Best Buy offers similar discounts on Apple laptops for students. You can sign up for Best Buy College Student Deals coupons which usually takes $100 off the purchase price. When I was going to college 10 years ago, my trusted laptop was a PowerBook G4 12″. Best Midrange College Laptop ASUS X551MA. ASUS’ X551MA makes our list of the best laptops for college students as its a perfect blend mid-range and is only $50 more than the HP Stream 13. Specs include a 15.6-inch display, an Intel dual-core Celeron N2830, 4GB of RAM, and 500GB of internal storage.
Picking the best laptop for college can make all the difference. Take a look at some of our favorites, and why you may consider picking one up for your next semester. Most individual computing tasks don’t require a specific operating system or brand anymore. With many tasks becoming browser-based and the line between Windows and OS X becoming less relevant every day, the lines in the sand about what computer you should take to school have been significantly diminished.
It's a suitable choice if you need to backing up sensitive data, as well as music and video libraries. There are a lot of reasons why you'd need a CD/DVD drive for your Mac, despite the concept being outdated in 2019. Usb dvd drive for mac.
Instead, the challenge in deciding what laptop would serve you best now depends more on hardware. Battery life, whether or not you need touch, and screen size and quality now have a much greater influence in the decision. With that in mind, we’ve put together a quick list of which laptops would be best for your day-to-day needs based on those categories. (Note: we didn’t factor in specific school requirements, these are the general, all-around best laptops for college students that we could think of.). The secret weapon: Chrome OS Maybe you’ve got a powerful desktop that you built yourself, and so don’t need a to handle every single task in your world. Maybe your school is super cool and lets you write everything in Google Drive instead of requiring Microsoft Office, so you can use a browser-based OS that lets you move every aspect of your schoolwork to the cloud. Or maybe you’re just not attached to any one particular OS, and do everything in the browser already anyway.
Is a good all-around idea for school, as most of the hardware running this lightweight OS can be picked up for about $300. Chrome OS puts everything in the browser, so as long as you’re connected to the internet you’ve got access to the same web experience found on any other computer.
The advantage here is the inexpensive parts used to drive most of these laptops. While you could go all out and drop $1500 on the, the most common versions of Chrome OS hardware exist in the much cheaper Samsung and Acer Chromebooks. These cheaper experiences offer 6-8 hours of battery life and are quite light.
You also never have to worry about anything happening to your data of your Chrome OS laptop gets in an accident, which could be the most important feature for the forgetful student. Today the best-selling Chromebook is Samsung’s 11.6-inchExynos 5000-powered system ($249) and the Acer C7, while the newest, best performing models should be the new Haswell systems. These Chromebooks, which were just announced last week, include the Acer Chromebook and the HP Chromebook14. More details on them should be available soon.
The standard: Windows ultrabooks and convertibles Windows has, and for a long time will likely remain, an OS with many different kinds of hardware. Right now in particular, with Microsoft shaking things up a bit through, there’s a lot of different kinds of hardware to choose from when it comes to picking a Windows machine. Sorting through all of these odd looking machines in search for a winner can be a challenge unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. For most people, it comes down to battery life and the weight of the device itself. Intel’s massive push into what they call “ultrabooks” has created a surplus of thin and light laptops that are perfect for school. Unfortunately the thinner you make a computer the more you sacrifice, and a lot of the early Ultrabooks took a hit when it came to battery life or screen quality. Fortunately, we now live in the wonderful world of Haswell, and those problems are slowly going away.
Ultrabooks with a Haswell-based Intel processor are going to offer much better battery life than their predecessors, and still be able to deliver a great computing experience. Currently the Asus Zenbook UX 301 and 302 ultrabooks are some of the best on the shelf, offering a high quality display and a great overall experience. The addition of touch is one of the most interesting changes to Windows 8.
The ability to reach right out and touch your screen feels a lot more natural now in such a smartphone saturated world, and the latest version of Windows really gives you a reason to consider making it your default input mechanism. There are some laptops that now focus directly on touch, with the added flexibility of using them as a traditional laptop if you need to. These machines are commonly known as “ultrabook convertibles”, because they either are able to bend all the way back on themselves (to use as a tablet) or the screen can detach from the keyboard to use as a tablet.
Many of these machines come with a Wacom stylus, which when combined with the handwriting recognition of Windows 8 turns them into fantastic note taking machines. Chief among these machines is the Lenovo, a Haswell-powered convertible ultrabook, that can fold back on itself as well as function as a regular laptop. The student’s choice: Macbooks Of course if you’d rather avoid confusing version names and really have no love of touch on your laptop yet, you could just get a Macbook.
Apple’s laptop line is very straightforward, and there’s some clear benefits and drawbacks to each of their models for students. If you’re looking for battery life, you couldn’t ask for much better than the 2013. This incredibly thin machine will get you through a whole day of classes without needing to bring out the power cable, and it’s light enough that you can sling it in your backpack when you’re rushing out the door with no problems. The display on this Air is the lowest quality of all the Macbooks as a trade-off, but it’s decent enough to get things done.
The Retina Macbook Pro is a great all-around machine, striking a decent balance between display quality and battery performance. You won’t get a whole day out of either the 13-inch or 15-inch version of this laptop, but the display is one of the best in current generation laptops. It’s heavier than the Macbook Air, and nearly twice as thick, but in exchange you get the ability to add more RAM, more storage options, and an overall more powerful computer. If you’re looking for one machine to handle all of your needs, including maybe a little casual gaming, this could easily be the machine for you. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is a top pick for college students because of its excellent cross of price, performance, battery life, features, and support.
Top 3 Best Back To School Student Laptops Reviewed Apple MacBook, MacBook Pro, & MacBook Air Laptops Apple MacBook laptops are among the best student laptops for college and high school for a number of reasons including build quality, brand recognition, bundled software, and ease of use among others. Even though MacBook laptops cost a bit more than their PC counterparts, Apple laptops are a great value for college students because while you pay more up front, Apple laptops often hold their value longer than most PC laptops. Apple MacBook laptops rank among the best college laptops because of their top notch build quality. Apple engineers every Mac laptop to the same strict standards.
Quality control is a huge priority on their list, and so Apple laptops will be a reliable choice for college students who need their laptop to last through the entire college experience. Another top reason why college students prefer Apple laptops is their compatibility with industry favorite gadgets including the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
Apple not only bundles in all the software you need to hook up these gadgets effortlessly, but everything works seamlessly. Compatibility and ease-of-use make Apple MacBook laptops among the best student laptops for going back to school. Apple also bundles MacBook laptops with a slew of easy to use, useful software programs to do anything from editing your favorite photos, listening to music, to creating top notch home videos. The list doesn't stop here either.
And long gone are the days where Apple laptops aren't compatible with the PC world. Apple laptops work with industry leading Microsoft applications including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and if desired Apple laptops can even run the Windows operating system in addition to Mac OS X.
Students also won't have a problem integrating with the college campus infrastructure for Mac laptops can share documents with PCs, print to campus printers, and connect to machines on a Windows network. Overall Apple Mac laptops are without a doubt among the best student laptops for both college and high school students alike. Industry leading build quality and reliability, ease of use, compatibility with the PC world, an excellent bundled in software suite, and the flexibility to run Windows 7 in addition to Mac OS X make Apple laptops very flexible mobile computing machines, ideal for any student.
Highly recommended! Best Amazon.com Deals - Dell Inspiron & XPS Laptops Dell laptops rank among the best student laptops for high school and college students for a number of reasons including stylish design options, customizability, versatility, quality, and price. Price is definitely one of Dells strongest points for Dell laptops exist for just about anyone's budget. Dell offers everyday computing, performance, multimedia, ultra mobility, and gaming laptops as options.
If your college laptop budget is low, an everyday computing Dell Inspiron laptop is a fantastic option. And even though everyday computing Dell Inspiron laptops typically cost less than $500, they offer a ton of features and fantastic performance, perfect for all but the most demanding college students needs.
If a more powerful laptop is needed and you're not on a tight budget, jumping up a notch to a Dell XPS performance laptop is a fantastic option for you, for Dell XPS laptops offer more performance and features than the Inspiron. Dell XPS laptops range anywhere between $800 and $1,100 dollars. All Dell laptops offer industry leading technologies including the latest Intel and AMD processors, memory, Wi-Fi, graphics, and more. Most Dell laptops including both the Inspiron and XPS also get good battery life across the board. Dell Inspiron laptops also rank among the best student laptops because of their fantastic styling and colorful exteriors. Both college students and high school students who want a custom look will love one of the exterior color options available. Dell Inspiron laptops can be purchased in many cool colors including Mars Black, Peacock Blue, Tomato Red, and the popular Lotus Pink to name a few.
Overall we rank Dell laptops among the best student laptops for numerous reasons including good build quality, top notch styling, and exceptional pricing. Dell laptops are very versatile college laptops that we highly recommend, especially if you are on a budget! Best Amazon.com Deals - HP Mini, Pavilion, & Envy Laptops HP Pavilion laptops are also among the best student laptops thanks to a diverse competitively priced laptop selection. This variety gives both high school and college students plenty of options to buy a quality laptop computer for school, regardless of their budget. Among HPs laptop lineup you will find Mini, Everyday computing, Ultra-portable, High performance, and ENVY models to choose from. This diverse selection makes it very easy to narrow down a great college laptop computer.
Everyday computing and Ultra-portable laptops will be a great buy for anyone who needs a low cost laptop to last through the entire college experience. These series offer diverse screen size selections, solid feature sets, good build quality, and each model also offers consistent performance across the board. Features and performance make the series some of the best student laptops for going back to school. Both Everyday computing and Ultra-portable HP laptops can be purchased at very reasonable prices.
Expect to pay no more than about $600 for an Everyday computing model, and $750 for an Ultra-portable. If you need more performance over each of these series, a High performance HP laptop is the best bet. High performance HP laptops offer top of the line Intel or AMD processors, and other higher-end features. Ranging from as low as $550 up to $1,000, HP High performance laptops are a flexible buy.
HP Mini netbooks in comparison are a great option for anyone looking for a great secondary computer for college, for they are small, lightweight, and battery efficient. Unfortunately not everyone is going to find it comfortable to use such a small laptop each and every day, and the HP Minis performance may not be the best for every students needs. The Minis slower performance and smaller size is why we recommend HP Mini laptops as a secondary computer. If a desktop or full-sized laptop is sitting back at the dorm room or apartment, carrying a HP Mini around campus as a secondary computer will be a back saver. Plus they are cheap, for an HP Mini can be purchased for less than $500. HPs top of the line laptop series the ENVY is stacked with the latest performance hardware, making them best reserved for college students who need the ultimate in computing performance.
ENVY systems are built from the ground up to play 3D games, and run demanding multimedia applications. ENVY systems are more pricey at around $1,000 to $1,600, heavier, and ENVY laptops also offer lower battery runtimes when compared to the other HP laptop series, so they aren't going to be the best laptop for every college student. Overall HP offers some of the best student laptops for college students and high school students today. HP laptops are priced competitively, and they offer the diverse features that students will need for school.
Highly recommended! Best Amazon.com Deals - Best Student Laptop Deals.