My use case: I'm an engineering student, I need something with a lot of storage, hopefully SSD (right not I have MatLab, Anaconda and KiCAD taking up most of my 128 GB HD, and I had to uninstall the STM32 cube IDE from lack of storage), and reasonable processing performance so I can actually run these things at a reasonable rate. I need to stay within the windows/ms office world to simplify collaborating and file sharing etc. I'm not using it for gaming.
Don't need a massive screen, or touchscreen or anything fancy. HDMI port would be reasonably important.
I want it to last me at least the next 4-5 years, and I'm hoping to not spend more than about £300.
I know a lot of people reccomend ThinkPads, what's a good model to get cheap at the moment? Or any other suggestions?
Is Windows 11 so bad that I should only be looking at ones that come with Windows 10 installed?
Thanks for any helpful advice!
Edit: Thanks to everyone for taking the time to advise me, I've ordered a refurbished T480 with 1TB ssd, plenty of ram, and a 1 year warranty for £340.
How is a t480 old? It's around 7 years old.
I love old machines but 7 years old is a lifetime in computing and especially laptops. Most normal laptops last like 3-5 before they fall apart. One thing that is cool about Thinkpads is that they are often obsolete before the fall apart.
They run 8. gen Intel processors. The difference to latest models is substantial.
Well, the quad-core i5 still works decently on my latitude, but it has ~30000 geekbench score.