Choosing one of the best laptops is daunting enough, but shopping for the best laptop for students presents its own set of challenges. With so many brands and possible configurations, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. While that’s natural, finding the best notebook for your needs is important, as a good one can make your school year easier, while a bad one can make the semester a bigger headache.
Even though it’s been decades since I’ve set foot inside a campus or classroom, I’ve reviewed enough laptops to know what aspects students should consider. To that end, I've put this article together to detail what students should look out for. And of course, I’ll drop some specific recommendations to make things even easier.
By keeping everything I’m about to discuss in mind, you’ll be in a better position to make an informed decision on which laptop will serve your needs as a student. Here are the three most important things to consider when shopping for a student laptop.
Price
Price is likely the most important thing students think about when shopping for a laptop. Though some can afford an expensive laptop that can do it all, most students can’t. Because of that, you’ll want a machine that’s suitable for basic school work involving writing papers and surfing the web for research. Thankfully, you don’t have to spend a lot to get these basics.
A Chromebook or a cheap Windows laptop with an Intel Core i3 processor and 8GB of RAM is the bare minimum you should look for to handle simple tasks. However, if you want something speedier and that can handle more than basic writing and web browsing, look for beefier laptops with at least an Intel Core i5 CPU from the past few years, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB to 512GB SSD for storage. These stronger laptops should still be relatively affordable.
For $300, the Acer Aspire Go 15 is a good choice for budget-conscious students who just want a machine that gets the job done. While its plastic-feeling build isn’t great, the 15-inch display, roomy keyboard, generous port selection, and over 10-hour battery life make up for that. If you like Macs, the MacBook Air M1 is still available from Walmart for under $700. This notebook still delivers smooth performance and over 13 hours of battery life.
Portability
Whether it’s traveling to school or walking around campus each day, you’ll want a laptop that’s thin and lightweight. After all, you have enough burdens to deal with, and a big and heavy laptop shouldn’t be one of them. Of course, a small and thin laptop means some trade-offs.
For instance, machines like the Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Air are very light and slim, but their 13-inch screens might be too small for you. You can get a larger display on a premium ultraportable like the 15-inch MacBook Air M4 without worrying too much about weight, but once you start getting into the realm of 16-inch to 18-inch screens, expect your laptop to weigh at least 3-5 pounds.
For one of the best ultraportable laptops, you can’t go wrong with the 13-inch MacBook Air M4. This is the laptop I like to travel with during work trips since I barely know it’s even in my backpack. For a thin and light Windows laptop, the recent Dell 14 Premium is a fantastic device to consider.
Battery life
There used to be a time when the best Chromebooks were the industry leaders for laptop battery life. However, these days it’s MacBooks and Windows laptops that are leaders of the pack. To that end, your choices are between Mac and Windows for the best battery life.
Right now, Windows laptops with the best battery life pack Snapdragon X processors. However, since these are Qualcomm’s Arm chips, you might encounter some compatibility issues with select hardware. The latest MacBooks all have Apple silicon inside, and good software support for most things (except games). They also tend to have at least 14 hours of battery life, which is more than enough to get you through a full school day.
That's how my team and I know that the latest MacBook Pro 16-inch M4 Pro is currently one of the best laptops for battery life: it lasted nearly 21 hours (20:46) in our battery test, beating out every other consumer-grade laptop we've tested so far. The Dell XPS 13 (20:51) isn't far behind, making it our second most recommended laptop if battery life is what matters most to you.
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