Laptop suggestions for a 1st year law student?

deadken

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2004
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My daughter is just about to start her second semester in USC Law. Up until now, she has been using a HP laptop that I bought her about 5 years ago (just before she started undergraduate). That HP has a i5-2410M, 6GB of ram, Win7 (she didn't do the upgrade to Win10), a 600GB HD, and 14" screen. It has been a pretty solid machine with only battery life (about 45 minutes) and feeling sluggish to complain about. She has a budget of $850 - $1,000. This money is coming out of leftover from her last semesters loan. So, while she can spend that much, spending less would allow her to borrow less this upcoming semester. She is open to a Mac, but doesn't really think it will work out within this budget.

Out of 582GB of available storage, she has only used about 73GB since doing a system recovery just before starting last semester. So, I'm thinking something with a 256GB SSD would prove to be sufficient (flash drives seem to be pretty large and cheap, so if worse came to worse, we could add 128gb of storage for like $50). She like to keep the screen size at 15" or under.

I've been out of the PC hardware scene for so long, I really don't know much about what to suggest. So, I figured that I'd ask here for any suggestions while we are in the research stage. She'd like to make the purchase before January 9th. Any thoughts?

1) Who makes a good laptop nowadays? Is HP still good? Is a Mac out of the question?
2) What specs should we set for CPU, Mem, etc? (Nothing less than an i5? At least 12GB of ram?, etc...)
3) Anyone here have any specifics things that should be considered for a law student? IE: I asked about a larger screen to make it easier to read, but she usually prints out longer articles and likes being able to highlight / annotate them better on paper. And, the portability would suffer going up to a 17" screen.

Thanks in advance for any help!
 

Valantar

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2014
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What does her usage consist of? Reading and editing text documents? Notes in class? Anything else?

Personally, I'd look at Microsoft's Surface Pro line. Why?
1) Perfect (paper) notebook replacement. Pen included, deep integration with OneNote for note taking. Handwriting recognition, all that stuff.
2) small, light. Yet performs the same as or better than 90% of laptops. Better than many due to fast SSDs, and the CPUs are good too.
3) Battery life isn't amazing, but still very good. Should come close to a full school day.
4) The ability to choose if you want a tablet (w/built-in kickstand) or full laptop, in the same device, simply by removing your cover, is pretty awesome.

IMO, the Surface Pro line are nearly perfect student PCs. I'd aim for an i5/8GB/256GB config, this should be good enough.
 

deadken

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2004
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Thanks for the great suggestion! I'll ask her about what programs she runs. I do know that she can't use a Chromebook because the test taking software that the University uses won't work on it. This Surface Line Pro might be a perfect fit.
 

Valantar

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2014
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No problem! Hope it works out for you. It's worth mentioning that the Microsoft store online tends to have good (fixed) student discounts too, even on expensive hardware like computers.
 

deadken

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2004
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Thanks again for the information! I see that the %10 off would help a lot in getting that $1200 Surface Pro closer to the $1000 budget we set.

We just browsed around the MS site and ended up talking with a text representative. He suggested we check out a 3 other offering and we are considering a Lenovo as well
https://www.microsoftstore.com/stor...nature-Edition-2-in-1-PC/productID.2411336700

I do notice that neither the Surface Pro nor the Lenovo offer removable batteries. I wonder how much effort will be needed when the time comes to change them in 24 months or so. 30 minutes and a torx bit screwdriver or 2 hours and a soldering iron?!?
 

giantpandaman2

Senior member
Oct 17, 2005
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The MS warranty is no joke. I had a Surface Book that had some problems. It was within the 1 year normal warranty. Literally walked out with a brand new Surface Book 30 minutes after I walked in. No hassle at all.

I'd second the Surface Pro 4. The 3 can run a little loud and a little hot. The battery can't be fixed at home. Current Lithium batteries have pretty good longevity, so I wouldn't be too worried. They'll likely last a full 4-5 years without too much of a problem. The nice thing about the Pro is the ability to switch from handwriting notes to typing in a snap. This is extremely useful if you type faster than you write...but need the ability to circle/highlight/do math/brainstorm on the fly. The i5 edition w/256 GB SSD should be fine for her needs. It's 1069 right now (but she'll need a type cover). If she needs more than 6 hours unplugged, though, she might have to look elsewhere. I would NOT buy an M3 or 4GB version.

New Surfaces will probably be out in January or February.
 

Valantar

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2014
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The Lenovo looks like a nice PC with very good value for money, but note that you take a very big step back in terms of portability and note taking utility. A touchscreen and "tablet mode" is unfortunately of little use without pen functionality if the intended use is note taking and reviewing/annotating documents. My girlfriend has a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, and very quickly gave up on using it for anything like that while she was studying. Other than that though, it looks like an excellent PC with great bang for your buck. The Flex series are value PCs, so I wouldn't expect the world in terms of longevity, but it should last through school at least.

If you're looking at regular laptops (without any pen/note taking functionality), I'd also look at the Dell XPS 13 - the versions with FHD screens easily double the battery life of the Lenovo Flex, and it fits a 13.3" display into an absolutely tiny body, no larger than most 11" computers. It's a bit more expensive spec for spec compared to the flex, but you should get that back in terms of battery life and build quality.

The Surface line isn't user repairable at all, unfortunately. Ifixit gives is a pretty shoddy rating. The flex is probably better - Lenovo usually posts hardware maintenance manuals for their computers online, easily googled. Dell usually does too, and IIRC the XPS 13 shouldn't be too hard to pick apart to replace a battery or anything like that. On the other hand, modern laptops with 6+ hours of battery life need battery replacements far less often than older models, simply because it takes at the very least twice as long for them to reach the same number of charge cycles. I wouldn't worry too much unless she either leaves it plugged in constantly or uses 2-3 100%-0%-100% charge cycles a day.
 

deadken

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2004
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Thanks for all the help and information. I had offered a bit of financial assistance to put the Surface Pro 4 within her budget, but she decided to get the Lenovo instead. She summed it up as one being more tablet and less laptop while the other was more laptop and less tablet. She felt more comfortable with the Lenovo. I explained that she might feel better about using a tablet once she really gets the chance to use a quality one (she had an inexpensive tablet a while back, which I explained was a whole different animal from a real one with these specs).

Anyway, I felt that going with the 512 SSD and 16GB of Ram was a worthwhile investment. It was only $100 (on sale from $250) and would perhaps allow it to be useful even after graduation (2.5yrs to go). So, we split the difference and I chipped in $50.

Thanks again for all of the help. I never would have considered buying from the Microsoft store. It makes the both of us a bit more comfortable that if she has a problem with it (I'm in NY, she's in CA), there is walk-in help available.
 
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giantpandaman2

Senior member
Oct 17, 2005
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Glad to hear she got something she is happy with. It should last her for the next 4-5 years without any problem. :)