Buying a Laptop for Back To School? Here Are a Few Money-Saving Tips.

HP laptop.

Okay, this Journal-Sentinal article is a little—ok a lot—outside of our geographic area (Milwaukee, Wisconsin!), but it had some great buying advice when back-to-school shopping for laptops. Check out the full article here.

Generally, here are a few of their tips:

• Stick with a laptop, rather than a tablet because laptops offer the versatility needed for schoolwork (plus tablets might not have online versions of textbooks). If you can afford it, go for both.
• Be conscious of the weight of the laptop.
• Stick with 250GB hard drive, 4GB DDR RAM and 7,200 RPM to increase performance. Adding memory can be a cheap do-it-yourself upgrade.
• Unless you student is going to be a professional gamer, save $200 by opting out of the dedicated graphics card.
• Look at battery power, you student won’t want to always have to carry the power cord.
• Beware of upsells (anti-virus, extended warranties, etc.). If you buy with a credit card. For example, Visa and American Express automatically extend the warranty an extra year.
  

  Apple offers student discounts.

• Look everywhere for discounts. Many brands offer student discounts on hardware (Apple, HP, Dell) by ordering online and providing a student ID. Software companies similarly offer discounts (Microsoft and Adobe). Also check store flyers in the Sunday paper for Office Depot, Walmart, Staples, etc.