Buy that kid something awesome. Just for not following the teen herd. Most every teen wants a macbook to "fit in with the cool kids". I applaud your niece for wanting what SHE wants, not the herd.
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Resolved Decent Windows Laptops for teen?
- Thread starter PhoenixDown
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A couple of questions re use cases. Any interest in photography, video editing or drawing/illustrating?
The pcs are so good these days even cheaper ones can do very well with all of these. My Inspiron 2 in 1 does awesome for even 4K video editing. I look at it this way….If my portable machine can render in a better than 1 to 1 ratio, it’s fine. My workstation is a beast and chews through it but my notebook still does fine with most anything I can toss at it.
I definitely have been impressed with the Ryzen 5 5600u in my sons little Aero 13. Packs a lot of performance for a 15 watt chip. He’s even been using it now with blender for some 3d design work. Once he starts getting more serious about it, I’m sure he’ll want to upgrade to something with a dedicated gpu but for now this little machine plugs along just fine.
Win11 2 in 1's that support Ntrig natively have excellent drawing/illustrating without the need for secondary device and/or accessory
along with MS Surface pen enabled devicesThe compute power is there from a CPU perspective on i5 or Ryzen 5 and above but the screen may not be suitable. There are many TN screens with low colour accuracy and non-touch/non-pen screens on the market.
The low end of windows laptops here at least also seems to be saturated with low end CPUs like Celeron or Pentium and even a few AMD APUs, some of which are priced very close to laptops with much better specs laptops.
I think the HP brand is quite reliable. There are many models, so you can choose depending on your budget and priorities.
My only knock on the major brands, like HP, and Dell are their propensity to have bloatware. Lenovo seems pretty good these days, they do include their vantage app - its debatable if that's bloatware as its the main app for managing your settings (RGB), drivers, updates and warranty.
I would recommend regardless of where you get the machine, is to reformat and do a clean install, that's just me
I use my dell for example. Core i7 1165G7 Processor, Xe Graphics (capable of processing 4K video without issue), 64gb of ram 2tb of storage and a 95% RGB accurate screen that is pen with multi pressure availability and touch responsive. I paid 999 can for the system, another 200 for the drive, and 350 for the ram. All in all I have a system that you can upgrade in steps and do ANYTHING you need to beside game which I don’t do anyways.
Even with Lenovo I still wipe and clean install Windows and replace essential bloat with light replacements like Lenovo Legion Toolkit.
I have a thinkpad, and it only came with the Vantage app. I don't consider that bloat, its rather lightweight, doesn't stay in memory and is largely not needed. Of course there's no real LED to talk about, since its just back lighting.
Not to say other models have a higher degree of bloatiness, I know in the past Lenovo had some insidious bloatware installed but when I bought my a number of years ago
I have Lenovo vantage on mine and quite like it. Not resource heavy at all. The stupid McAfee antivirus though… come on Lenovo!
I used to use McAfee antivirus, but it slowed down my computer a lot!
Yeah, all that's needed now is windows defender. Works great.
I recommend and use myself Dell Latitude 2 in 1 styled laptops like the 5290, 7210 or 7320. They ar ebusiness graded machines, so buy refurbished/used and you should hit your budget accordingly.
But at a US$ 800,- pricepoint, e.g., don´t look further than a Macbook Air, just for the battery life alone.
But at a US$ 800,- pricepoint, e.g., don´t look further than a Macbook Air, just for the battery life alone.
For a teen who's not a heavy user, looking at Windows laptops from Lenovo, Dell, or HP might be a good start. They offer reliable performance for everyday tasks like web browsing, school projects, and even light gaming like Minecraft. Plus, they often come at a more affordable price than a MacBook Air.
In my case, when searching for a laptop for my daughter, I found the MacBook options too pricey for a teen's needs. We decided on a second hand laptop instead. I found a Refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad L460 Laptop – Core I3, 6th Gen, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD for around $200. It’s been great for her browsing and school projects, sturdy enough for daily use, and the performance has been more than satisfactory for her needs.
In my case, when searching for a laptop for my daughter, I found the MacBook options too pricey for a teen's needs. We decided on a second hand laptop instead. I found a Refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad L460 Laptop – Core I3, 6th Gen, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD for around $200. It’s been great for her browsing and school projects, sturdy enough for daily use, and the performance has been more than satisfactory for her needs.
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Any Asus ZenBook would be a perfect laptop for a teen. You can even do light gaming on it.
The only exception would be if your teen games and then I would recommend a gaming laptop. Otherwise this Asus is just about perfect for anyone and specially a teen.
In terms of anti virus do not buy anything!!!! Use Windows securtity. Windows defender essentially. You can go into the settings and make sure all the av protection is on including scanning websites. Windows security is as good as modern av software and test results have proven it. AV will only act like a virus and kids often times don't update it and it can cause incompatibility issues.
If it comes with Macafee then first thing before you run updates on the new laptop is to remove Macafee in control panel or use the MCRP tool from Macafee itself. Then Windows security will be enabled by default.
Using Windows built in AV software is secure and lightweight. If you keep it updated and active then all your teen needs to do is use windows updates and it will update the AV.