supplemental laptop for poor college student (Budget buying help)?

My college requires that everyone get macbooks, so I've had one for about a year now. But the thought of having to pay for repairs (of possibly worse, it crashing and losing all my work) is enough to give me a small heart attack. I want to buy a supplemental one for entertainment/transportation and use my macbook only for art & schoolwork. With a budget of 150-200 dollars, give or take, I'm looking for a basic windows laptop for entertainment purposes. It would be mostly watching movies, playing small games (nothing graphics heavy), and carrying back and forth between classes. Can you recommend any laptops/brands? I know with that small of a budget things are pretty hit-or-miss. The feature I'm seeking the most is reliability/durability. I know it's a lot to ask for in that price range, but any and all recommendations would be helpful.

 

Before you find a supplementary Windows machine, I would advise you to purchase a system
backup program.

One of the market leaders is Acronis for macs

Here's a computer magazine review page

http://www.zdnet.com/article/acronis-true-image-for-mac-review/

 

http://www.amazon.com/HP-11-r010nr-...UTF8&qid=1451926446&sr=1-4&keywords=hp+laptop

try that one, my kid has one and she loves it. but she is only seven.

 

Thanks! I already have a 1tb external hard drive that i use time machine with, and i back up all my art files again via google drive. the supplemental laptop's just so i put minimum (physical and digital) strain on my mac.

 

Thanks! This was actually one i was considering.

 

Try a Toshiba one, those are really cheap and very strong! I have had an excellent experience with Toshiba laptops so far, they are perfect for someone in your situation, plus they are not as delicate as other laptops My oldest Toshiba laptop is 9 years old already

 

Every Toshiba Laptop I've ever had, burned out out on me and cost me more money to fix than I actually paid for the computer.

 

It is incredibly short sighted of a college to require the use of a Macbook. You definitely need to get a back up system in place and maybe you should reconsider your choice of schools.

 

Oh yeah, it sucks. But I'm pretty sure it's nearly universal for art schools at this point- it's the students that lose, not them :/ what ya gonna do...

 

If you're looking to find a budget friendly laptop you definitely have to check out groupon you can get a really good one for less than $400 or a little less actually

 

I hadn't thought of that! Thank you!

 

Ah, now I understand. There are a lot of platform specific applications when it comes to art and design. It makes more sense to me now that they require a Macbook. It still sucks though.

 

I never thought about using Groupon for that kind of thing. What an awesome idea!

 

I once attended a school the required me to use a macbook and it was complete bullshit. I ended up selling the computer and switching back to a windows machine.

 

I would recommend that you get an HP Stream. It is a good value for money Laptop. It has 32GB of memory and it has a 11.6-inch display. The most important thing is that it costs under $199. It comes bundled with Office 365 Subscription for a year, which is roughly the cost of the Laptop. It is like getting a Laptop free for buying Office 365 Subscription. After a year, you can plan to upgrade or keep the same laptop.

 

The HP Stream sounds nice. The fact that it comes with Win 10 and office 365, does make it the ideal candidate for a budget laptop. The build quality is really good for a low cost laptop. Exactly what I was looking for too. Wow, that is amazing.

 

Gotta see this HP stream.

 

Yepp... it seems awesome. Anyways, I moved on to a much lighter version of chrome OS yesterday.. now my lappy flies...

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/47327451?...1871472&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=153519959072&veh=sem

So you can find this really simple Asus computer under $200 at Walmart and I personally think it can handle a lot more than it looks.

 

Hmm.. Asus is making really solid computers...