Student Laptops for Schools – Best Prices for Education
Classroom365 offers the best laptops for schools and education discounts are available, especially for bulk purchases. We only recommend the major brands, including HP, Dell and Lenovo, from the base models suitable for classrooms and students to take home to the top-of-line Microsoft Surface and touchscreen models.
- Competitive pricing and specifications to suit your budget.
- Extended warranties and installation services.
- Free advice and quotations.
- Laptop trolleys for secure and safe classroom storage.
Please get in touch for a friendly chat about affordable laptops for students and teachers suitable for your school. Alternatively, complete our contact form for a quote or further advice.
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What is the Best Laptop for Students?
Many laptops from a wide range of manufacturers are available to schools. Classroom365 recommends sticking to the big brands with a minimum specification to narrow down the field. Prices vary considerably for many reasons, such as availability and special deals with companies clearing old stock. It is very competitive online, but discounts and bulk deals on laptops are available, and pricing from a specialist education supplier is cheaper than that found online.
What specification to choose?
Screen size
The cheapest laptops have 15.6” screens, with prices going up for 14” and 13.3” models. 15.6” is usually fine for classrooms and students of all ages. This compares to Chromebooks, which typically have 11” or 14” screens. 11″ is great for primary schools, and 14″ Chromebooks are more suitable for secondary schools and higher education.
CPU
Choose an Intel Core Generation 12 and above CPU. A Core i3 Gen 12 will also be a good all-rounder for schools that don’t use demanding applications or gaming. Below Gen 12, we recommend only choosing a Core i5 CPU. Gen 11 laptops are still available from some online retailers.
The latest is Generation 14, but the prices are sky-high, and they don’t offer schools benefits over the cost. The AMD Ryzen series is also an excellent Intel alternative. Choose the Ryzen Gen 5 (5600 and above) for comparable performance.
Hard drive
Choose an SSD with 240/256GB. Don’t be tempted by bargain basement options with eMMC memory or the older 2.5” SATA drives. They will be much slower, and the savings will not be worth it. In our opinion, eMMC is only suitable for Chromebooks.
Memory
Most laptops now ship with 8GB or 16GB RAM, and 8GB is the minimum recommended. For a class set of laptops, 8GB is fine; coupled with an SSD and Intel Core i5 CPU, it will give many years of use. It is worth upgrading to 16GB for the performance boost for teachers’ laptops and the senior management team.
School laptop warranty
All new laptops will come with a 1-year warranty at least. This could be an onsite warranty or, most familiar with the cheaper laptops, a “return to base” warranty. It is the school’s responsibility to courier the faulty computer to the manufacturer for repair, usually at the school’s expense.
Warranty upgrades to 3 years onsite vary between £30 and £50, and it is up to the school to decide if they would like to purchase. We believe they are well worth taking out for peace of mind. If you intend to take out laptop finance, remember that if it is an operational lease, the laptops will be returned to the leasing company, and a warranty may be a condition of the lease agreement.
Operating System
Schools should have the Microsoft Open Value Subscription (OVS) for their Windows licencing. This offers considerable savings compared to purchasing licences outright. OVS is based on the full-time employee count and is not dependent on the number of Windows devices. If you buy computers, you don’t need a Windows Professional licence, as your tech support will be rebuilding the operating system with Windows 11 Education or Windows 10 Education – due to be retired in October 2025.
Refurbished Laptops for Schools
There are many companies online that sell refurbished laptops for schools. Classroom365 isn’t one of them, and we do not recommend them to schools. We do not believe they offer good value, and there is a good chance that you will pay a lot for second-hand rubbish. Just because the laptop has an SSD, 8GB, and a Core i5 CPU, it may be 5+ years old or older. An Intel Core i5 laptop from 5 years ago is far slower than a new Core i3 laptop.
If you are considering buying refurbished computers (apart from don’t do it!), our advice is to check thoroughly what you are buying. It is often difficult to tell the exact model specification, but check the BIOS and find out what Generation of CPU it is. This page lists all the dates for the different Intel generations so you can find out the approximate age of the laptop.
Another thing to consider is any computer below Generation 8 will not run Windows 11! In truth, a Gen 7 “may” run Windows 11 but isn’t supported by Microsoft or guaranteed to work.
Should Schools Choose Laptops or Chromebooks?
Windows laptops in schools are a common sight, and they offer schools distinct advantages over Chromebooks in the classroom:
Advantages of a school laptop
- Usability and familiarity with the Windows operating system. Most students and staff alike know their way around the interface and menus.
- Applications are abundant, from the popular Microsoft Office suite to design software like Revit, which is becoming more popular across the UK. Software such as the SMART Learning Suite works seamlessly with interactive whiteboards.
- Laptops can work offline (if there is no internet), and better storage options make them a better option for teaching and administration staff to take home and save work on.
- Integration with the Microsoft 365 Suite and compatibility with non-hosted MIS systems, such as SIMS, require installation locally on the device.
Disadvantages of laptops in schools
- The main disadvantage is that a laptop will cost approximately double that of a Chromebook. For this reason, schools are choosing Chromebooks over laptops for students as they can double the amount of devices that can be used simultaneously.
- Another benefit of a Chromebook is the ease of setting it up – Build, update and enrol into Google Workspace for Education. A laptop will require wiping, building with Windows Education and configuration for staff or students. A different setup, such as local login and VPN configuration, will usually be necessary if the laptop is used offsite. It’s definitely more time-consuming!
- With applications and data more likely to be installed locally, along with the threat of viruses, significantly less than with Chromebooks, there is more to go wrong and higher maintenance. More time consumed by your ICT support and potentially devices out of action for longer if they need fixing.
Classroom365’s opinion is that both offer benefits to schools, and there is nothing wrong with a hybrid environment that utilises both systems. We recommend it for greater exposure to different software and technology. iPads can also be added to the learning environment to create even more diversity.
Affordable Laptops for Education
A good laptop for teachers and students, meeting all the specifications described above, will be around the £300 to £400 mark, including the extended warranty. Shop around, and whether you have a particular brand or model in mind, please get in touch for a no-obligation quote. We offer 30 payment terms for schools with a purchase order.
We prefer HP, Dell, and Lenovo laptops; however, a few smaller brands, like ASUS and Acer, also have good laptop deals from distribution channels. ASUS, in particular, has the ZenBook series with a touchscreen, which is often the most affordable mid-range laptop. We provide competitive ICT purchasing for laptops and accessories, from trolleys to replacement parts.
Whether you are looking for the best laptop for students or just researching prices, drop us a line; we will be happy to help. For more information about our IT solutions for education and all the other services we provide to schools, visit our home page.
Mark Friend, BSc (Hons), is a Company Director at Classroom365 and has worked in technology for nearly 30 years. His IT career started with Rothschild Bank in Sydney, Australia, before working as a Global VPN Project Manager for the British Council. Mark has 20 years of experience in the UK education sector, helping schools integrate the latest tech into their curriculum and ICT vision.