No matter what grade you’re headed off to this fall — be it grade school, high school or college — a laptop is an essential tool for getting through studies. Schooling at home? Most schools now have web-based curriculum, class schedules and exams that even a Chromebook can handle. Headed off to campus? You’ll want a beefier laptop, but even a relatively low-powered portable PC is enough to get you through the school day.
Thankfully, you don’t need to spend a fortune to get a computer that’s more than powerful enough for classwork. The Lion’s Share of coursework is often web-based these days, and Google Docs or Microsoft Office is all you need for almost everything else. If you’re a student who’s footing the bill for a computer, you might want to stick to a budget laptop, but if mom and dad are buying it for you, it might be possible to get a beefier laptop — perhaps even one that can play some games when class is over.
But which laptop is best for you? That depends; are you in high school looking for an inexpensive way to take notes and complete online assignments, are you an avid gamer who needs more processing power, or are you headed into engineering or graphic design? We’ve got you covered regardless. Read on for a roundup of the best laptops for heading back to school.
HP Pavilion Laptop 14z-ec000
Best affordable laptop for students
It’s certainly possible to spend less money on a laptop, but when you stray under $500, you’re often limited to Chromebooks and underpowered Windows computers that slow to a crawl when you open more than a handful of tabs in your web browser. The HP Pavilion 14t-dv000 pairs a relatively low price with a great set of features and performance. Powered by an 11th generation Intel Core i5 with an Intel Iris Xe graphics chipset and8GB of RAM, it is powerful enough for anything your coursework might ask of it.
It features a 14-inch full HD display that can be upgraded into a touchscreen if you prefer to tap and swipe directly on the screen. This configuration has 256GB of storage which should be enough when paired with cloud storage, though you can upgrade it to as much as a terabyte. A fingerprint reader provides secure biometric security and it has a microSD card reader built in as well. Weighing just 3.4 pounds, it’s more than portable enough to go to class or study hall as needed.
HP Envy x360 15z-ee100
Best 2-in-1 convertible for students
2-in-1 convertibles are the jack of all laptops, able to switch effortlessly between clamshell productivity mode and touchscreen tablet. HP’s Envy x360 is one of our very favorite convertibles — it has great performance, is reliable and can be had for a great price. This model starts with a price-conscious but performant AMD Ryzen 5 with 8GB RAM, though you can upgrade to a Ryzen 7 if you need a lot of power. It has a respectable 256GB storage (which you can double to 512GB for a small extra cost).
This is a laptop to consider if you want a large display; its 15.6-inch touchscreen is packed with a full HD 1920×1080 pixels. The basic configuration comes with a relatively dim 250 nits screen that’s hard to use outdoors in direct sunlight, but you can step up to a 400 nits version as well. Either way, the package includes a fingerprint reader for security, a stylus for drawing and note taking, and a built-in media card reader.
Dell Chromebook 3100
Best Chromebook for students
If your computing needs are modest, you can save yourself a lot of money — not to mention Windows headaches — by going Chrome. There are a few superb contenders for best Chromebook, but Dell’s Chromebook 3100 is a winner thanks to its very attractive price. Even so, you get a 2-in-1 convertible form factor with an 11.6-inch 1366 x 768-pixel touchscreen display.
This all-day laptop has a 13-hour battery life between charges and weights in a savant 3.1 pounds, making it easy to carry around school all day long. There’s no shortage of ports and connections, with a USB, a USB-C and a Micro SD card reader. Perhaps the most important feature, though, is the Chromebook’s durability — with the ability to survive a 30-inch drop and water resistance from spills and other accidents, it can survive daily abuse from any student.
Samsung CB4 11.6″ Celeron
Best laptop for grade school students
For better or worse, students in virtually every grade need access to a computer these days, but that doesn’t mean you need to get your middle-schooler a MacBook Air. Younger kids can generally get by just fine with a Chromebook because virtually all of their coursework is online, accessed via a browser. And a budget Chromebook is often all they need — like the Samsung CB4 11.6″ Celeron. We wouldn’t recommend this for a high schooler, but the Intel Celeron-powered laptop with 32GB of storage is enough muscle for grade school students.
It’s also an all-day laptop with over 10 hours of battery life, which is handy for younger users who aren’t diligent about keeping electronics charged during the day. It features a modest 11.6-inch display and, at less than 3 pounds, is easy for smaller hands to carry around. Even so, it’s rugged enough to stand up to daily use as well. The display isn’t a touchscreen, but it has a large touchpad below the full-size keyboard.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
Best laptop for engineering students
Most students don’t need a powerhouse laptop, but there are a few exceptions. Engineers certainly need a computer that can blast through computationally intensive calculations, perform 3D renders and model the physical world for physically accurate simulations. By the same token, you don’t need to spend all the money on a laptop; a smart investment can get you the performance you need without breaking the bank.
Which brings us to the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. This robust gaming laptop has the specs you’ll need for intensive coursework, like a Ryzen 9 4900HS with 24GB RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Max Q GPU — ideal to drive applications like MATLAB and AutoCad. This laptop has a fast 120Hz 14-inch display which can enhance 3D render playback, and the one terabyte SSD offers a generous amount of storage for anything your Mechanics of Materials or Advanced Thermodynamics instructor throws at you. Despite all that power, it’s still an all-day laptop with about 10 hours of runtime and a modest 3.5-pound heft, and obviously, makes a solid gaming platform for when you’re done solving partial differential equations.
HP Envy 13t-ba100
Best laptops for college students
The HP Envy 13 is one of the best all-around under-$1000 laptops, and so it’s well suited for college students who need their PC to do a little of everything. This system is powered by an 11th generation Intel Core i5 CPU with 8GB RAM and an Intel Iris Xe graphics chipset. That’s enough horsepower for typical productivity tasks, and it can handle some casual gaming as well.
HP has equipped this laptop with all the essentials. There’s a solid 11 hours of battery life, so it’ll get through a whole day on the go around campus. Data is secure thanks to a built-in fingerprint reader and you get a good assortment of ports, as well such as USB and USB-C — plus Wi-Fi 6 compatibility. There’s even an SD card slot for transferring images from a camera or other mobile device. And if you need more power than what HP offers in the base model, there are a ton of ways to upgrade, including faster processors, a larger SSD for storage and even a 4K display.
MacBook Air
Best Mac for students
Not everyone needs a Mac, and you can get the same overall performance for less with a Windows PC. But if you’re committed to the Mac OS, then the MacBook Air is a great compromise. It’s an incredible piece of hardware — especially the new M1-equipped model — at a good, sub-$1000 price point. The laptop has Apple’s own M1 CPU, of course, along with a 13-inch Retina display, modest 256GB SSD and all-day battery life that can get you as much as 18 hours on a single charge.
There are a few compromises, not the least of which is a measly two USB-C ports for connectivity. But a desktop USB hub can easily give you more connections if you need it, and the real appeal here is the super efficient M1 chipset that makes everything on the MacBook air feel fast. If you’re an iOS user, the Continuity feature that makes your phone, tablet and laptop all seem to work together seamlessly just more icing on the cake.
Apple MacBook Pro 13
Best laptop for graphic design and film students
As crazy as this sounds to some people, you simply don’t need a speedy, high-performance computer for the vast majority of tasks anymore. But there are exceptions. If you’re pursuing the a degree in the arts — particularly in film production or graphic design — then you need all the horsepower you can get your hands on. There are great laptops on the WIndows side — check out an HP ZBook for example — but the Apple MacBook Pro is the undisputed top choice for most graphics and film pros. Not only is it fast enough to get the job done, but it runs the software that everyone in the industry uses. It’s the smart choice.
The new MacBook Pro runs the Apple M1, which puts 8 CPU cores, 8 GPU cores and 16 Neural Engine cores on the job. The 13-inch Retina display has a wide color gamut and True Tone color calibration, and the keyboard is the radically redesigned Magic Keyboard which most users love, especially compared to the older, much despised butterfly design. There are a slew of upgrade options available, but even this basic model is plenty for most students.
ASUS TUF Gaming Laptop
Best gaming laptop for students
If you’re on a budget, the top priority is just getting the essentials out of a laptop to accomplish your schoolwork. But if you have a little extra cash available and have a hankering for gaming, then a gaming rig like the ASUS TUF Gaming Laptop can kill two birds with one stone. It’s clearlyu powerful enough for any computing task, up to and including engineering work or graphic design. But it’s also a superb gaming laptop thanks to the fast Intel Core i7-11370H CPU with 16GB RAM and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics chipset.
The GeForce RTX 3060 drives a 16.6-inch full HD (1920×1080-pixel) display at a speedy 144Hz, which effectively smooths out fast-paced animation. You also get a backlit keyboard (sorry, it’s not per-key programmable) and a solid all-day battery life that exceeds 10 hours. Unfortunately, weighing in at 5.7 pounds, it’s a bit heavy to carry around to class.
Acer Swift 3
Best lightweight, highly portable laptop for students
Suppose your top priority is a lightweight laptop you can effortlessly carry around from class to class and keep with you all day long. It would probably look a lot like the Acer Swift 3. This laptop weighs a mere 2.6 pounds — one of the lightest Windows laptops around, and just 0.63 inches thick. Despite the ultralight form factor, it’s got horsepower where you need it. Powered by an Intel Core i7 with 8GB RAM and an Intel Iris Xe graphics chipset, it is as powerful as many bigger and heavier laptops.
Complementing the GPU is a 13.5-inch VertiView 2K display — that’s 2256 x 1504 pixels with a 3:2 aspect ratio. That’s a somewhat unusual aspect ratio, but the display is crisp and beautiful, and bright enough to be usable even outdoors. And not only is the laptop easy to tote around, but the battery is more than all day — at 14 hours of runtime, it’s very nearly a two-day battery.
What to look for in a laptop for school or studies
As we’ve already indicated, for most studies you don’t need a high-performance laptop. With a few notable exceptions (such as an engineering or graphic design program), you will never see any noticeable benefit from having an Intel Core i7, for example. Instead, as long as you have enough horsepower to keep a bunch of browser tabs open at once, the most important feature for schoolwork is often sheer battery life so you can make it through an entire school day without having to plug into the wall. If you expect to use the laptop in the actual classroom or lecture hall — or you want to work in the library or study hall — then light weight and portability are important as well.
It’s worth pointing out that you generally can’t equip a student with an iPad or Android tablet, because those devices are often incompatible with some online tools employed by some school systems. But for younger students, like grade schoolers, Chromebooks are often just fine. For high school and above, an Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5-class laptop is an ideal compromise between performance and price.
And in general, you probably don’t need a lot of on-board storage. These days, students can generally use cloud storage like OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive for classwork and other documents, minimizing the need for a substantial hard drive. Only if you’re working in a specialty field of study like film production, 3D modeling, graphic design or engineering will you need a beefier laptop with more horsepower and a significant amount of storage.
