Best laptop for college students 2023

The MacBook Air is the light, slimline variant of Apple’s laptop series, and this latest version from 2022 is an impressive device indeed. It comes with an M2 chipset with integrated graphics that is actually fairly powerful – good enough to perform reasonably well with rendering workloads in video/photo/audio editing software. Best of all, by MacBook standards, it’s not actually that expensive.

Coming with a 2560 x 1664 resolution 13.6-inch screen, the MacBook Air peaks at a max brightness of 490 nits, meaning you can use it to work outside unless its a particularly sunny day, whilst still being able to see the screen. The 100% sRGB coverage and high color accuracy also mean you can use it for color work on the sRGB spectrum (though sadly not DCI-P3). The webcam ‘notch’ which cuts into the top of the screen is a bit irritating at times, but aside from this its a beautiful display.

The screen is fairly small, but it’s plenty big enough for taking notes, web browsing, and writing up documents. Its small size also makes it highly portable, along with the thin dimensions and very light weight (2.7lbs), impressive considering its fairly powerful in processing terms. Equally impressive considering the small chassis size (and therefore limited room for the battery) is the 14 hour battery life  – which is ideal for a lengthy day of studying on the move.

This laptop have exceptional build quality, looks great, has a good keyboard, trackpad, and good speaker audio (not as good as the MacBook Pro’s but noticeably better than 99% of Windows laptops). In summary there aren’t a great deal of downsides to this machine – the only real consideration is that the base-model variant only comes with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, and if you want to upgrade either the memory or the storage this does cost quite a bit extra, however these base specs are plenty good enough for the average student as is.

If you’re after a high-end Windows device with the option for touch screen functionality then the Dell XPS 13 is an excellent choice. Another 13-inch laptop (the Dell XPS 15 also exists if you want something larger) it’s not quite as light as the MacBook Air but is still very portable and pleasingly slimline, plus arguably looks even better.

There are a myriad of loadout options for the XPS 13, including both touch screen and non-touch screen, and either 1920×1200 resolution (i.e. 1200p) or 3840 x 2400 (i.e. 4K) – both of which are 16:10 for extra screen headroom when working. Be advised though that whilst the 1200p variant has a very impressive 15 hour battery life (of non-strenuous use with battery saving measures switched on), the 4K variant is limited to only 7 hours. Most versions come with an OLED panel that offers great contrast ratios and 100% sRGB color replication.

Every model comes with Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, and different Intel CPU SKUs from both the 12th gen and 13th gen depending on how much power you need and how much money you’re looking to spend. Some of the 12th gen models can now also be bought for a siazable discount online, which is welcome as full price this machine is again ab it on the pricey side. You do get a very high quality device for your money though, with a very good keyboard, trackpad, and great overall build quality, with fans that run quiet even under strain.

The Lenovo ThinkPad series are a long running line that is well known for their sturdy and secure laptops with perfect typing keyboards. Although these are targeted primarily at business consumers, they’re also perfect for students (as long as how your laptop looks isn’t that important to you at least).

This particular ThinkPad E14 G3 is an older (but cheaper as a result) 14-inch model that comes with and AMD Ryzen 7 5700U CPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 1TB PCIe SSD – more storage an memory than you’ll get with any of the other picks on this page for a similar price.

The keyboard is the same one in most Thinkpad machines: a unique design that’s halfway between a low-travel chiclet keyboard (similar to a MacBook for instance) and a tactile mechanical keyboard, with ergonomically shaped keys of perfect size and spacing to reduce typing errors. The I/O socket selection is good plus it comes with both an HDMI port for connecting to displays and a RJ-45 ethernet port.

You don’t have to worry much about damaging this laptop in your bag/rucksack as it’s built to a military standard (literally – MIL-STD 810G to be precise). It’s also among the most secure laptops you can buy, with features including a Kensington lock, fingerprint sensor, Windows Hello compatibility, TPM 2.0 data encryption, and ThinkShield software.

You get about 10 hours of battery duration, which is pretty solid, and although the webcam quality is less than great and the speakers leave something to be desired, you can always just wear headphones to get around this latter point at least.

If you’re looking for the best 2-in-1 laptop for college, then we think the HP Envy x360 is the way to go.

While some 2-in-1 laptops don’t pack much of a punch when it comes to power and performance, this offering from HP delivers more than you’d expect. Thanks to its AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, you can use this for practically anything without it feeling unresponsive or sluggish.

Of course, the standout feature of this laptop is its display – namely its unique functionality. Boasting an FHD, 15.6-inch touchscreen, this is the kind of setup that’s super useful for students who may find themselves taking notes on cramped desks, traveling across campus or back home, or even studying design.

With 16GB of RAM, this laptop is actually more akin to something you could use for business than a laptop for students – but the more the better in our eyes. More RAM means, in short, everything runs more smoothly. It’s especially useful if you’re working on a lot of different browser tabs or programs.

Overall, we think this is a great choice for a 2 in 1 laptop for college students, and while it is a little on the expensive side – it’s something that shouldn’t let you down anytime soon.