Is Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 6 Sufficient for Yr 7 BYOD?

• 

  bargaino on 23/04/2024 - 17:13

  +3

  Yes. that's a great choice. 8th gen intel, plenty of RAM and SSD. Full-HD, lightweight.

  Just check the battery is good.

• 

  bdl on 23/04/2024 - 17:18

  Added bonus: If any of her classmates give her crap she can whack then with a Thinkpad and it will survive with flying colours :D

• 

  Drakesy on 23/04/2024 - 17:20

  have a gen 4 that i picked up for $300 during covid

  Best in class keyboard,
  Terrific battery life - 5 hours + (from a refurbished laptop).
  Indestructible - flew off my car at 60kph and barely had a scratch on it.

  Would by another in a heartbeat.

  • 

    rumblytangara on 23/04/2024 - 17:25

    +3

    Indestructible - flew off my car at 60kph and barely had a scratch on it.

    That demands more than a single line of explanation :)

    • 

      MS Paint on 23/04/2024 - 17:39

      +1

      This is copilots interpretation of what happened

      demands more than a single line

      A picture tells a thousand words

      • 

        Drakesy on 23/04/2024 - 17:40

        +2

        Pretty much that.

    • 

      Drakesy on 23/04/2024 - 17:44

      +1

      Had a brain fade and put the laptop on my roof, lasted 1km down the road until it slid off, saw it tumble a few times and hit the kerb,

      Went back to grab it, was slightly scuffed but otherwise works fine some 2 years later.

      • 

        jv on 23/04/2024 - 18:08

        Had a brain fade and put the laptop on my roof

        Is this you too?

      • 

        bargaino on 26/04/2024 - 20:40

        +1

        Must use Nokia technology.

• 

  rumblytangara on 23/04/2024 - 17:24

  +1

  100% fine, pretty much perfect.

• 

  charlierg on 23/04/2024 - 17:55

  +1

  Great choice. X1 carbons are bulletproof and the 6th gen is recent enough to last the next few years

• 

  jv on 23/04/2024 - 18:15

  +1

  I don't know how well/poorly my daughter will treat the laptop so don't want to buy a new one to start with.

  Get her one of these, and it will look like new…

• 

  Bignudge on 23/04/2024 - 18:33

  Okay, here's my take on it.

  1. It's a balance between size and weight… and I would say a 15-16 inch screen would be a minimum. If you could find a 17.3 inch that's light, go for it.

  (When I walk around the classroom and see the kids desperately panning left and right on Canva on a tiny little screen looking right up to it… it hurts me alittle bit inside everytime. Either that or it's zoomed out so far… I can't even see the damn words.)

  (Also remember that we are going away from the days of lugging around textbooks. Maths and science usually provide digital textbooks now… so that's some weight saved already).

  [I'm rocking a 17.3 inch laptop and am going to an 18 for my next one. Go big or go home lol.]

  2. A decently sized SSD is all that's needed. Everything is on the cloud nowadays. (Stile, Google Classroom, MS Teams, Google Docs/Sheets, etc).

  3. Go for a laptop that quick charges via USB C / PD. (I've seen it all before… big bulky slow propriertary charger that takes up half their bag VS a small GAN 140W charger that does 20-60% in like ~25 minutes (also charges the phone too!).

  4. Get your child a light and small wireless mouse.

  • 

    ldd-mn on 23/04/2024 - 19:53

    +2

    I think you mean 15" maximum, I would hate to be dragging along a huge laptop for school regardless of the weight. 14" screen is a great size.

• 

  CrispyChrispy on 23/04/2024 - 18:42

  Inb4 @AustriaBargain suggests an M1 Air?

  • 

    HairyChickens on 23/04/2024 - 19:13

    +1

    How about an M2 for $650 of FB Marketplace?

    • 

      MS Paint on 23/04/2024 - 20:21

      Hi HairyChickens, is this still available?

  • 

    AustriaBargain on 23/04/2024 - 21:52

    +1

    graphics editing

    OP said the magic words.

• 

  JustAnExPat on 24/04/2024 - 08:08

  Yes, in general these X1s are sturdy.
  I've found that with the A-tier laptop brands (Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba), their business-line laptops are all hardy (at least at the time I had them).
  Be mindful of weight though… your daughter will whinge when it gets closer to 2kg, so this one fits the bill nicely.
  Screensize, CPU generation, SSD and RAM are perfectly fine, the CPU is even a bit overkill, for what the kids do on their laptops an i5 suffices… but hey, if you can get an i7 for a good price, why not.

  One thing to be mindful of: not all high schools will allow just any BYOD laptop (yes I know, goes against the grain of what BYOD actually means); I had to choose from a list of 3 from one particular brand, as once the laptops come in, their IT department has to prep it with a preconfigured image.

  • 

    CrispyChrispy on 24/04/2024 - 22:00

    their IT department has to prep it with a preconfigured image.

    why 😭

    public or private school?

    • 

      JustAnExPat on 25/04/2024 - 10:57

      It's a public school.
      As for the why, my guess is that it makes for a much more streamlined support model for when things go wrong, and makes it a lot easier when school-wide functions/applications need to be rolled out.

• 

  ozprash on 24/04/2024 - 10:13

  Got the same one for my daughter in Y7 and she loves it. It is lightweight, and does all the required tasks easily. Only crib is about the lack of a touchscreen which her other classmates have, and so I got another refurb HP Elitebook, but she keeps going back to the X1.

• 

  howdee on 01/05/2024 - 11:08

  Thanks all for your comments. The laptop arrived yesterday and although there were signs of wear (around the edges of the side ports and sides of the laptop) it seems like it's in good nick. It matched the stated specs, came with a new generic 65W USB-C charger, and I was able to set it up with Office and do updates via Lenovo Vantage in about 30 mins.

  One thing I am unsure of is the battery. The battery specs from Vantage is this: https://imgur.com/a/s0ILHVO

  Is this reasonable for a battery that is over 5 yrs old? Or do I need to start looking for a replacement battery?

  • 

    xmail on 30/08/2024 - 22:55

    You're getting 48 out of 57 Wh, I'd wait for the cycle count to double or more. You can get a cheap battery from amazon/ebay for $60.

    I would advise getting some magnet usb-c power adapters for the ports. Once the usb ports are ruined from constant plug-in-out there is no fix available - you have to replace the motherboard (basically buy a new laptop). The design of the angled port surface means the plugs are very susceptible to constant wiggling.

    The magnet adapters are like $6 from ali-express and make plugging in power easier and accidental tugging less of a damage risk. You can use a little bit of hardening putty to keep the magnet adapters in place.

• 

  rumblytangara on 13/05/2024 - 10:27

  Is this reasonable for a battery that is over 5 yrs old? Or do I need to start looking for a replacement battery?

  Yes.

  No, just try it and see if it lasts the day.