In January, we saw the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak. By the time March came, the virus had spread globally and countries went into lockdown. Students and adults had to manage their lives from homes, meaning online schooling and work from home. This created a huge demand for laptops and other peripherals as they became a necessity.
Increased supply and decreased manufacturing because of the lesser workforce worked against each other and made the issue worse. People were getting their orders delayed time and time again. This took a toll on a portion of the student population who couldn’t get their hands on a laptop or a computer and got deprived of their education.
Laptop manufacturers such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo have claimed that there is already a backlog of millions of laptops. Due to this, people are facing delays in their shipments. To make matters even worse, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Lenovo laptops as they had some components that were made in China. The reason that they have given is that China is imposing forced labor on a Muslim minority in Uighur, and they do not condone this act. They have advised the citizens of the state to avoid Chinese products as well. This ban on Chinese laptops created a massive shortfall in supply and further increased the delay in the shipments.
also read: Best Laptops of the Year: Professional, Gaming, School and For Home Use
Students suffer as they are starting to lack behind in education
School students generally do not need a high-end laptop to fulfill their needs. They want something that can complete their day to day tasks and does not cost them a fortune. For this purpose, Chromebooks are the perfect laptop for most of them. They work efficiently and their cost lies somewhere in $500 ballpark. With that being said, a lot of students have yet to get their hands on one as the demand goes up with each passing day. They could go for high-end fancy laptops but most of them don’t have the means to pay for them as they cost a fortune.
As reported by The Washington Post, Morongo Unified School District in California’s Mojave Desert has almost 8000 students currently enrolled. Tom Baumgarten, the superintendent, ordered 5000 Chromebooks in July but his vendor called him off saying a government agency is blocking Lenovo laptops. He switched to 4000 HP laptops which he was supposed to receive when the school starts again. The delivery date then changed to September and then October.
This issue is a growing concern among teachers all over the state as their students are not receiving education. As mentioned above, manufacturers are already facing a huge backlog and receiving thousands of orders each day. They have acknowledged the issue and have said they are working hard to deliver the goods more efficiently.
also read: Best Laptops for AutoCAD
Here are some Back to School laptops you can buy
With online classes resuming soon, students are in a dire need of laptops. They require a device that can allow them to attend online sessions, make assignments easily, and some multimedia functionality. With that being said, here’s a list of three back to school laptops that you can buy on Amazon right now.
ASUS VIVOBOOK 15 ($599.99)
Asus VivoBook 15 is a 15.6″ notebook running with an i5-1035G1 CPU and 8 gigs of RAM and 512GB SSD. The laptop features a sleek design with an 80% screen to body ratio. The fast processor along with DDR4 ram is more than enough to fulfill a student’s needs. The device supports Windows 10 and has a fingerprint sensor for security purposes. A backlit keyboard has been added to the laptop as a bonus feature. You can get the laptop from Amazon here.
2020 HP 14-inch ($522)
Up next, this laptop features a 14″ HD touch screen which is powered by an AMD Ryzen 3 3200U processor, 8GB DDR4 Memory, and 256GB SSD. The touch screen feature increases the functionality of this laptop, however, if you wish, you can also choose the non-touchscreen variant of the laptop. The laptop also comes with an AMD Vega 3 GPU. Although it’s not that powerful, it can still run some light games. You can get it from Amazon here.
HP Chromebook ($349)
HP Chromebook 14 packs an Intel Celeron N4000 processor along with 4GB RAM. The laptop features a 14″ HD screen and B&O speakers to fulfill your entertainment needs. The device is capable of giving 13 hours of uptime with mixed usage so you can stay productive for longer periods of time. It also supports HP fast charging which gives a 0-50% charge in just 45 minutes. If you are a student who needs to write assignments, emails, and browses social media along with streaming videos, HP Chromebook 14 is the perfect match for you and you can get it over Amazon here.