Campus laptops are a must for maximizing your educational experience. These are up to the task and are reasonably priced.
The same overall performance evaluations apply for the best laptops for college as was used for our ratings for the
best buy laptops in general. Applicable options include - screen size, memory size, physical configuration, and solid state drives versus hard disc drives. Our best selections for college laptops put additional weight on affordability and configurations that support the computing needs of an educational environment.
These laptops will provide plenty of opportunity for personal entertainment, but when you have to do serious work, such as editing photos, creating documents, or communicating with colleagues, friends, and family, the these laptops will make sure you have a good experience. The bottom line - you'll have made a good laptop purchase if it helps you perform your everyday tasks well, it's easy on the eyes, and it provides enough battery life to keep you going all day.
Many factors are taken into consideration to determine the best laptops available, including design and ease-of-use, display quality, keyboard and touchpad functionality, overall performance, and battery life. In determining the best laptops available, we took all of these factors into consideration, plus build quality, user experiences, and affordability.
Photo by Dell
The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 laptop features massive power, is light, thin, and portable, and has a beautiful 4K screen that will make this device the envy of everyone on campus. It has 13.4 inch FHD+ Touch Screen display with Intel iris graphics, an Intel Core i7 10th Gen. six-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB Solid State Drive.
These specs rival many desktop models. The XPS 13 also has a taller 16:10 screen, which means there more screen real estate to provide a better view of your content when putting in long hours of screen time. With ample connectivity options, upgrades available across the board, and an 8-hour battery life, this Dell laptop lacks nothing.
Photo by Acer
The Acer Aspire 5 is a no-compromise laptop that provides capabilities beyond its price point, making it the best pick for the money for cost conscious students. With a 15.6" Full HD IPS Display, an AMD Ryzen 5 Quad-core processor, Vega 8 Graphics, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 256GB Solid State Drive, you'll never have to worry about getting bogged down.
The backlit keyboard and HD widescreen LED-backlit display of this Acer laptop will make late nights on campus easy on the eyes. The Aspire 5 has many performance upgrades available, allowing you to customize this device to suit your needs.
It has multiple connectivity options and a 7.5-hour battery life, making the Acer Aspire 5 an excellent choice for anyone looking for a mid-range, high performance laptop at an exceptional price.
Photo by Apple
The Apple MacBook Air with new M1 processor is a terrific laptop in the Apple educational ecosystem, and the price is incredibly reasonable for an Apple product. With an 8-core CPU and 7-core GPU, 8GB of RAM and a fast 256GB Solid State Drive that offers blazing speed, this Apple MacBook provides a performance leap that offers a true challenge to the Intel universe of Windows laptops.
The MacBook Air has an 18-hour battery life, a vivid 13.3-inch Retina display, no fan noise, and the ability to run a variety of apps smoothly, so it's easy to overlook the Air's lack of an Apple Pencil and no touch screen.
Overall, the basic Mac lap top is a terrific bargain as a cheap mac book for the college campus and a "best buy" Macbook air selection.
Photo by Lenovo
The Lenovo IdeaPad 3 laptop is just too good a performer to leave out of the conversation as the best college laptop for the money. Its equipped with a 14.0" HD Display, a Quad-core AMD Ryzen 5 3500U Processor, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, a 256GB Solid State Drive, and capable AMD Radeon Vega 8 graphics.
The Lenovo IdeaPad 3 has a comfortable keyboard and a solid, durable chassis that is the equal of more expensive models. Its 7.5-hour battery life and port configuration is consistent with its top competitors. Overall, the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 offers the kind of performance that you can only find in more expensive laptops, besides; how can you resist the Abyss Blue chassis color?
Photo by Dell
The Dell Inspiron 3000 makes budget shopping for a campus laptop computer a no-hassle experience with a happy ending. It is well equipped for an entry-level device, featuring an Intel N4020 Dual-Core Processor, an upgradeable 8GB RAM, an upgradeable 128GB Solid State Drive, a Webcam, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 5.
Sometimes you just have to make your dollars go further, and the Dell Inspiron 3000 lets you do that with minimal compromises as one of the best laptop deals.
Photo by ASUS
The ASUS VivoBook laptop is a viable option as the best budget college laptop, and considering its performance and style, this entry-level device makes the cut. This ASUS has a 10th Gen Intel i3 dual-core CPU, 8GB RAM, a 15.6 FHD Display, and a 128GB Solid State Drive.
Surprisingly, the ASUS VivoBook has a backlit keyboard (for those late night papers), a full-array of ports for various connections, and a smooth & responsive touchpad. The battery life is a bit of a compromise, maxing out at 6 hours, but that's a small consideration given the ViviBook's excellent price/performance ratio, making it one of the "best buy" deals on laptops.
Best picks 
