Heading back to school for an MBA and need a something to get through. I have not purchased a laptop for almost 15 years and I know technically is now a whole new world. The main use will be school. I’d say 99% Microsoft office applications & Zoom classes until the plague is over. No need for CAD, FEA or any programming applications so just a simple unit. Some preferred options: 8+gb ram Sub 15” size 500gb+ storage I5 processor 8th gen or newer Preferably under $600 Windows Operating system Open to used options as well. Any Tech guru’s have any recommendations?
You can get all that from just about any laptop for sale on Amazon at that price. I bought one of these earlier last year. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08921SYNL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It has about all you want and more, I believe.
Any laptop will do what you need and definitely want dual monitors. Don't pay for MS Office 365 you should get it for free with student ID.
Will you need to install / use SPSS or other statistical modeling programs? If yes, see if you can get a laptop with more RAM. say 16GB I'd go to tiger direct and get a refurbished I-5 or I7 with a big SSD and Win 10 Pro. A refurbished / off-lease 2-3 year old I5 or I-7 with enough RAM and Disk will get you through a 1 or 2 year MBA program fine.
Simply one data point, but I bought a refurb’d laptop fromTiger a month ago and it’s a real piece of shit (keyboard is wonky, mousepad is shitty, etc.). I’d spend up for new, and I’m never buying a refurb again.
Dell XPS 13. Lite, touch screen, fast, and realitively cheap ($850). My work uses XPS 15 but I travel alot and its really combursome. So I purchased my own XPS 13 for home and travel and remote in to my work laptop/network when needed. It is by far the best laptop I have ever owned. The battery lasts 14+ hours on a charge. Fingerprint utility. Not pre-loaded with a bunch of shitty programs. Has Solid state drive. I bought mine on Amazon a couple years ago. Still works like I bought it yesterday. Dont cut corners with Acer or other brands to save a couple hundred bucks.
That’s the thin one right? I’ve heard those have potential reliability issues because of the small form factor complicating thermal management and causing a higher incidence of failed boards. Not sure how prevalent it is in the newer models. I ended up buying a Dell 7530 instead of an XPS 15 because of this. It came with bad RAM (probably) and blue screened me on arrival, but I had them to take it back and send me a new one. Process was easy. It’s worked perfectly so far. Work issue laptop is a Dell 5530 and I haven’t had any problems with mine personally. I have to second not buying anything budget just to save a few hundred bucks. Dell used to be awesome but has been slipping reputation rise, but still seems like the best bet out there. I personally wouldn’t do any refurbished or off-lease, the price of laptops has come down enough that I don’t see how the delta is worth it to buy something used. Don’t get anything other than an SSD either. This will make the #1 performance difference in any computer.
I just bought a new company laptop this week and have a grand total of 2 hours use on it so far but I'm very happy so far. Asus 15.6" Vivobook Intel i5 processor - 10th Gen 16gb DDR4 RAM 512GB SSD Windows 10 full HD display web camera finger print security 90 day trial of MS Office I know nothing about computers but my pals who do say for the money, it'll do all I need and then some for a long time. $899 on sale for $699
