Best Bargains for Students looking for a Laptop Deal – A small survey shows what students really want

We know being a student is tough and by no means it’s an easy job to find a bargain laptop which can best suit your student life. Most of the students buy an old or refurbished laptop which is not a great choice or best option to save some bucks, for example Wi-fi internet access is a free facility in most colleges and universities and buying an old laptop without a Wi-fi can be a huge disadvantage. In this post we reveal some facts on their understanding of comupter technology and the preferences students have while they look for a laptop.

After some basic research and asking at least 50 students from different colleges and universities to find out what essential or basic features they look for while hunting for a “student laptop deal” we came up with the following features which were a common need amongst the students.

Here are the questions we asked:

In order to make our survey fair and our questions not “loaded” ( loaded question=when you force a desired outcome ) we clearly presented the students with an assumption “You are about to buy a cheap new Intel laptop, submit your response accordingly”

1.If they have a Laptop Brand Preference?

2.What processor speed or type can help them churn out tons of assignments and reports?

a)Intel Celeron
a)Intel Pentium III
b)Intel Pentium 4
c)Intel Pentium 4 Centrino
d)Dual Core/Centrino

3. What amount can get them a decent laptop without breaking their wallets or how much are they willing to spend?

a)between £300-£500
c)between £500-£700
d)between £700 – £1000

4) Any screen size preference?

a) Small screen; between 12″ to 14″
a) Standard upto 15″
b) Widescreen 15″ to 18″

Here are the responses we received:

1. Brand Preference:

5% of the students had no clue what brand to buy.

15% of the students had some brand awareness on laptop brands and would not mind buying any brand as long as the price matches their budgets.

10% of the students had brand preferences and came up specific brand names and models, such as Sony Vaio, HP Pavilion, Fujitsu Siemens, Acer Aspire, Compaq Armada or Presario.

70% of the students were highly aware of the brands and they would not buy just any brand but only the ones that they think are good laptop brands.

2. Response on processor type preference:

10% of the students had no idea about processors and processor types
25% said they wanted Pentium 4 or higher
65% said they wanted a Dual Core or higher

3) Budget

15% wanted a laptop ranging between 300-500. Most of the students in this category had no brand preference in our first question we asked them.
20% wanted a laptop ranging between 700-1000. Most of the students in this slot also chose specific brands.
25% of the students surprisingly chose an impossible discount or below 300 ( I thought I should have added a slot below 300).
40% of the students wanted a laptop between 500-700.

4) Screen size preference

5% of the students wanted a laptop between 12″ and 14″
30% would choose a laptop with 15 – 18 ( also stated they wanted to watch DVDs and Play games in their spare time)
65% of the students said they will happily choose a 15″ laptop screen size.

Summary of our findings

Based on the above survey we came to realize a lot of the prejudices we had about the students were established as solid facts that they are a)Looking for a bargain price b)Highly aware about the Laptop Brands c) Know what laptop features suit them well.