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College-aged girl sitting on steps with laptop in her lap and backpack and coffee sitting beside her

4 of the Best Laptops for College Students

Have the Best So You Can Do Your Best

Laptops are the best choice of computer for college students. The mix of portability, power and versatility is impossible to beat. Enrolling in a college without a laptop is almost unthinkable nowadays and it is good to know what the best laptops for college students are.

Purchasing a laptop, especially if it is your first, is a big investment. College is expensive, and between the cost of tuition and textbooks, it is important to get your money’s worth. We’ve prepared a quick overview of some of the best laptops for college students.

Best Overall Laptop for College Students

The Acer Aspire 5 Slim laptop combines strong hardware with good design all at an affordable price point. The versatility of this product makes it the best choice for college students.

This product boasts a bright 15.6-inch Full-HD IPS screen with crisp visuals. The narrow-bezel design maximizes screen size while keeping the overall size down. The display is large enough for everyday needs and Acer’s BlueLightShield application will protect your eyes from strain.

The Intel Core i5 processor is perfect for multitasking and 8 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM memory is more than enough for most needs. Intel’s integrated 620 UHD Graphics perform well and 256 gigabytes of SSD storage is enough for general schoolwork.

Despite its powerful hardware, the Acer Aspire 5 Slim has a battery life of 9.5 hours. It also has plenty of ports to suit all your connectivity needs: one USB 3.1 Type C Gen 1 port, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (one with power-off charging), one USB 2.0 Port and one HDMI 2.0 Port.

It weighs in at just under 4 pounds — not too light, but not too heavy either. Carrying it around will not cause you too much trouble.

Acer TrueHarmony ensures you will get the best audio quality your speakers can provide, while the fingerprint reader guarantees easy but secure one-touch access.

Best Cheap Laptop for College Students

Lenovo’s C330 2-in-1 convertible Chromebook is a fantastic choice for students on a strict budget. It’s versatile and portable but still has enough power to meet the needs of academic life. The price of this product is in the very affordable $250 price range.

The C330 weighs in at a modest 2.64 pounds. It is sleek and stylish, with an 11-inch Full-HD IPS Touch display. As a 2-in-1 convertible, it doubles as a tablet. This makes it a more versatile product and saves you the trouble of buying a separate device to get the benefits of a tablet.

This product has 64 gigabytes of eMMC storage space. eMMC is slightly slower than SSD storage, but still faster than traditional HDD solutions. This space is supplemented by 100 gigabytes of cloud storage via Google Drive.

The battery life clocks in at about 10 hours. The C330 also features a decent 4 gigabytes of RAM memory and a well-performing MediaTek MT8173C CPU. All in all, that is plenty of processing power for daily tasks. Regular schoolwork and multitasking will prove no challenge for these specifications.

This laptop has a USB-C port, a USB 3.0 port and an SD card reader. It can connect to two Bluetooth devices at the same time. It comes with built-in virus protection and is easy to set up, requiring only a Google account.

Best Laptop for Art/Design Students

Apple’s computers have long been renowned for their capabilities in the field of graphic design. The newest iteration of the Macbook Pro series does not disappoint.

Macbooks are expensive, so it is important to choose what upgrades to get alongside the base package. For art and design, we would recommend getting the largest possible storage option. The added price is worth it — Macbook Pros have lightning-fast, solid-state drives. These SSDs have a capacity of up to 2 terabytes for the 13-inch version and up to 4 terabytes for the 15-inch version. Those studying art and design need all the storage space they can get.

A read speed of 3.2 gigabytes per second and write speed of 2.2 gigabytes per second ensure that handling large files is easy and quick. The base 13-inch model comes with a decent amount of RAM memory — 8 gigabytes — but other models can support up to 32 gigabytes for graphically intensive tasks.

The Macbook has a battery life of approximately 10 hours and two Thunderbolt 3 ports ensure quick charging. The beautiful Retina display has a high contrast ratio and bright LED backlighting. This ensures deeper black colors, brighter whites and vibrant greens and reds. The color fidelity of this series of laptops is unbeatable — all the more important for students of art and design.

Best Laptop with Long Battery Life

The ASUS ZenBook 13 UX331UA Ultra-Slim laptop offers both powerful hardware and long battery life. For those looking for a laptop that can handle all challenges but does not require constant charging, this is the product of choice.

The battery life of this laptop is a stunning 14 hours. And to make it even more impressive, fast-charging technology allows you to recharge it to 60% capacity in just 49 minutes.

A 13.3-inch wide-view Full-HD Nano-edge bezel display allows for an extremely detailed and vivid image. Customers also receive a complimentary carry sleeve, and the laptop is easy to carry around, weighing in at just under 2.5 pounds. This is a very portable and compact computer — and those features go extremely well with the long battery life.

The Asus ZenBook 13 is equipped with a powerful 8th generation Intel Core i7-8550U Quad-Core processor. Together with the 8 gigabytes of RAM memory, this small laptop still manages to be a real powerhouse. 256 gigabytes of ultra-fast SSD storage is quite sufficient for most purposes.

The ZenBook features an HDMI/ USB type C port, as well as a Micro SD card reader. A USB 3.0 to RJ45 cable is included with each purchase.

The ASUS ZenBook 13 UX331UA is the best laptop with long battery life. It manages to achieve an ultra-long battery life, but not at the cost of strong hardware specifications.