10 Best Laptops For College Students Consumer Ratings & Reports 2023


A laptop for college students should be powerful enough to run through the latest apps and software, and portable enough to stay with you for a long time without tripping the battery.

The laptop has become as important for students as textbooks. You can’t breathe on the campus without a good laptop onboard. In a pandemic, the importance of a good laptop has become double.

Textbooks are read on laptops and notebooks, lectures are being taken on a computer virtually, notes are taken on the touchscreen using a stylus pen.

In other words, the laptop has become an essential and integral part of college life.

Today in this post, we are going to recommend you some of the best laptops for college students according to consumer ratings and reports 2023.

Related

(1) Best Laptops Under $500
(2) Best Laptops Under $400


QUICK PICKS

Here are the top products we picked out through amazon you would be interested in depending on your budget…

Best Laptops For College Students Consumer Ratings & Reports 2023

A portable yet powerful laptop is the need of every college student these days. These laptops are handpicked by a team of experts after an hour’s long research and suitable for any Engineering, Architecture Civil, Mechanical or CS majors.

So without further ado, here are the best laptops for college students by consumer ratings and reports 2023.

1. Apple MacBook Pro

Features at a glance
  • Faster processing than before
  • Long battery backup
  • Smoother visual handling than the previous model
  • The newly constructed M1 chip

Apple-designed MacBook laptops are the most purchased laptops. These are the most common sights on the college campus in West. Yes, they are expensive but worth the spend.

More than their aesthetic looks, they are sturdy options that can easily be taken around without tripping battery backup. And due to their durable chassis, they easily last throughout the college career.

Apple’s newly designed M1 chip integrated MacBook Pro is the next leap in the processors and graphics card construction. Uniquely constructed M1 chip is made of 16-billion transistors and adds a boost to a college student’s casual to professional computing.

This M1 chip integrated processor houses an 8-core CPU that offers around 2.8 times faster processing power than that of Intel made last year’s Apple MacBook Pro.

When compared to the processing power of the M1 chip CPU, it offers faster processing than Intel’s 11th gen processor that comes integrated with Razer’s latest model, and Dell Xps 13 latest upgrade.

The same goes for the graphics handling of the laptop. It does not come with dedicated graphics but integrated, and as per the benchmarks, its graphics handling is five times faster than the previous year’s AMD Radeon Pro integrated graphics.

Its artificial intelligence and machine learning handlings are also impressive. 16-core neural engine processes one trillion calculations and make you enjoy the instant performance for FaceTime, and offer optimized computing performance.

The model available on Amazon only comes with 8GB RAM; within a few months you will be able to view the 16GB RAM variant as well.

The added 8GB RAM is something that you can’t defeat. Open as many tabs as you like, run many graphic editing and other complex software, I am pretty sure, this RAM size seamlessly breezes through all of them.

For storage, the variant available on Amazon offers 2 storage options; 512GB SSD and 256GB SSD. For a college student, 256GB SSD is enough to get regular files and folders stored.

If you are more into web series and play high-end latest titles, you probably should pick the 512GB variant.

Its Scissor switches keyboard to offer a fluid typing experience. Not just for the college students, but the professional writers, and typing enthusiasts, this keyboard is something must pay attention to.

Its battery life is one of the most marketed features. As per the buyers and Apple, this laptop offers around 15-18 hours long runtime in single charging. The battery backup though largely depends upon the apps or programs you are running.

In a nutshell, this laptop is something that rightly qualifies every criterion of a college student’s laptop. It though comes under a heavy price but it is going to be one time spend.

2. Dell XPS 13

Features at a glance
  • Bright 500 nits display
  • Taller and spacious screen
  • Longer battery backup
  • Smooth keyboard with responsive trackpad

If you can afford a big price and do not like Mac OS, this is the alternative you should buy. This laptop makes it an ideal laptop for college students due to its high specs and premium features.

Firstly, it looks amazing, it looks better than Apple MacBook, and helps students showcase its aesthetics. Its battery life, spacious screen, good keyboard, and trackpad are other top features that make this good looking laptop a perfect pick.

The latest Dell XPS 13 is powered by 11th Gen processor. Yes, it is the first ultrabook that is upgraded with an 11th Gen processor.

With 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1185G7 Processor that shares 4 cores and support hyper threading reaches up to 4.8 GHz processing in turbo boost. Its 12 MB cache lowers the loads on the RAM and a total of 8-threads virtually make you process complex files without any issue.

With 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD storage, this laptop makes the ideal pick. Students with big needs of storage would be able to store their larger files at ease.

More than that, you can expand the storage and make this laptop to store an entire archive of the games, movies, or professional programs.

It integrates an integrated graphics card; Intel Iris Xe graphics with shared memory make you reach the next level in processing. Visually loaded tasks can easily be processed, and gamer’s enthusiasts students can roll hands on some relatively light games.

Its 13.4 inches FHD infinity edge display is the real catch. It got a display that shares 500-nits brightness, with anti-glare panels on board to make your viewing experience smoother and error-free.

With a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, you view everything at the highest quality and clarity. It is a 16:10 aspect ratio display that offers a taller screen to browse the internet and accomplish assignments or writing papers.

This laptop got an accurate keyboard that lets the users smoothly accomplish the writing projects. The backlight keyboard offers an illuminated environment that is dark and makes you never stop writing in every environment.

It got 2 Thunderbolt port, one microSD card reader, one headphone Jack, and comes shipped with USB Type-C to A hub that makes you connect multiple computer peripherals without any big issue.

3. HP Spectre X360

Features at a glance
  • 10TH Gen core i7 processor
  • Responsive touchscreen with stylus
  • Long battery hours
  • Impressive memory option

Students adore convertible laptops. The notebooks can be transitioned into the tablet and be used for streaming and consuming touchscreen.

If you are into buying a convertible laptop, the one that got full nuts and bolts of a notebook, and the productivity of a tablet, get hands-on with the model. It comes powered with a powerful configuration that improves your performance in every way.

It has 10th gen Intel Core i7-1065G7 processor. In other words, the processing of this model is going to be as smooth and quick as possible. It has a superb processor with integrated Intel UHD graphics to handle visually loaded tasks.

With clock speed up to 3.9 GHz, and cache 12MB you get the processing done without any issue. Get your big programs and software loaded, and handles them well with no upgrade. In short, that’s the ideal processor for a college student.

Its 13.3 inches FHD Touchscreen display with IPS technology and Wide viewing angle is one of the biggest attractions.

The touchscreen is responsive, comes with an HP Active stylus pen that lets students take notes on the screen directly. For drawing and graphic designing students, the stylus pen comes in handy and lets them draw things perfectly.

It got enough RAM size that you will be able to open anything. 16GB RAM size is quite a big memory that makes the most of the tasks a student handles on the regular basis.

Not the regular student’s tasks but of professional scale, handle the running of professional video editing, image editing, modeling, and rendering without any issue.

It got quite a big storage size. With 512GB SSD storage, you can store anything. It is big enough to store several hundred movies, web shows, and dozens of big games.

More than that, it is SSD storage, several-time faster than traditional storage and lets you get smooth boot-up time and loading.

The most amazing part is yet to come; thunderbolts. Yes, this sleek looking, convertible laptop got 2 thunderbolts 3.

Yes, the thunderbolts are the latest type of ports, you can use them for charging, data transfer up to 50 gb/s, and connecting external 5k monitors. Just one port and you can connect multiple computer peripherals.

In short, this laptop is a good pick for convertible enthusiasts. It is a superb powerful laptop that checks most of the boxes right except one; HP Envy x360 offers the same range of specs at a way lesser price.

4. HP Envy 15

Features at a glance
  • GTX 1650 Ti graphics card
  • Spacious color-rich display
  • Long 15-hours battery backup
  • Good storage and RAM

HP Envy 15 is another cool option for college students. This laptop shares amazing aesthetics and offers a longer battery backup than an average laptop. It also shares a touchscreen, but it is not a convertible laptop like the HP Spectre X360 model we reviewed above.

This laptop is actually for college students with some complex visuals handlings or those with gaming taste. As it comes powered by GTX 1650 TI, game handling is nothing for you.

The model got a 15.6-inch FHD IPS display. It is a Micro edge multi-touch display that shares 400-nits of brightness. The brightness of this laptop makes it a handy option for outdoor, students can study outdoors in groups due to its impressive brightness and anti-glare coating.

It offers accurate color production; 100-percent sRGB covering. It produces every color that exists in the universe an makes you never skip any color. Improved 82-percent screen to body ratio further shines the display.

This laptop got superb processors designed for heavy machines to take on hard to go tasks. It has a 10th Generation Intel Core i7-10750H processor.

The coffee lake processor comes in a total of six cores and goes up to 5.0 GHz in turbo boost. It also supports hyper-threading; in other words, you enjoy a total of 12 virtual threads that enhance your multitasking.

Its biggest attraction is none other than its graphics card. The model has GTX 1650 Ti graphics card with 4GB dedicated RAM.

Tasks hard to process by the processors are sent here to get processed. Visually loaded tasks such as video editing, handling the latest titles, and many others can easily be processed via GTX 1650 Ti.

This laptop got the right memory and storage integration. It has 16GB RAM that lets you handle multiple operations at one time. The added RAM size can further be expanded, using the extra slot the laptop comes powered with.

The storage size falls at 512GB SSD. Bigger than expected for the price, and enough to store bigger files, folders and games.

The storage more than the spacious space offers extra sweetness and quickness to your loading and handling of the apps or programs. Furthermore, the storage size can easily be expanded, using the extra space this model comes with.

Its all-day-long battery life is another important to take into account aspect. The laptop is good at the battery and offers around 15-hours of runtime in one charging. This handles the long hours of boring classes, and makes you make the most of your college life.

In total this laptop is something that you can rely on. It checks all the boxes right, and make you take it on for the heavier dedicated tasks as well.

5. ASUS ZenBook 15

Features at a glance
  • ScreenPad 2.0
  • Spacious ultra HD 4K Screen
  • Discrete graphics card onboard
  • RAM and storage are upgradable

ASUS designed Zenbook series laptops are my most favorite laptops. The reasons are quite obvious; they are out of the box designed machines. They offer something unique and extra without hurting the base.

This laptop got dual screens, one primary screen 15-inches big, and the other is a 5.65 inches touchscreen to let you consume a secondary screen to do your desired tasks.

Its most amazing aspect is its display. It has a 15.6 inches Ultra HD 4K display with nano o edge display. It is an ultra HD screen that offers a color-rich viewing experience.

This laptop is famous owing to its offering highest screen to body ratio. With a 92-percent screen to body ratio, you get the highest screen real-estate to view breathtakingly bright and colorful images that look as real as the life around you.

With a 10th generation, Intel Core i7-10510U mobile-series processor this laptop got your back in difficult to go through tasks. The mobile-series processors are designed for power-efficiency.

They use less power and conserve the voltage for the longer run. It is a four-core processor, in turbo boost it goes up to 4.9  GHz clock speed.

It has a dedicated graphics card. Yes, our slim looking and compact chassis laptop got discrete graphics. With a GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics card designed by Nvidia, this laptop offers smoother visual handling.

Take on the latest games, or the other visually loaded tasks, this laptop is there to help you to make you get the most out of your machine.

Its storage and memory options are also a good sight to behold. it has 512GB SSD NVMe storage that lets you store anything you like. The storage offers a spacious room to store games, movies, and apps or programs.

More than this, it has extra space to let students enhance the size if they need more storage to fill-up with their data.

This laptop has a 16GB RAM size as well. The bigger RAM also ways helps in handling multiple operations. You can run many apps and programs, and handle them smoothly.

Here too, you get an extra slot that can be filled with extra RAM size. I do not think students even with professional degrees will get to increase the storage size.

It got a built-in IR camera. It is good for instant facial recognition, hassle-free logging-in using the Windows Hello program.

It has USB Type-C integration as well, but the total numbers of USB slots are less. You might have to use a USB hub to increase your connectivity.

6. Microsoft Laptop 3

Features at a glance
  • Sober looking laptop
  • Integrates USB Type-C
  • Lightweight model
  • Good bright display for outdoor
  • Long 11-hours battery

If I had to define this product in a simple line what would it be? I think the perfect fusion of aesthetics, portability, and performance.

Yes, this laptop is amazing looking and showcases a sober look. You can take this simple yet catchy looking laptop around and impressing the people around you.

It integrates the right specification or configuration. This model has AMD Ryzen 5 processor on board, it is a four-core processor, and as per the AMD claims, it is 10-time faster in CUP performance and 15 times faster in GPU handling.

In other words, this four-core processor is a perfect grab for you, to handle everything the way you want.

This clean and elegant looking laptop comes in two screen variant; 13.5 inches and 15-inches. The 15-inches variant we chose for you, to make you get a bigger screen area, to let you help in indulging group studies.

Its screen is great for outdoors in the sun. Its matte-coating prevents you from glares, and wider 178-degree viewing angles let you view everything clear from any angle without distortion.

This laptop got multiple storage and memory variant to serve a large variety of users. It has a storage size as little as 128GB and as high as 1TB SSD. For you, an average student it is good to go with 256GB SSD storage.

For the RAM size, it has the least 8GB variant and a high 32GB variant. For a college student with multiple apps and programs handling 16GB RAM size is more than just good. It let you handle multiple programs, with a few dozen chrome tabs open for your research.

As long as the connectivity is concerned this laptop got USB Type-C and USB Type-A to let you connect and dock stations and external monitors.

For a user with connecting an external monitor and external Mouse, they may have to use a USB Hub to enhance the connectivity and ports options.

It is a lightweight laptop. With just 2.79 pounds of weight, it is the ultra-weight laptop students can easily take around. Thin, slim chassis laptop is easy to pack into a backpack and take along for a day-long without battery tripping issues.

In short, this laptop looks amazing and qualifies every criterion of a good student laptop. The thing is it is an expensive machine by specs to price ratio.

The price is high, and specs are low, which makes most of the users disappointed. The point is it is a Windows designed laptop, a reliable and efficient machine that can easily last throughout college life.

7. Razer Blade 15

Features at a glance
  • Sturdy CNC aluminum construction
  • RTX 20-Series graphics card
  • Thin and compact laptop
  • Long battery backup
  • Powerful processor

Students amuse playing the latest titles. eSports aka gaming has been one of the most favorite hobbies of this generation of college students.

If you are a college student with the passion to play the latest most demanding titles and looking for a laptop that besides handling your regular studying needs, lets you play games, this is the laptop for you. This model gets an RTX 20-series graphics card and the right configuration for gaming.

It is a sturdily made laptop for anything. It is made of CNC aluminum that makes this laptop sturdier than any of the listed. Due to its rugged construction, it lasts longer and makes you make the most throughout college life.

This gaming laptop for college students comes powered with RTX 2060 graphics card designed by Nvidia. It shares 4GB dedicated space that makes it enough powerful to handle every complex task which is hard to process by CPU.

This visual processor packs under the compact chassis makes the laptop render cinematic quality visuals that look as real as the life around you.

It got the snappiest CPU that exists. With the 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10750H processor, you get every complex task gets processed instantly. It is a six-core processor, offers up to 5.0 GHz clock speed in turbo boost.

The combination of the fastest processor and RTX-20 series graphics card brings something amazing for the gamers and students.

Its 15.6 inches FHD IPS thin-bezel display helps you get a smoother viewing experience. It is a spacious display, that supports refresh rates of 144 Hz and 3ms response time to make your gaming as magnificent as possible.

For gaming, you can enjoy improved refresh rates, an insanely fast visual experience for gaming as well as multimedia and streaming.

This gaming laptop gets the right RAM and storage configuration. With a 16GB dual-channel RAM size, you handle anything anytime. You know that RAM size is important for the users to run multiple tasks or programs at one time.

Here you get exactly what is important, and what makes the laptop smoother in performances.

The storage size of the laptop falls at 512GB SSD. It is the fastest storage size that lets you store bigger files at high speed. The storage size gets another slot to expand the storage for the storage hungry users and tasks.

Its Per-Key RGB Razer Chrome keyboard mesmerizes your typing. It offers a seamless and fluid typing experience that leads to faster performance. The keys are prominent, marked with prominent letters; per-key RGB enhances the accuracy in typing.

In short, if you need a sturdy constructed, a power-packed gaming laptop that handles everything from the modern most demanding titles to complex 3d modeling and rendering, get your hands on this laptop.

8. MSI GS66 Stealth

Features at a glance
  • RTX 20-series graphics card
  • 8-core high clock speed processor
  • 240 Hz bezeless display
  • Upgradable RAM and storage

If you are looking for a powerful and sober-looking laptop for everyday use then get your hands on this MSI designed GS66 Stealth. This laptop is true to its name, stays with you without hurting your shoulders.

It is a low profile design, all-metal construction laptop that is easier to carry on campus to get things done smoothly.

This laptop comes powered by one of the most powerful processors; a comet lake processor. This 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10875H processor got 8-cores and offers up to 5.10 GHz clock speed.

You can see the processing power of this laptop; it is more than just amazing. More to go, this processor support hyper-threading, and make you enjoy a total of 16-threads in total.

In other words, the more you get the cores, the smoother your processing and performance will be.

To assist the impeccable processor to reach the next level in processing and handling, there comes an RTX 2060 graphics card with 6GB dedicated space.

It is a Turing architectured graphics card with VR support, you get smoother visuals handling and run most of the demanding AAA titles without any issue.

Problems such as blur images and videos, color-bleeding, and others come in the way when you try to load and play modern most demanding titles. With this graphics card, I am sure you would not see such issues at all.

Its memory and storage support is also something you must take into account. This laptop offers 16GB RAM, it is a DDR4 RAM with 3200 MHz bandwidth. You get multiple operations run and handled with the mentioned RAM size.

The best thing about the RAM is its upgradability. The laptop got the extra space to let the students upgrade the RAM size up to 64GB, which is more than just amazing.

Its storage compartment comes filled with 512GB NVMe SSD storage. The latest style of SSD storage takes you to store anything big or small. The SSD storage helps make the laptop faster and snappier in your processing and handlings.

It would be near to crime not to mention the display of this laptop. It is one of the finest displays MSI has ever produced for a laptop. With blazing 240 Hz refresh rates, and gaming performance faster than five times you get the most out of a 15.6 inches FHD IPS display.

Due to the slim bezels around the display, the screen size enhances and you get around the 84-percent screen to body ratio.

It has 2 Thunderbolt 3 support, one with the charging. You get two thunderbolts to connect external monitors, dock stations, and connect external computer peripherals without losing the speed of the system.

More to go, it’s steel series per-key RGB backlight keyboard is also something that mesmerizes your computing and gaming experience.

Set the keys color as per your liking, and set the mode right. The keys in themselves are amazing, they let you breeze through the tasks quite seamlessly.

It got a 99.9 Whr battery that offers a longer performance. The laptop outlasts others and makes you get the most of it, as lasts a day long.

In total this laptop is more than just a college laptop. It has everything a gamer and a college student would look into a machine. Yes, it comes under a heavy price tag, but worth the price.

9. Apple MacBook Air

Features at a glance
  • Light as Air
  • Faster processing than before
  • Neural engine boosts AI
  • 15-Hours battery runtime
  • Crisp 13-inches retina display

If you can afford a price and want to experience something innovative designed, get a new Apple MacBook Air laptop. There is more than one reason why I recommend this laptop this passionately.

First, this laptop is amazingly portable. It is easier to take this laptop around without hurting your shoulder. Not just the weight of the laptop and chassis, it offers a long several hours runtime.

It makes the most of the tasks college students’ process in one day. And, due to its stunning high brightness retina display, you can enjoy long group discussion without glaring issues.

Other than these top aspects, the laptop got the right power to get things to run smoothly.

It comes powered by Intel home-designed M1 chip. If you are not living under the rock, you might have heard about this innovative designed M1 chip.

Most simply, it is a leap in CPU and GPU manufacturing. It shares a total 8-core CPU that offers multifold faster performance compared to the last model that was integrated with an Intel processor.

It has an 8-core GPU that offers around 5-times faster visuals handling. In other words, students with high visual handling computing performance can take this Air onboard and get things done smoother than ever before.

Its 16-core neural engine is something you need to understand. This engine is designed to handle machine learning and artificial intelligence.

The availability of a 16-core neural engine boost your optimized processing and offer you what is needed the most. You get instant logging-in, faster artificial performance, and much more in the row.

The newly designed Apple MacBook air has a 13-inches Retina display. You already know the features of a Retina display; it offers a color-rich viewing experience and makes you enjoy most of the colors that existed on the color gamut.

It has the right memory and storage integration. With 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD storage, you get the right specs onboard.

Do not compare the unified RAM in the Apple MacBook Air. It is more powerful than 16GB RAM in other laptops due to M1 chip unique construction.

It has Touch Bar ID, fingerprint scanner, and best of them all; scissor switches Magic Keyboard. This is the same keyboard as the previous model, with tiny changes. You get the same scale of smoothness and swiftness.

In total for the college students, this is the finest pick they can have. It costs a good budget, but every penny spent is going to offer a lot more worth than you imagine.

10. Lenovo Yoga C940

Features at a glance
  • 14-inches Ultra HD 4K display
  • Brightest display 400-nits
  • Comes with a stylus pen
  • A stunning range of ports collection

Lenovo is one of the most selling laptop brands. And the Yoga series is its heart which is among one of the finest laptop line-ups that offer on par productivity and efficiency.

Its C940 model is as per our suggestions can be the finest pick for college students. There is a solid reason behind these suggestions.

First, it is a convertible laptop, and college students have to handle a myriad of tasks most of them can ideally be handled with convertible or hybrid models.

Second, it possess a longer battery backup which is one of the most important attributes to look into a laptop for a college student or frequent traveler.

These are not the only attributes that make this laptop a perfect pick. Let’s see this laptop and see how this is good in handling the tasks college students have to pour onto it.

It has a solid processor under the compact chassis. With a 10th Gen Core i7-1065G7 processor, you can expect mind-blowing handling. It is a quad-core processor, with a 1.3 GHz base clock speed that goes up to 3.9 GHz in turbo boost.

This laptop also supports hyper-threading in total it offers 8-threads to make you smoothly handle the processing.

As I mentioned its most prominent aspect; display. This laptop has a 14-inches Ultra HD 4K resolution with narrow bezels around. It is rare to see a convertible laptop offering this narrow bezel around the display.

Its brightness is more than just amazing; 500-nits. It is a glossy display though, which can be a little issue in the outdoors. But as long as you use this display indoors, you would not need anything better than this.

It packs the right memory and storage needed for the college student to process through the regular computing tasks. With 16GB RAM size and 512GB SSD storage, you get more than expected for a 2 in 1 laptop under a budget price racket.

Do not forget to take into account its ports collection. The laptop offers a stunning range of ports that make you connect to anything around you. It has 2 USB Type-C ports, 2 thunderbolts 3 ports, one USB 3.0 port, and a headphone jack.

It is amazing to get two thunderbolts 3 port in a convertible laptop, connect external monitors, and dock station to enhance your productivity.

With a battery life of up to 10-hours, this laptop makes an ideal convertible laptop for college students. So, get this model onboard, and you would not require anything more as long as your degree completes (For those good in studies).


Buying Guide for College Student Laptop

Nowadays, everything is compressed, portable, and easy-to-use. Technology has raised the standards of living and perhaps the standards of education. It has now become essential for students to have a laptop and a stable internet connection.

Don’t worry – we are taking this guide straight to the point now!

Before looking at the list, you must consider these factors below to choose the best laptop for yourself.

Price

The price is indeed an important factor before choosing a laptop.

A good quality, features, and brand image determines high prices; whereas, average brand image, quality, and features are easily affordable.

Being a college student, one laptop’s range might vary from $600 to $1500 (exceptions are always there).

We have listed some best laptops with top-notch quality and variable prices in this buyer guide.

Operating system

An operating system is an essential part of a laptop.

There are various kinds of operating systems available nowadays. Thus, it is essential to choose the compatible one for you.

If you are already aware of Mac OS (or an active iPhone user and obsessed with Apple products), a MacBook would be ideal for you.

Consequently, if you are comfortable with the Windows Operating System, a saner choice is to have a laptop with that specific OS.

The latest Chrome OS has also been the talk of the town. You can always choose Chrome OS if you are obsessed with Google Chrome.

Whatever suits you the best!

Size

Being a college student, carrying an oversized laptop could exhaust you.

The laptop’s size is unalterable; therefore, choose the best size for yourself at once.

There are all kinds of sizes, but remember that different sizes have different features (or might not have respective features).

For instance, when you choose a mini-laptop with a small screen, there is a strong possibility that it doesn’t support a high-end intel CPU (which is troublesome).

CPU

Okay, here, the major subject plays a big part.

If your major subject at college is science (or subjects that requires research and assignment papers), you might only require an average version of Intel core such as i3 or i5 (which is comparatively better).

And if you study computer/coding/graphic designing, you must choose the latest Core i7 or 19 for best performance.

RAM

RAM is also an important factor in an ideal laptop because 4GB is almost useless these days.

Now when everything is being shifted to digital, there are various ways to save your work online on your email address. However, RAM does play an important role.

A 16 GB RAM would be ideal for a college student. But you can always find an 8GB or 32GB RAM in laptops.

Now that we have brainstormed the best feature of a laptop ideal for us. Let’s begin with the best laptop guide.

Frequently Asked Question 

What is a good processor speed for a college student?

It would have been good if you had mentioned the degree or discipline of the college student. It is a broader term; it includes English literature graduates and Architectures.

For a college student, it is good to buy a good laptop with a fast and powerful processor. Quad-core processors are good for general studies and dedicated studies where students rely on computers for most of their tasks.

The speed of the processor should be more than 2 GHz. This is the minimum clock speed I am saying; you try to get more than 3 GHz as most of the quad-core processors offer this range of clock speed.

How much memory do I need on my college laptop?

For a college student, it is good to go to have a laptop with a minimum of 8GB RAM. This is for a general student, not for those who rely on computers for their studies such as Architecture, CS students, and other professionals.

For those who run memory-intensive tasks for their studies such as running virtual machines, video editing, and others, it is good to get along with 16GB RAM or higher than this.

For a general student, to prepare assignments, take online lectures, handle words processing and slides, the mentioned 8GB RAM is more than enough.

How much storage space preferred by most college students?

For an average college student to handle regular computing tasks such as handling word processing and preparing assignments, it is good to get 256GB SSD storage.

Do not go less than this because you may have to install some important apps such as adobe Photoshop, and MS Office which consumes lots of your storage.

For those stores lots of movies, games, and other things, it is good to house 512GB SSD storage. They would not have to delete their old favorite movies to store the new ones. More than the storage size, storage type is important.

Do not settle with traditional HDD storage. They will ruin your computing experience and make you look like an idiot on campus. Traditional mechanical storages have gone obsolete; they increase your boot-up time and load the apps and programs late.

What kind of display should a college student opt for?

For a college student, the display should rather than regular laptops. They have to take their laptops outdoors, sitting in the Sun doing their stuff. With a dim display, they would not able to get a smooth viewing experience.

Besides getting the right brightness, it is also important for them to check the matte-coating. A laptop with anti-glare panels or matte coating prevents you from the glares making the viewing smoother and error-free.

Prevent having glossy displays as they turn into a mirror in the sun. They will cast your image on the display, and make the viewing difficult.

How much battery life do college students need for a laptop?

Battery life is one of the three most important attributes you look into a laptop for college students. College students have to take their laptops around; they can’t afford to search for the power chord to juice up the battery.

For them, a laptop should be last a day long. At the end of the day in their dorm room, they could charge the laptop and take it along again at the start of the next college day. It increases their productivity and reduces their problems or issues.

Are 2 in 1 laptop worth it for college?

Yes, the use of convertibles or 2 in 1 laptop is sky high these days. Convertibles laptops have improved a lot over time. They were in starting useless, just with one conversion feature.

Now, convertible laptops are equally powerful with regular notebooks. They without losing the power of a notebook offer productivity. You can convert them into a tablet, take notes in the classes and print them to make an archive.

You can edit things using your fingertips or stylus pen, draw anything directly on the screen, stream anything and watch movies in your favorite posture.

Yes, they are more useful and make students as productive as they want to be.

Are Chromebooks useful for college-goers?

Yes, Chromebooks are becoming one of the best choices for college-goers. They make a good option for the regular students who need a laptop to handle regular computing tasks such as web browsing, taking notes, emailing, word processing, and tasks like that.

For a student into a professional degree, it will be hard to make with Chromebooks. Because it does not let you install the regular Windows apps or programs. You can’t use those important programs which are essential for your studies.

What are the best laptops for college students 2023?

Here are the best laptops for college students by consumer ratings & reports 2023:

  1. Apple MacBook Pro M1
  2. Dell XPS 13
  3. HP Spectre X360
  4. HP Envy 15
  5. ASUS ZenBook 15
  6. Microsoft Laptop 3
  7. Razer Blade 15
  8. MSI GS66 Stealth
  9. Apple MacBook Air M1
  10. Lenovo Yoga C940

Final Verdict

Before you pick a laptop, it is imperative to learn what the important attributes of a laptop for your college degree are.

If you are in a degree where the computer is not that important, just to handle word processing, prepare assignments, and do other regular computing tasks, any average laptop could make a good pick for you.

For a student such as CS degrees, Architecture, Civil and others like this need a power-packed laptop with dedicated graphics and top of the line processors. In short, do your homework before you pick a laptop.

And when you are decided to pick a laptop, check online as well as your local computer stores to learn the top models. Sometimes a good sale online bargain can make you get an expensive laptop, beyond your reach of purchase under a budget price range.

We have done in-depth research. We have added the best laptops for college students as per consumer ratings and reports. You can view this list, check the models added here, and once you are satisfied pick one under your budget range.

Read More: Consumer Ratings & See all Blogs here

Jonathan Perry

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top