Refurbished Laptop for School

Soldato
Joined
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I was considering buying an 11 year old a refurbished laptop which will probably mainly used for school work. What do you guys suggest would be an ideal purchase?
 
something newer than an 11 year refurb.

ETA LW pointed out he is not after an 11 year old refurb laptop, he is after a refurb laptop for an 11 year old. I'm a bell :)

What's your budget?
 
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Well maybe 2nd hand or like you say, refurb. FB, Gumtree etc.

If you had an idea of budget, i could scope out some deals for you or alternatively, maybe wait for Jan sales?
 
I don’t want to open the can of worms which is Gumtree. I have seen options on a couple of websites but with a £200 budget I’m a little hesitant. The laptop wouldn’t get a much use because she already uses Apple alternatives.
 
will probably mainly used for school work
What do they use at her school, iPads, Chrome books, Windows laptops / desktops and has she just started secondary school or is she moving up to another school next year and then might want something different?


she already uses Apple alternatives
Do you mean iPad?

Buy her a bluetooth keyboard, maybe one of those pens?



Does she have a TV in her room, there are ex corporate refurb mini PC's about the size of a book, think ex NHS etc as long as its 8th gen or newer.

Other options:
Give her your old PC and build yourself a 9800x3d super doopa thing with a NVIDIA 5090
Or turn her into a geek and get her something like a Raspberry Pi and teach her linux
 
What do they use at her school, iPads, Chrome books, Windows laptops / desktops and has she just started secondary school or is she moving up to another school next year and then might want something different?



Do you mean iPad?

Buy her a bluetooth keyboard, maybe one of those pens?



Does she have a TV in her room, there are ex corporate refurb mini PC's about the size of a book, think ex NHS etc as long as its 8th gen or newer.

Other options:
Give her your old PC and build yourself a 9800x3d super doopa thing with a NVIDIA 5090
Or turn her into a geek and get her something like a Raspberry Pi and teach her linux
It’s the first year in secondary school where they’re using desktop computers.
 
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It will probably be a few decades before I get access to the MM so I've no idea what spec that HP laptop is but its worth a look.

Otherwise I'd go for one of the mini PCs, HP, Dell etc that are ex corporate / NHS stock and should be within your budget. Maybe grab a cheap webcam to go with it and keep it in a draw for the day her school closes for covid / snow day / broken boiler etc and they want her to join a teams / zoom lesson etc.

Also worth checking with the school in case they might be thinking about a 1:1 lease scheme or the kids have access to the Office Apps for free. Some schools lean towards 365 other more towards googles eco system for their email and online collaboration tools and they are probably using things like scratch which you can download for free.

Also have a look what if any filtering / time controls your ISP gives or think about changing DNS to one one of the filtered ones as a minimum.
Australia are banning under 16's from social media and there's a chance something similar could be adopted in the UK.
 
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