Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, my daughter’s education has been hard hit. She has since been finishing most of her Primary One schooling days using a laptop for online classes.
However, the laptop she currently uses is her mom’s old laptop and the laptop is showing signs of degradation with the battery now expanding and the screen showing bubbles.
The expanding battery has caused the lid of the laptop to not be able to close properly.
I am concerned that the battery will explode, and there are times the bubbles on the screen interfere with the operation of her laptop.
There’s also times when my daughter would complain about her laptop not functioning as it should be.
The bubbles on the screen seem like cosmetic problems, but there are more of it nowadays.
On top of that, the laptop she is currently using for her online class has a small 13.3 inch screen which makes it difficult for her to see, hence perhaps causing problems to her eyesight in the future.
Laptop options for online class
Due to those reasons above, my wife and I decided we should get her a new laptop.
A budget of RM2,500 was set and both my wife and I would contribute to the budget. I was tasked to find a laptop worthy for my daughter’s online class and so in July, I started checking out models available both online and in local computer stores.
Based on this guide on laptop selection I wrote, I decided that the laptop most suitable for my daughter would be one with at least a 15.6 inch screen, an Intel i3 or Ryzen 3 processor, a 8GB total of RAM and a 256GB SSD storage space.
Ther weight of the laptop wasn’t an issue becuase my daughter will likely use the laptop most at home, on her study table.
I eventully narrowed down my options to three laptops, namely the the Honor Magicbook X15, HUAWEI MateBook D15 i3 and the Lenovo ThinkBook 15.
All three laptops were within the budget and were available online at prices below RM2,500.
At first, I wanted to get the HUAWEI MateBook D15. It had a 15.6-inch screen, ran on the Intel i3 processor, had 8GB of RAM and 256 SSD storage space.
However, I soon found out that the Honor Magicbook was cheaper by about RM200 with the same specifications.
Unfortunatly there was no stock for the Honor Magicbook and so I had to consider other options. Both the HUAWEI ands Honor laptops also had one flaw, which is the location of its webcam.
The webcam features a pop-up camera which was located on the keyboard. I felt it was rather odd since it was ‘down there’ in stead of on the screen bezels.
Therefore, when I couldn’t buy the Honor Magicbook, I decided to reopen my options and soon found out about the newly released Lenovo ThinkBook 15 G3.
Why I bought the Lenovo ThinkBook 15 for online classes
The ThinkBook 15 checked all the boxes I wanted and I could get it at a discount under the teacher/student promo Lenovo was running on its official site. I also could customize the laptop as I wanted.
On a usual day, the laptop would cost over RM2,900, but thanks to the discounts, the 15.6-inch screen laptop which ran on a Ryzen 3 processor and featured 256 GB storage space and 8GB RAM came just under RM2,300. It was a total steal!
If you are wondering, I choose Ryzen 3 over Intel i3 because the Ryzen i3 processor had more cores, which meant it could process information much faster.
The full specifications of the laptop can be seen below.
The downside
The only downside for this laptop is the wait time.
Lenovo Malaysia specifically said the laptop will only arrive in 8 – 10 weeks, so there’s a rather long wait.
However, considering the price, and the fact it could tick all the boxes I wanted for a laptop for online classes, I felt the wait wwill be worthwhile.
Conclusions
I am looking forward to this the ThinkBook 15 laptop and will do a review on the laptop here, and a more in-depth review on PhoneSentral.com.
If I’m free, I’ll also do a review video.
That said, I am now waiting for the laptop and I can’t wait. That little ‘geek’ in me is excited although the fact is it’s not exactly my laptop.
