Best Laptops for Students

Check out our handpicked selection of the best laptops for students. Designed to meet the diverse needs of modern learners, these laptops offer portability, performance, and reliability to support your educational journey. Here’s what we looked at when creating this list: 

Portability: The laptop should be small and portable. Students frequently move from classroom to classroom and often have group projects where they meet in various locations, so you’ll want a laptop you can easily travel with. 

Display: Students should ideally get a 14-inch laptop with a resolution of at least 1920x1200 and a screen brighter than 400 nits. This will help you ensure can see the screen in a bright environment like using it near a window. Plus a laptop this size is small enough to be portable yet has a screen large enough to get real work done.

Heat & Fan Noise: No one wants to be that person distracting the rest of the class because the laptop’s fans spin up frequently trying to cool the laptop. Plus you don't want a laptop that gets warm and is distracting. So thse are laptops that remain quiet and cool to the touch.

Specifications: For most students, all modern processors will be good enough. However, for those doing degrees that have additional software requirements like math, design, video editing, or software development, you may need something a little more powerful. Regardless of what you’re studying, you should try to get a laptop with 16GB of RAM and at least 512GB of storage. 

Battery Life: The last thing you want is your laptop dying in the middle of typing notes during a lecture. While some modern classrooms have outlets at every desk, you will likely face situations where there aren't enough. 

Tablet vs. Laptop: You may be tempted to buy a Chromebook or a tablet with a keyboard instead of a full-sized laptop. While these will work for students with very basic needs, you’re sacrificing a lot in the way of performance.  You can run more applications on a standard laptop, and they are much more efficient.