i3 is a bit weak, i5 is fine. Try looking for an 8th gen i5 (i5 8XXXYY), but if you can’t find an 8th gen for a reasonable price, a 7th will do you fine, I have a 7th gen in mine. 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD is pretty standard and will be more than enough. Don’t bother paying extra for touch displays, they’re pretty useless.
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Thank you Rob
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Oh, and if it’s within your budget, look for something that might have twin drives. I.e. A small SSD (128GB - 256GB) and a big HDD. That way you can have the operating system and programs on the SSD for speed and all your files and other stuff on the HDD. If it’s only an SSD in the laptop, make sure it’s 512GB or higher, otherwise, just walk away.
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Most of the laptops I am seeing have a TB of storage so that is not a big problem
It’s seems on TB is about average today on a laptop
Yes, but if for some reason you want speed, you need an SSD (just circuitry). Most of those 1TBs are HDDs (a physical spinning disk). Though to be honest, you don’t really need it. It’s just nice to have.
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SSD does make a huge difference though if you notice your computer speeds a lot 
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The editing on that post. Sad > SSS > SSD. Still not as bad as my one before that. 
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Okay will look for one with. SSD
Thanks for your help because I know nothing about this stuff
Ideally you want something with a combination of SSD and HDD, SSD alone is more expensive for larger capacities (don’t buy anything with less than 512GB if it’s SSD only). Stay away from hybrid drives (SSHD), they’re just bad. With an SSD you will have a faster boot time, faster programs and it will be quieter as it won’t be spooling up the HDD all the time (only when you need to access files).
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Thanks again for your help with this
And I will keep this all in mind when looking at laptops
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When you find something, run it by us before you order it.
I will
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That’s the main reason I’ve got Air, not MacBook 12))
Top spec MBA costs even more these days.
You speak about the 2018 models, and yeah, they’re insanely expensive. Dad bought himself a new IPad Pro which has a - more memory (512), b - larger screen resolution , c - I suppose, equal or even more powerful than MBA aaaand… yes, cheaper! Much cheaper
Most laptops I am looking it that have what you say they should have are around 600 dollars to 800 dollars
Sounds like a great deal to me… here a decent laptop wouldn’t cost less than 750
That’s really expensive
I am actually quite surprised what I could get with my budget
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Those are usually the prices.
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What’s the main difference from a 8 gen i5 and A 7 gen i5