Tech

How Powerful a Laptop Does Your Child Actually Need for School?

How Powerful a Laptop Does Your Child Actually Need for School

A lot of parents start sweating when they hear that their child needs a new laptop for school. Many of them automatically assume that they need the absolute best machine on the planet or their child will be at a disadvantage. However, most schools understand that many parents have budget limitations, and will not require students to have the best laptop in the world to follow classes. So, you should not worry too much about specs, but still, make sure that your child has a machine that will allow them to do their schoolwork and other activities. So, how powerful does your child’s school laptop actually have to be?

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Prioritize CPU and Storage

There are probably two main areas that should get most of your attention when looking at a laptop for school, and these are the CPU and the storage. The computer’s CPU will dictate how fluidly it can handle programs and will allow a computer to run multiple heavy applications at once, which can often be the case when students have to collaborate on complex projects from a distance.

Storage is important as your child will need ample space to store work, manuals, education content in different formations, and files that they need for school work. So, get a machine that has at least 1 terabyte of space if you suspect that they’ll need a lot of it. Also, be very careful to pick a machine with a solid-state drive as opposed to a mechanical hard drive as they are more stable and less prone to crashes and loss.

Consider Chromebooks

If you have a very young child, then we suggest that you give Chromebooks a look. They might work for some older students too.

These machines were made with the education sector in mind and schools tend to love them. Chromebooks usually have smaller screens and smaller processors, but they can handle most of the programs and materials younger students need to run. They’re much cheaper too and if you see a sale for back to school laptops, there’s a strong chance that many of them will be Chromebooks. So don’t dismiss them. Instead, learn about their pros and cons while making sure that the machine you pick is powerful enough to deal with your child’s schoolwork.

What About Things like RAM?

RAM is also important when picking laptops, but you will have a hard time finding a laptop these days that doesn’t have enough RAM to handle basic schoolwork. Here, anything over 8 GB or better should be more than enough.

What if My Child Like Gaming?

If you don’t want to have to pay for a machine both for school and play, you will need to pay more attention to things like the GPU and get a slightly better processor. Do not make the mistake of buying a laptop with an integrated graphics chip like you see on many school-oriented laptops, however, as they are largely useless for modern gaming.

Children usually don’t need the latest and greatest machine to perform well and follow classes, so don’t go overboard here. Still, make sure that you get good enough specs and listen to as many second and third opinions on any machine you are thinking of buying before you make your decision.

Arnold Bloom

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