DS has been accepted into the state magnet high school for Math and Science. (Yay!)
He's going to need a laptop. I want to buy one for school work and not gaming. If I ask him, he'll say that a gaming laptop is what he really needs, and frankly I can't tell what the difference is.
I'm willing to shell out some dough for a nice functional laptop, but keep in mind that a laptop is a luxury and not strictly necessary for attendance.
Please give me some ideas- I don't want an Apple. He wants Windows 10. No idea what kind of memory, processing speed, etc. I want to know what is nice to have and necessary to have.
Also, tell me what is necessary for gaming and unnecessary for school work. Please feel free to give parameters or just a laptop that you love and think is a great deal. Thanks!
I've bought three laptops in the past four years. Two for my sons that were going off to college and one for my wife. Also, I've custom built three Windows PC's in the past five years. So I feel I know what I'm talking about.
Gaming laptops typically have some very good (and fast) components and higher build quality compared to "regular" laptops.
The number one thing that differentiates a gaming laptop from a regular laptop is the graphics card. The graphics card is the component that creates the pictures and graphics on the screen. The more graphics intensive the software requires (like a game), the higher quality and speed the graphics card needs to be. You don't need a graphics card for writing reports. Does your son like photography? He'll need a laptop with a graphics card to do decent photo editing. Definitely will need one to do video editing. So, it's not just gaming that requires a "gaming" laptop.
Most laptops don't even have a graphics card. They have what is called "integrated graphics", which is a graphics circuit built-in the motherboard. This is fine for word processing, spreadsheets, and most other school and office type applications. Generally speaking he won't need a laptop with a graphics card for school work. Generally speaking most gaming laptops have a separate graphics card.
Here are some thing you should look for in the laptop you will be buying for your son.
CPU Processor: Get one with an Intel i5 processor. This is a mid-level processor. (Intel processors, in order of sophistication and speed go, i3, i5 and i7) An Intel i3 would be sufficient for most people, but an i5 is going to be faster and run more sophisticated software. An Intel i7 is top shelf stuff and is what most gamers would want. I don't even look at computers with AMD processors, I'm sure they are fine, but I'm totally on board with Intel. Intel is the most widely used CPU processor.
Hard Drive: Get a solid state drive (SSD.) They have no moving parts and are lightning fast. Get an SSD with at least 512GB capacity. More capacity is better but with cloud storage as an option, he shouldn't need more than 512GB. They have really come down in price lately. Your son will love you for getting him a laptop with an SSD. (Another reason to get an i5 processor is you probably can't get a laptop with an SSD and NOT get at least an i5 processor.)
Screen size: Big debate here, and an important consideration. You might want to ask him his preference. I would get a 15" screen. Yes, they are smaller but they are lighter in weight and thus more portable. He's going to be sticking his laptop in his backpack every day, might as well make it easy to do. Plus, a smaller screen means it will take less juice so his battery will last longer. No matter what size you get, make sure the screen resolution is full HD, or 1920 X 1080.
Memory: 8 GB is the minimum I would get. 16GB is nice. You could get 8GB of memory and make sure it is expandable to 16GB, or even 32GB. This means your son could add another 8GB sometime in the future if he wanted to.
Keyboard: A backlit keyboard is a must-have. Read the reviews to see what they think of the keyboard's feel and response.
Battery: You want a long-lasting, relatively quick charging battery. Reading reviews will be helpful here. Also, you don't want a battery that is the size and weight of a cement brick.
Input/Output ports:
Three USB ports. Should be USB 3.1. At least one of these ports should be USB type C.
HDMI output port
LAN port
headphone jack
Bluetooth
web cam
Now you have an idea of what kind of equipment you should look for in a laptop. And guess what? Most gaming laptops are going to come with all this stuff on them, at a minimum. That's why I wouldn't shy away from a gaming laptop. You can get a budget level gaming laptop for around $650-$750. If you were to get a "regular" laptop with these features on them it would probably cost $650, anyway. So you'd spend another $100 over a "normal" laptop to get a "gaming" laptop. It would make your son happy, it would be a better computer, and it would give you some future proofing, meaning a gaming laptop won't become obsolete as quickly as a regular laptop would. Another factor is that if you get a budget to mid-level gaming laptop your son won't be embarrassed to show it off to his friends.
The flip side to this is that gaming computers ALWAYS become obsolete
for gaming because game companies create more and more sophisticated games that require graphics cards with more memory and faster graphics cards. Serious gamers don't play games on laptops anyway. They get a PC with an i7 processor, 16GB memory, and a hellacious graphics card in it paired with a 27" monitor. Serious gaming on a 17" laptop screen? Puh-leeze! Or they go with a console machine like a Sony Playstation 4 or an XBox and play on a 55" HDTV.
Maybe do some Googling on Budget gaming laptops.