Senior Student Devices

Students who have used a Chromebook in the junior school may continue to use this if it is meeting their needs. If you are purchasing a new laptop for the senior school, we strongly recommend buying an Apple Macbook. An M2/M3 Air model is suitable for school use and has excellent build quality and a very long battery life that make them ideal for school use. 

Some students want Windows gaming laptops. We find these have a range of issues that make them less ideal for school. Generally, they are large and take up a lot of desk space. They have loud fans to cool their gaming GPUs, and they have terrible battery life and often need to be plugged in during the day. They also have the added distraction of being good for playing games, so we don't recommend Windows gaming laptops.  There are plenty of Windows laptops aimed at education or business that are appropriate for school use, however. 

The main considerations when buying a student laptop are as follows:

• Build Quality and Materials - The main issue students have at St Paul's with laptops are screen breakages. Because of this we recommend laptops with gorilla glass screens. Gorilla glass is a tough plastic often used for modern mobile phone screens, that makes the screen much more resistant to minor drops and bumps. Cheaper laptops or laptops aimed at business will not have this. Cheaper laptops also will often make compromises in other areas of build quality. So you may save money on the purchase price, but end up having to deal with costly repairs. 

• Battery Life - It's ideal if a device will last for a full day of class use without the need to be plugged in. All boarding houses have charging cupboards to ensure devices are charged and ready for use each day. 

We have partnered with Cyclone to provide parents with an excellent purchasing option. Cyclone will work with the school to make sure any warranty and repairs are simple,  and to allow the school to sort out any of these service needs directly with Cyclone on behalf of parents. This will be hugely beneficial for boarding families. All the devices listed on the portal have been selected and approved by the school. 

Purchasing Portal:

https://byod.cyclone.co.nz/ - Select St Paul's Collegiate School - Senior from the menu.