Best back to school laptop deals and sales in the UK

Best back to school laptop deals in the UK

(Image credit: Asus/ Lenovo/ Apple/ HP/ Laptop Mag)

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For school work
For family use
For creative courses

Back to school laptop sales are here because retailers will even make a sales event around the one thing I hated as a kid.

Flashbacks to oversized uniforms, turkey twizzlers and too much Brylcreem are far in the past as education has changed considerably over the last 18 months. Owning a computer is now a necessity as we learn from home, and other accessories, like webcams, keyboards and mice are more important than ever.

This gets to the core of the reason why Laptop Mag exists — to help readers find the right tech for their ever-changing lives. Here, we assist you in finding the best laptop because you don’t want to be sitting in front of a desktop all day, do you? With a laptop, you can learn, create and work in every room of the house and beyond!

So, whether you got all the UCAS points you need to get to university, heading off to college, or you’re a parent looking for a good homework rig for your kids, these are great options for you!

What makes a good back to school laptop deal?

So what makes a good back-to-school laptop? The simple answer is the price-to-performance ratio along with durability, though every use case is different.

Rather than fleecing you with something that sounds good but isn’t actually right for your needs, we’re going to break down all of the potential use cases and reveal the best product for each.

Don’t forget your student discount

If you have a student ID, then you get access to a swath of extra discounts! These deals are good on their own, but you could make them even better with the likes of Unidays or Totum.

Just for school work

For essays, web browser research and binge-watching.

These options are ideal for students with a more traditional workload involving office apps and a web browser. Plus, if you’re taking them with you to uni, the displays are good enough for heading down YouTube wormholes.

For the family too

Laptops that are not only good for education, but optimal for whole family usage too.

One thing we learnt during the pandemic is how many families pick up a single laptop to share between everyone. If this is you, you need a little more power for multiple use cases and durability, too.

I’m doing something creative

So you picked to do a more creative subject? Congratulations! You’re going to need some horsepower in your laptop.

Software like Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite or Pro Tools requires some beefy specs to run effectively, and let’s be honest, nobody really wants to use the computers in the library. You make your own creative space in your dorm. Plus, you need ports/dongle compatibility, which these sport!

Apple M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14: was £1,899 now £1,763 @ John Lewis
John Lewis is slashing £136 off the 512GB model MacBook Pro 14. It features a 14.2-inch mini-LED backlit display and delivers up to 14 hours of battery life. The laptop is powered by Apple's M1 Pro 8-core chip coupled with 16GB of RAM and employs a 14-core GPU for graphics. In our M1 MacBook Pro 14 review, its elegant design, excellent performance, and stellar battery life earned it a 4 out of 5 star rating. It's the Editor's Choice best laptop for power-users.

Jason brought a decade of tech and gaming journalism experience to his role as a writer at Laptop Mag, and he is now the Managing Editor of Computing at Tom's Guide. He takes a particular interest in writing articles and creating videos about laptops, headphones and games. He has previously written for Kotaku, Stuff and BBC Science Focus. In his spare time, you'll find Jason looking for good dogs to pet or thinking about eating pizza if he isn't already.