​The Best Computer for Online Schooling

A lot of people started online schooling this year quite unexpectedly, and a lot of people are very uncertain as to what exactly they should be getting for their specific cases and why. This article serves to help you solve that dilemma and ease your mind a bit about the specifics. We’ll be breaking down what we think are the best computers for online schooling at the elementary and middle/junior high level, high school, and college, along with some things we think you might want to pick up to help make your experience as a parent a bit less stressful.

Elementary/Middle School (Junior High)

For a student in elementary or middle school, their computing needs aren’t that great. They also don’t typically need the ability to carry around their computer, and parents enjoy the ability of being able to keep track of their screen time. They likely will be doing most assignments in a web browser or in google docs, so they don’t need a ton of storage. For these reasons, we think the best computer for a student in elementary or middle school is the Dell OptiPlex 5060 Micro desktop PC. This model comes with 16GB of memory and 500GB of Solid State Storage, so it’s plenty fast for any daily task as a school machine or a general home computer. Another pro: It’s comes in at just under $300! Because some students need to be present on camera or via voice chat in their virtual schooling on Zoom or Google Classroom, we also recommend picking up one of these Periphio webcams to pair with your desktop. It’s great for schooling, but also for keeping contact with their friends and family via Skype video call.

High School

A high school student has slightly different needs than younger students because they often want or need to be a bit more flexible with where or how they work. For this case, a laptop is the way to go. High school students also need more storage, and typically prefer something thin, light, and stylish. For these reasons, we think the best computer for a high school student doing NTI or virtual classes is the 14.1" Dell Latitude 5490 laptop. It comes with a Core i5 processor that has plenty of power but still has the battery life to spare in a thin-and-light design. It has a 14.1” Full HD anti-glare display with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB Solid State Drive for fast performance under $350.

College

College students certainly have the most demanding computing needs of any of these three categories. They demand reliability and performance -- when you’re paying as much as they are for school, you want to make sure you’re never waiting around for your computer. They need things to be lightweight, portable, and most importantly, affordable. We think the best choice for a college student is the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 2 laptop. It comes with a 15.6” 4K UHD touchscreen display, a powerful 9th generation Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB Solid State Drive. It also features Windows 11 Pro to enable features like BitLocker Encryption to ensure their information stays safe and secure.

Conclusion

Students of all kinds have different needs. Depending on your exact use case, the above suggestions may or may not work for you. As always, do your research to ensure that what you’re buying meets the requirements of the software you’re using. If you can’t figure it out yourself, feel free to reach out to our support team, and we’d be happy to help get you set up with exactly what you’re looking for to help you learn and collaborate stress-free. 

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