budget product, they don't have a budget line. Every screen is top notch, the trackpads are great, battery life is second to none, and their ability to go to sleep and wake up from sleep pretty much flawlessly has to be seen to be appreciated. I've worked on PC's for almost 40 years and been on Windows since Windows 2.0, and I have never seen one go to sleep and come out of sleep anywhere near as reliably.

The thing with Apple is that for many people, once they buy and use an Apple product, they are usually pretty hooked. That's a good thing for the Apple brand. You mention "people think they are the best", but you gotta look at the consumers and what they do. If they keep buying Apple's, and getting all the new versions and raving about what Apple is doing....maybe for these folks....they really are the best choices. Maybe not for you, maybe not for a hardcore gamer....maybe not always the best for me.....but they certainly have something going.

Hazel123 said:

There is a few weeks to go yet so I might ask him to look around at other options as he can get a Dell XPS 13 with top specs for less money

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Always look at your options. But end of the day, remember it's for college. A faster CPU, or some more RAM or more hard drive space may seem appealing as an enthusiast. But longer battery life and coming out of sleep when he has to take notes in a class could be more beneficial. Also remember that Mac's have Time Machine built into the OS....so connect an external hard drive, click about 3 buttons and you have a very solid backup solution that "just works". You can easily restore just a file, or some folders, or the entire OS as image or move from one mac to another mac down the road with these Time Machine backups. Having a backup of all of your schoolwork to me would be of utmost importance and being able to get back online in the event of a computer failure would also be very important and something I wouldn't want to have to worry about.

And as I said before in this thread, check with the college and see if they have recommendations. They may say, yeah about 70% of our students use Mac's and we have better support in the labs for printing and such from that platform. This could be a determining factor. It's easier to use what everybody else uses, knowing that the college can support that platform as it's a far more consistent platform.

I guess we'll get it. Paying extra for 500gb storage makes it the same cost as the Surface Pro was. Not sure I'm up for paying another £200 for the extra ram. Will see if he can try one out first and make sure he's ok with it.

pparks1 said:

For many, people often hate on apple out of principal, and you typically find those who really hate the most haven't ever actually used one. I'm not a long time Apple user, my first mac was purchased back in 2014. There are some things that I absolutely love about it, and other things I don't love. If I had to pick 1 and only 1 computer, it would be a PC because I want to game. But if I could have more than 1 computer, for a laptop I would highly consider the Mac.

I agree it stinks that you cannot really upgrade the Apple laptops. But a lot of small form factor PC laptops are not very upgradeable either. And I don't like how much more expensive the hard drive and RAM prices are from Apple when you get them. They have you over a barrel and you don't have much choice. But past that, the hardware for the price is solid. Apple doesn't really sell a budget product, they don't have a budget line. Every screen is top notch, the trackpads are great, battery life is second to none, and their ability to go to sleep and wake up from sleep pretty much flawlessly has to be seen to be appreciated. I've worked on PC's for almost 40 years and been on Windows since Windows 2.0, and I have never seen one go to sleep and come out of sleep anywhere near as reliably.

The thing with Apple is that for many people, once they buy and use an Apple product, they are usually pretty hooked. That's a good thing for the Apple brand. You mention "people think they are the best", but you gotta look at the consumers and what they do. If they keep buying Apple's, and getting all the new versions and raving about what Apple is doing....maybe for these folks....they really are the best choices. Maybe not for you, maybe not for a hardcore gamer....maybe not always the best for me.....but they certainly have something going.


Always look at your options. But end of the day, remember it's for college. A faster CPU, or some more RAM or more hard drive space may seem appealing as an enthusiast. But longer battery life and coming out of sleep when he has to take notes in a class could be more beneficial. Also remember that Mac's have Time Machine built into the OS....so connect an external hard drive, click about 3 buttons and you have a very solid backup solution that "just works". You can easily restore just a file, or some folders, or the entire OS as image or move from one mac to another mac down the road with these Time Machine backups. Having a backup of all of your schoolwork to me would be of utmost importance and being able to get back online in the event of a computer failure would also be very important and something I wouldn't want to have to worry about.

And as I said before in this thread, check with the college and see if they have recommendations. They may say, yeah about 70% of our students use Mac's and we have better support in the labs for printing and such from that platform. This could be a determining factor. It's easier to use what everybody else uses, knowing that the college can support that platform as it's a far more consistent platform.

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Lol that's partly why I don't like Macs - the silly terminology. Time Machine. My own personal dislike is from using a mac keyboard with a desktop computer many years ago and it gave me RSI plus I just didn't find it as intuitive. So I do tend to worry about that kind of stuff. But it doesn't seem to bother other people having to reach across a huge trackpad to type. I tend to look at ergonimics with laptops.

That's the other concern - that he gets hooked and wants a macbook pro next. Even more expensive! And I think, bad for people's wrists - but again some are affected and some aren't. To me it's glamour over function and flexibility. Although I accept they are well made.

Personally, I, don't hate on Apple. Steve Jobs was a true genius because he managed to create the one most brilliant marketing strategy of them all, by applying marketing principles from the fashion industry on tech products. He earned millions selling mp3 at the office and listened to vinyl records at home. He made people factually believe that the benefit of having 20% more resale value still outweighs the being close to 100% overpriced. It's a huge miracle. More impressive than turning water into wine.

Storage is my bugbear. Maybe I'm just being a control freak, but I don't like running out of storage, and don't like the idea of not being able to upgrade storage. These machines don't have an sd card slot, and I think the idea of using an external drive regularly with a laptop, defeats the point of it being portable. That leaves you with the cloud (which not everyone can get on with and I'd worry the boy would delete one drive files and lose them - maybe months of work) or a bigger ssd at a ridiculous price. I would love to just go with the base model at just over £1,000. I could accept that maybe 8bg would be enough. But not ideal if keeping something a long time. But to have to pay so much upfront for storage is getting my goat!

If it goes ahead, will get it from Apple just before his birthday as there's a 14 day returns option - just in case he doesn't like it after all.

Although it's for college, I bet he does do the odd bit of gaming and have photos and videos on it as well.

Hazel123 said:

Lol that's partly why I don't like Macs - the silly terminology. Time Machine.

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It's a great name for the application. It allows you to go back to any moment in time and restore a file, a folder or the whole system. It's like a time machine. Silly name or not, it beats the pants off the Microsoft application that doesn't exist in Windows that provides that functionality. For that, with Windows you have to use a third party application. And none of the 3rd party apps allow you to buy a new machine, plug in your time machine backup and say make this new machine exactly as this time machine image is.

Hazel123 said:

My own personal dislike is from using a mac keyboard with a desktop computer many years ago and it gave me RSI plus I just didn't find it as intuitive. So I do tend to worry about that kind of stuff. But it doesn't seem to bother other people having to reach across a huge trackpad to type. I tend to look at ergonimics with laptops.

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The gesture support on the mac trackpad is fantastic....people love it once they learn how to use it. And you aren't reaching across it to type, you put your hands on the palmrest of the laptop to type, so it's either even with your hands or below your hands. I've never heard anybody complain that they really with their Mac had a much smaller touchpad because the current one just gets in the way.

Hazel123 said:

That's the other concern - that he gets hooked and wants a macbook pro next. Even more expensive! And I think, bad for people's wrists - but again some are affected and some aren't. To me it's glamour over function and flexibility. Although I accept they are well made.

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You can play the what-if game forever. In a few years time, he's probably almost done with college. Presumably has his own job and pays for what he wants. I've been using a laptop for 30+ years for work and home. My wrists are fine.

I think your self made wall of Mac is nothing more than glamour is really getting in your way. These are solid, really well built machines. They have quality components, they have a store you can walk into and get support, they have an OS which is very well established, they historically have nowhere near the problems with viruses/malware/spyware that exists on the PC, they have all day battery life, they have absolutely mindboggling performance considering their 18 hour battery life, and it's drop dead simple to upgrade from one mac, to another to another if you want to stay on that platform.

Hazel123 said:

Storage is my bugbear. Maybe I'm just being a control freak, but I don't like running out of storage, and don't like the idea of not being able to upgrade storage. These machines don't have an sd card slot, and I think the idea of using an external drive regularly with a laptop, defeats the point of it being portable.

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Nobody wants to run out of storage. And I agree the upgrade prices from Apple for storage upgrades are crazy. You wouldn't want to use an SD card slot for mass storage anyway as they are terrible slow and quite frankly unreliable.

An external drive doesn't always seem logical for a laptop where you want portability, but you also probably don't need 100% of your data everywhere you go either. For example, you download 20-30GB of applications from the Internet. If you want to keep the installers around, you don't necessarily need them on the internal drive, you probably don't need one of them on the go while at class. So, leave something like that on the external drive. Same goes for pictures and videos, while nice to have, while you are sitting in a classroom studying in a class and taking notes, you probably don't need your entire picture library with you on the internal storage of the laptop....so leave stuff like that behind on the external drive.

Hazel123 said:

That leaves you with the cloud (which not everyone can get on with and I'd worry the boy would delete one drive files and lose them - maybe months of work)

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Typically with the cloud, the files are stored in the cloud as well as on the laptop. This means that if his laptop doesn't boot up one day for whatever reason, he could "easily" log into his cloud account on a friends computer and get a copy of his files that are synced to the cloud. Maybe he goes to a friends house for a party, and accidentally leaves his laptop behind and has an assignment due in 30 minutes.. If the file is in the cloud, he can maybe get to it faster than he could get to the laptop, so it might be advantageous rather than a downfall.

Hazel123 said:

But to have to pay so much upfront for storage is getting my goat!

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That's why almost every video you see on YouTube says, "don't buy super expensive storage from apple", instead get a dock or an external drive and save your wallet and upgrade your storage later.