Cheap Laptops for University Students (or parents) in Australia: Best Picks Under $600
Being a college student is the best life experience one will get in their entire lives. So many things are working in your favour, including youth, energy levels, beauty and handsomeness if there’s something like that. You are done with high school, you have new freedoms that you probably never had in high school. You might even be staying away from your parents for the first time in your life. Generally, things would be flowing and good.
However, the flip side of this is that it can also be the worst time for a student. With freedom usually comes costs associated with said freedom. Finances become tight and your life economics depending on situations can throw you in financial deep ends. This means that as a student, you might find yourself counting your change on a daily basis. Back when I was a student, before things really went south, we used to get stipends called VTL. They would deposit into our accounts every semester if I remember and they made student life bearable. Of course, the money also made some students go crazy, as for most people it was the largest lump sums of money that they would have received in their lives. But not all students are this lucky.
Being a student is associated with coin counting or skipping meals to make it through the week. This part is universal. Considering this financial predicament, this article is simple and straightforward. It’s basically a list of low costs laptops that students can buy. Pricing would be for those based in Perth, but the laptop versions themselves should be available globally. Although framed for university students, these laptops can even be purchased if needed for high school or even primary school students. Heck, even parents who want a low-cost laptop without many requirements can take advantage of this list. Laptops are indispensable tools for a student, and these days its next to impossible to get through university without some form of mobile device. And laptops are usually the go to device for most students because of flexibility, size and just convenience.
When choosing a student laptop, one must consider if the laptop run or works with the environment at your university. Also take note of the degree or certificate program you are doing to make sure that that degree program doesn’t have its own requirements or recommendations for a laptop you’ll use. I say this because I have a daughter who decided to get a MacBook for herself only to realise that all the labs’ sessions she had to do were difficult and complicated to run on the Mac. She eventually had to get a second Windows Machine, just to be able to get by. Remember this key point when choosing your laptop.
Disclaimer: These laptops are my own recommendations based on years of experience. I’m not in any way affiliated with the manufacturers or links of shops shared. I’m not being paid to endorse any of these products. Do you own research before doing final purchases.
Lenovo 15.6″ IdeaPad Slim 3i N100 4/128GB Laptop
Price: $299 (Harvey Norma $328)
RAM: 4Gb
Storage: 128GB SSD storage
15.6″ Monitor
The laptop can run for up to 8 hours.
Windows 11 Home with S mode
Come preloaded with Windows 11 Home operating in S mode. It’s very easy to switch out of S mode. Windows 11 in S mode is designed for security and performance, exclusively running apps from the Microsoft Store. If you want to install an app that isn’t available in the Microsoft Store, you’ll need to switch out of S mode.
I don’t think it can get any cheaper than this. This laptop is so cheap that one wonders how so much tech can be packaged for a low price like this. But take note that this laptop won’t be setting any speed records. It’s enough to run some apps, browsing, emails and documents. Don’t expect to install any large or memory hungry programs on it. It’s a perfect laptop for a primary school or high school student. As we approach Christmas, it might be a good and reasonably priced gift idea for the kids.
Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15.6″ FHD Touchscreen Chromebook Laptop (Intel N4500)[128GB]
Price: $449
RAM: 8Gb
Storage: 128GB
15.6″ FHD Monitor
Up to 10 hour battery life
Runs Google ChromeOS
I’ll prefix this by saying that this is a Chromebook. This is not your typical Windows laptop. Chromebooks run ChromeOS, the fast, secure operating system from Google, with built-in Google apps like Gmail, Gemini, Docs, Photos, YouTube, and more. My daughter uses a Chromebook at school and for a high school student (currently in year 8) this works, but occasionally I find her gravitating towards other laptops other than her Chromebook. Do research on this first before deciding on this one, its not for everyone. Different user interface and different ways of doing things.
Asus 15.6” Vivobook Go Celeron 4/128GB Laptop
Price: $348
RAM: 4Gb
Storage: 128GB
15.6″ FHD Monitor
Up to 8 hour battery life
Windows 11 Home with S mode
Another 4/128 laptop (4GB RAM and 128GB storage). I think you can see already that these are not great specs, but for the price points, these are pretty good. For basic browsing and computing needs, these are fine and usable. After paying $328 for a full working laptop with Windows 11, I don’t think one can complain.
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 14″ Laptop Ryzen 3 8/128GB
Price: $497
RAM: 8Gb
Storage: 128GB
14″ FHD Monitor
Up to 14.2 hour battery life
Windows 11 Home
Although this is on the higher end of this list, this machine has good specs. A slightly better and faster processor, has more RAM at 8GB and a battery life that blows most laptops out of the water at 14.2 battery life. That is a very good battery life and that alone makes the price worth it.
ASUS CX14 14″ Full HD Chromebook Laptop (Intel Core 3)[128GB]
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/asus-cx14-14-full-hd-chromebook-laptop-intel-core-3128gb
Price: $399
RAM: 8Gb
Storage: 128GB
15.6″ FHD Monitor
Runs Google ChromeOS
Buyer beware, this is a Chromebook, and might not be everyone’s cup of tea. If really interested, make sure the software you use is available for ChromeOS.
HP 15.6″ i5 8GB 256GB Laptop
https://www.thegoodguys.com.au/hp-156-inches-i5-8gb-256gb-laptop-c2mr9pa
Price: $599
RAM: 8Gb
Storage: 256GB
15.6″ FHD Monitor
Windows 11 Home
This laptop uses Intel’s iconic and popular Core i5 processor. This puts it into the mid-range laptops and comes with reasonable memory and storage at 256GB. With this laptop, you can put its processor to task a bit more as it’s more capable than other laptops on this list. But this is also reflected in its price which is on the higher end for low end laptops (see what I did there 😉).
Lenovo 14″ IdeaPad Flex 5i 2-in-1 Laptop Pentium/4GB/128GB
Price: $497
RAM: 4Gb
Storage: 128GB
14″ FHD Monitor
Battery life of up to 9 hours.
Windows 11 Home in S mode
I only included this option because it’s a 2 in 1 laptop that can be used as a tablet. Specs are similar to other laptops already shared with the distinct ability to turn on 360° drop-down hinge and turn the laptop into a tablet or for viewing mode. Some people might like this flexibility or touch screen ability. Specs wise, right in line with the other low-cost laptops.
HP 14 inch Laptop 14s-dq3128TU, Black
https://www.hp.com/au-en/shop/hp-laptop-14s-dq3128tu-ay7r8pa.html
Price: $399
RAM: 4Gb
Storage: 128GB
14″ FHD Monitor
Up to 8 hour battery life
Windows 11 Home with S mode
Another HP laptop, this time 14-inch screen but similar specs to the other one above.
Conclusion
I hope this list helps someone. I have tried to include links to the shops you can purchase these laptops. Most of them were available for ordering online at the time of writing. If it wasn’t clear already, this list is a list of entry level laptops. These are not fast computers at all. Don’t expect any trail blazing speeds with these laptops, truthfully, they will be slow but usable. Some of them you might not even be able to open too many apps at the same time without bringing the machine to a grinding halt. But for everyday tasks that one might need for a laptop like this, they should work fine. Like browsing, sending some emails and editing or creating a few documents, presentations and Excel worksheets. That should work fine with no issues. Anything else outside of this, you’ll find that these machines might not be what you need.
If you use specialised software or software that is memory intensive or large apps that require a lot of storage or processing, then these laptops are not for you. It would be better to add a few more hundreds and get a machine with better specs. But for students, these are perfect, offering a good blend of usability and low price.
I hope you find the list useful.
Till next time…. stay safe online
