Laptop for headteacher

[junz]

Hi,

 

I am looking to purchase a high spec laptop for a headmaster.

 

I have a budget of £1000.00 and has the following specs:

 

 

• i5 Processor
  
• 8GB Ram
  
• 14 - 15" Screen
  
• 120GB SSD
  
• Weighs less than 2
  

 

Please let me know if you have any suggestions

[forkies]

HP Elitebook 840 G4

[snagrat]

Surface Laptop

[thebyronic]

Surface / Surface laptop?

Our SLT all have them.

[3s-gtech]

Bought two recently for HTs - Surface Pro 4 and a Macbook Air. Both well in budget here. Very impressed with the MBA, was about £700+VAT.

[elsiegee40]

One of our sponsors? @ICTDirect_Dave? @VeryPC?

 

Dell outlet?

 

I’m sure you can hit that spec without spending all that money ... and thus leave more money for the students

[crc-ict]

It always amazes me how budgets are set / specs are chosen based on the status of the user rather than their actual application!

 

As most HT work centres around documents, e-mails etc, I can't understand why they always need high spec machines! I can understand good portability, and that they need a quality machine, but surely spec is not that important to their work. Other than to make them feel special of course!

 

Given those parameters though, I'd definitely look at the Macbooks.

[ataylor]

I gave ours a Sub £300 laptop from @ICTDirect_Dave

 

I5 & 4GB ram, runs plenty fast enough & exceeds what will be thrown at it. Not sure I could justify spending more than that.

[Ksavage413]

 

• Weighs less than 2
  

 

Weighs less than "2" what? Pounds? Kilos? Tonnes?

The HP EliteBook 840 G, as suggested by Forkies, is probably your best bet. I'd specifically recommend the HP EliteBook 840 G2. Weighs in at 1.76kg or 3.38 lbs, with an I5 Processor, 4GB of RAM (Which can easily be upgraded to 8 if your headmaster really needs that much) with a 256GB Solid State Drive (Should come out to around 190-200GB of free space).

 

Good luck laptop hunting.

[BKGarry]

If you want to stick windows over Mac, these from VeryPC will be almost perfect for your headteacher.

 

https://very-pc.co.uk/products/laptop/ultrabook

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I've got some gorgeous Dell Latitude E5540 Haswell laptops in right now.

 

Top notch condition, i5 / 8gb / 120SSD - Less than £330

 

How about it?

[sparkeh]

Our SLT get @VeryPC Thinbooks with a fancy school logo decal on them. Amazing how much quicker they run when they look smart

 

https://very-pc.co.uk/products/laptop/thinbook

[pcstru]

Our SLT get @VeryPC Thinbooks with a fancy school logo decal on them. Amazing how much quicker they run when they look smart

https://very-pc.co.uk/products/laptop/thinbook

Another website with no pricing information - which is just annoying. So how much were yours?

[hallb15]

+1 for VeryPC thinbooks. They're great little laptops, and the vinyl skins look amazing. I agree with what others have said though. Usage should determine the spec.

[hallb15]

Another website with no pricing information - which is just annoying. So how much were yours?

They start at ~£300 with a Pentium N4200, 4GB RAM, 120GB SSD, Win 10 Pro - I got a quote yesterday.

Get in touch with @VeryPC_Colin_M for a quote based on the spec you need.

[sparkeh]

Another website with no pricing information - which is just annoying. So how much were yours?

Mmm I get that, but there a lot of options so pricing would be tricky to put up. Get in touch with them and they can show you the pricing options to build the spec you want.

[dapaulio]

99.9% of headteachers won’t ever need to spend £1000 on a laptop. they won’t utilise even the basic hardware specification of a £400 laptop. when I ask for computers and monitors for our technology auto cad suite @ £600 per computer its sorry haven’t got the budget for that but here’s a £1000 I want a brand new shiny and light toy

[atcoates]

We buy either Dell XPS or a Microsoft Surface device for them. In some cases they get an Ipad pro as well!

[GuyJD]

I bought our head a HP 250 G5 and threw in an SSD for good measure, the rest of the staff have G4s at £50 less but the head has a silver one so feels special lol

[elsiegee40]

I bought our head a HP 250 G5 and threw in an SSD for good measure, the rest of the staff have G4s at £50 less but the head has a silver one so feels special lol

 

 

Ah yes. The power of silver. It's amazing how much improved the performance of any given desktop is when it gets a new screen / keyboard / mouse too!

[Edu-IT]

Isn’t MacBook the usual requirement?

 

HP laptops seem rugged and are good for spares and repairs. Worth a look.

Edited November 7, 2017 by Edu-IT

[mullet_man]

Ah yes the old head teacher must have a MacBook quandary [emoji849]

[Sheridan]

Actually I find Macbook Airs quite good value for money, and you can dual boot them - well, I can't get the wifi to work on mine but the principle is there!

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

Apologies @pcstru it's tough to list everything and keep it maintained so we prefer to build specs directly with customers. I know it's frustrating and as we grow and develop I'm sure we'll crack it.

 

Thanks for all the shout outs everybody (you know who you are and you know I think the world of each and every one of you :-)).

@junz for that kind of money you could practically get 2x VeryPC Thinbook 15 with the spec you desire! Feel free to get in touch, always happy to help fellow edugeekers.

[pcstru]

Apologies @pcstru it's tough to list everything and keep it maintained so we prefer to build specs directly with customers. I know it's frustrating and as we grow and develop I'm sure we'll crack it.

No need to apologise, it just means you are less likely to get our business because you make it take more effort than some of your competitors to find out if a particular device is feasible given our budget. If loosing business because putting a range "From £450-£800 depending on configuration" is too difficult, then that is your choice. There are enough suppliers that do make the information easily available that I don't have to worry about those that don't.

 

I'm currently looking for around 200 units, just to give you an idea on what you have missed out on this time round. :-)