Best Notebook For College Students Portable Size Makes

Students on a budget may find a passable entry-level laptop -- with an adequate display, graphics card, hard drive and battery life -- for under 300.

But rather than go for a super cheap laptop, we think its worth it to spend a few hundred more on a device with better performance, a bigger, faster SSD hard drive, and longer battery life.

This list of the best laptops for college students is based on benchmark testing and our own hands-on use.

If youre looking for a less expensive college laptop -- or if youre open to an alternative to Apples MacOS and Microsoft Windows -- we recommend checking out the best Chromebooks for students.

The best budget laptop options are less expensive but still powerful enough to handle student-life basics such as getting on the internet, email, creating documents or working with spreadsheets.

However, if youre looking for something that can double as a gaming laptop, has a ton of storage or can handle powerful programs like video-editing software, read on for our picks of the best laptops for college students.

Even better, this Apple laptop features current-era Intel processors, a new Force Touch trackpad and 256GB of storage for the entry-level configuration.

The major drawback: The base model of this Apple MacBook Air with Retina Display features a Core i3 processor, and stepping up to the Core i5 costs an extra 100.

Still, the brand new Apple MacBook Air and older models are frequently on sale.

That noted, the 2019 base configuration -- which comes with an older but more powerful Core i5 processor -- is still a great laptop worth a look, especially when its discounted to less than 900, even though youll be stuck with that pesky older MacBook keyboard design.

Dell has been making incremental improvements to this Dell XPS 13 machine for so long that its hard to find a flaw.

For 2020, Dell made the laptop even smaller, while making the screen larger and increasing performance for both CPU and graphics-intensive tasks.

Best Notebook For College Students Portable Size Makes

The Surface laptops super-portable size makes it ideal for high school and college students who may be carrying a lot of gear.

Though this company still sells the Surface laptop Pro without its essential Type Cover keyboard and Surface Pen included, it can frequently be found for a good price-- sometimes with one or both accessories.

The slim, compact design masks its gaming pedigree and power.

And even the entry-level configuration is powerful, equipped with a 10th-gen Intel Core processor and Nvidia GTX GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU.

It has a 15.6-inch 4K touchscreen display, solid battery life and, with an Intel Core i5 CPU and 8GB RAM, enough performance for everyday office and entertainment tasks.

The aluminum chassis gives it a premium aesthetic, and it has a comfortable keyboard and touchpad.

Though this touchscreen laptop lacks some of the higher-end features you find on the companys Windows-equivalent C740 and C940, the Chromebook version does have a privacy webcam shutter.

Its a couple of years old now, yes, but its solid enough for serious gaming on a student budget, with potent components for the price.

We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read.

Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion.

Best Mac Notebook For College Students