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How and what laptop should I pick?

I am thinking of getting a laptop for BSc Biology.
I am currently in First Year so I have hardly seen the extent it might be used for, besides a need to draw on it.

I just know it needs to be lightweight, touch screen and roughly 14 inches.
I was thinking of also using it as a gaming and family laptop.
I might use it for other software things like video editing graphic design.
The specifications I was looking at were a 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for a Windows.

Our current family laptop is terrible, being excruciatingly slow for everything.
It has 4GB of RAM and a 909GB HDD.

A few people doing the same course have HP, specifically HP Pavilion.

A friend doing Year 2 Environmental Science has a HP x360 EliteBook. It cost £800 and she got it from PC World. She also had to buy an £80 stylus for it.

A friend who does a non-STEM course has a laptop more for gaming-
Lenovo Legion 5, AMD Ryzen 5, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060.
He got it from Costco.
It costed £900 and he paid another £50 to add another 8GB RAM and a 1TB SSD
He says he loves it.

Another non-STEM friend got a refurbished laptop for £300 with 8GB RAM and 1TB storage.
It cannot run higher end games but manages others decently.
According to him, a higher end laptops from there should only be around £500.
Two people, including someone tech-savvy, said it seemed amazing for the price.
He got it from a website called LaptopsDirect.

I also called PC World and the guy promoted 2 laptops:
a Thin Acer Swift 3 AMD Ryzen 7, 1TB SSD, 8GB RAM for £650
and a Thin MSI GF63 Intel® Core™ i5, GTX 1650, 512 GB SSD, 8GB RAM for £660.
He seemed quite adamant about pushing these two, especially pushing their prices.

My options for where to buy one seem to be PC World, John Lewis, Costco and LaptopsDirect.
PC World does not seem to have as large as diversity, especially in higher end laptops, but I am concerned that by buying a laptop elsewhere, I will be locking myself out of the services they provide to look after the laptop.

Is there anything I should also look for in a Biology laptop?
Should I use it as a gaming laptop as I am also concerned about safety and whether splurging on a work laptop is a good idea?
What kinds of laptops would you recommend?
Lenovo IdeaPads are excellent value for money and more than enough for a Biology degree.
first its depend on your work and on your budget. Than i suggest to pick macbook 16 pro its best laptop to every work as a student or office work
Go to a local computer shop and see the laptops on sale. Make notes. Talk to the staff there as well.
Think about an iPad Pro/Air + Magic Keyboard.

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