Published on June 30th, 2022 | by Sunit Nandi

3 Questions You Should Ask Yourself When Buying a Laptop for School

You cannot afford to make too many mistakes when picking a laptop for school. If you pick the wrong one, it could end up being largely unusable for you if it’s not compatible with the programs you’re going to be using. We also assume that you don’t want to pay too much for your machine, but you may have no choice but to buy a premium one if the kind of work you’re going to do demands high performance. Let’s take a look at some of the questions you should ask yourself when buying a laptop for school.

How Much Can I Afford?

The first thing you’ll have to consider is how much you can spend on a laptop. There are some great, or should we say, good sub $500 machines out there, but if you need to use sophisticated programs, there’s a good chance that they won’t work for you.

If you want a great machine, then you’ll have to be ready to spend north of $800. But you could get more machines for less if you buy at the right time. Back to school time is a particularly great time to buy laptops, so if you can wait, wait until that time to buy yours. You also have manufacturers like Lenovo who start their back to school specials much earlier than others, so we suggest you check their back to school computer sale right now.

Will It Be Able to Run the Programs I Need?

If you are a high school student, then chances are that pretty much any laptop will be good enough as long as it has a decent processor and RAM. If you’re going to study a trade, however, or if it is for college, then you’ll need to look for something a bit more sophisticated.

You will need to get a laptop with a powerful processor if you’re going to be using things like CAD tools or 3D rendering programs. If you’re going to be using any of these tools, you will need a machine with at least a 2.5GHz processor with four cores and eight threads, though we suggest you go closer to 3ghz just to make sure. It should also have at least 16GB of RAM and at least 1TB of storage if you’re going to save bulky files.

Am I Going to Use the Machine for School Work Only?

If you want to buy a machine for gaming, or streaming, for instance, then you may have to look for something a bit more powerful. If it’s for streaming and editing, you may need a slightly stronger processor. And if you’re going to do some gaming, the machine you pick needs a decent graphics card. If you’re on a tight budget, then an RTX 20 series card will do the trick. If you want something in the 30s range or something more powerful like an AMD 6000 card, you have to be ready to pay a bit more.

These are the essential things that you should be looking for when picking a laptop for school. You cannot perform great if you don’t have the best tools and a good laptop, so shop wisely and look at as many models as you can until you find the right one.

Tags: buying a laptop, school

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.