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Back-To-School Laptop Buying Advice on the Hottest Laptops and Tablets of the Season

By Tshaka Armstrong, FOX 11
Published  July 19, 2018 4:38pm EDT
News
FOX 5 New York

FOX 11, Los Angeles - Summer is in full swing, so who wants to think about school, right? Well, you might want to think about getting that new laptop or tablet for your student because - right now and in the coming weeks - you'll be seeing some of the best prices of the year! Back-to-school is the hottest time of the year to pick up great deals on laptops for the new school year and here to show us some of the hottest laptops and tablets of the year is somegadgetguy.com’s Juan Carlos Bagnell

A couple things to know when buying a laptop:

  1. Always go with the best processor you can afford. Processor is more important than RAM, with RAM being a close second.
  2. If you’re going to be doing things like editing videos, working with Photoshop, or CAD, choosing a laptop with a discreet graphics card is your best option. If you’re doing heavy lifting as noted above, a laptop with the stock Intel IRIS graphics card just won’t cut it. When looking for a laptop with discreet graphics card you’ll often see it listed as a GPU.
  3. For video editing, Mac is awesome but not necessarily the best. You can get it done on a PC as well, you just have to be sure you get one that has the right specs to be sure you can get the job done.
  4. Though, not mentioned here, Chromebook laptops are one of the best options for parents of elementary students who need laptops. They are low maintenance and are going to save you a ton of time not having to deal with viruses and malware.

You can watch the video above to get an idea of what Juan showed Good Day LA’s Vanessa Borge, then look at the list below to get links to the products he demo’d.

From left to right in the video, the products are:

 

  • Dell G5 15- Great for gaming, content creation. Starts at $800. Go for the top tier model with 16GB of RAM. 
  • Lenovo Yoga 730- Great ultraportable with pen support and enough power for design students. That means editing, Photoshop and more. Starts at $950. If that's a little rich for your blood, you can check out the 13" version which starts at $719.
  • Huawei Matebook X Pro - Ultraportable with pop up camera and a beautiful display, with power to handle anything a student may need to do.
  • Microsoft Surface Laptop- Mid tier with a swanky alcantara deck, great display and enough horsepower to get everyday tasks done. Starts at $799
  • The new Ipad 9.7" with Apple Pencil support starts at $329. This is a great device for young learners. The best part being some of the great educational software available, like the Froggipedia app that Juan demo’d. Buy an iPad, save a frog!
  • Verizon Gizmotab is available from Verizon for $249.99 or $8.33/mo. This is an awesome option for parents of young children who are just beginning to access the internet. It comes with robust built-in parental controls which are easy to configure. It also features a vast library of educational and entertainment content specifically for children.