Best laptop for open university

I’m unsure of what laptop to invest in that would be compatible with an open university degree any advice would be great

Reply 1

Anonymous #1

Original post

by LouiseC15

I’m unsure of what laptop to invest in that would be compatible with an open university degree any advice would be great

Tbh many people use an iPad but if you want a laptop you could get MacBook it’s quite decent otherwise HP is always an option too

Reply 2

stevnw

Original post

by LouiseC15

I’m unsure of what laptop to invest in that would be compatible with an open university degree any advice would be great

Depends on your budget. Say you have a budget of £500 - £700 and want to buy new, look at the Lenovo IdeaPad line up or Dell Latitude. (I would avoid HP consumer machines, they tend to cheap out in a way their competitors do not)
If your budget is under £400, I would suggest looking at refurbished business laptops. This is you Lenovo ThinkPad T or X series, or Dell Latitude/Precision or HP Elitebook/Probook. Most of these are ultrabook form factors, so expect 13.3 -> 14" displays - but generally pretty well built.
I would look at anything 8th gen intel or newer (as windows 11 requirement is 8th gen intel or better, you can install it on older cpus but this is more of a work around and I wouldn't put it past microsoft to start clamping down on it at some point).
I would suggest to avoid the "cheap" laptops like the plague - they cost about the same as refurbished business laptops, but have the down side of cost saving sacrifices in quality (i.e. bad keyboards, bad screens, bad replacement part supply chains etc).

A lot of refurbished business laptops are well worth it, often are cheap with an abundance of spare parts in case you break a screen or something, and it is also better for the planet to used refurbished tech.

If it were me, I would go for something like a ThinkPad T480 or T490 (14") - they are around £200 -> £400 depending on the spec you want, 8th gen intel will be fine for the OU site and writing assignments. Alternatively there is the T580 which is basically the same spec in a 15.6" size package - this is also around £200 - £300 depending on the spec.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 3

PinkMobilePhone

Chat Forum Helper, Life & Style Forum Helper

I have a Dell. It was in the region of £500ish at the time. I got it in 2021 just before I started studying with the OU, and it has served its purpose very nicely, and still going strong.