Best Laptops For College 2023

There’s no way around it, students need one of the best laptops for college. Whether you’re taking notes, working on a project, or taking some downtime by streaming your favorite shows, you’ll want a machine that’s easily portable and offers enough power to multitask. A powerful processor will help with managing multiple apps and programs, whereas a generously sized SSD will allow you to save and store all of your files, photos, and videos. Our number one choice, the HP Pavilion Aero 13, ticks many of these boxes at an affordable cost.

TL;DR – These are the Best College Laptops:

• HP Pavilion Aero 13
• Microsoft Surface Go 3
• Apple MacBook Air M2
• Microsoft Surface Laptop 5
• MSI Sword
• Acer Swift 5
• Lenovo ThinkBook 14S Yoga Gen 2
• Dell XPS 13
• MacBook Pro

No matter what you’re looking for in a laptop to accompany you with your studies, we’re here to help by providing you with a list of the best laptops for college. Take the pressure off and find something you love. Check out some of our favorite student-friendly laptops

The Best College Laptops

1. HP Pavilion Aero 13

Best Laptop for College

HP’s Pavilion Aero 13 is a solid all-around option offering a lot of bang for your buck. This laptop is available for under $700, but you’re getting a device that feels like it should come at a higher premium. Its internals are packed inside a sturdy magnesium chassis — no cheap plastic —- and weighs just 2.2 pounds. So, you can toss it in your bag without worry when you’re running to and from classes. The FHD 13-inch display also rocks a work-friendly 16:10 aspect ratio. There’s even an anti-glare finish and 400-nit peak brightness, making for easy viewing even if you study outdoors from time to time.

Despite its price and low weight, the HP Pavilion Aero 13 comes running a six-core, 12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 5625U processor. That’s plenty of performance to handle your school workload. The base 8GB of memory and 512GB of NVMe SSD storage should serve most students well, as it can handle multitasking, video editing, and some casual gaming. If you’re worried about the battery conking out part way through class, you get over 10 hours of juice on each charge to keep you covered all day. There’s even a quick charge feature, boosting the battery from 0% to 50% in just 30 mins.

2. Microsoft Surface Go 3

Best Budget Laptop for College

If you’re sticking to mostly research and writing on your laptop, then you can get by with an extra lightweight machine that’s also light on the wallet. The Microsoft Surface Go 3 is a tablet that totes all those attributes and gives you the flexibility of the latest Windows OS. Even when you’re hiking across campus from class to class, you’ll be happy to tote along this device weighing under 1.2 pounds. You even get a high-resolution 10.5-inch touchscreen display perfect for note-taking or sketching. But most importantly, this tablet should last through even your busiest school days thanks to an 11-hour battery life. Plus, it features fast-charging option so you can juice up your tablet quickly before class.

The Surface Go 3 packs some genuine greatness under the hood, too. This particular model runs on a surprisingly decent Intel Core i3-10100Y processor with a solid 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Now, these aren’t the best specs out there, but it provides plenty of oomph, especially for a tablet. You’ll have no problem drafting documents, browsing the web, or streaming a Netflix show. Heck, you might be able to do some modest gaming. It’s important to note that this model doesn’t include a keyboard, so you’ll have to factor in a travel keyboard as an added cost.

3. Apple MacBook Air M2

Best MacBook for College

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Apple’s latest MacBook Air is hands-down the best MacBook for college students, and there are some exciting upgrades to this new model. You now get a slightly larger display, coming in at 13.6 inches, though it still manages to be lightweight and super portable for taking along to class. There’s also a new 1080p camera to look stellar during online classes or FaceTiming friends and family back home. MagSafe charging is even available, making juicing up easy. However, the processors got the biggest upgrade— you now get Apple’s own M2 chip.

The Apple M2 features four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, letting it speed through some tasks while sipping energy when doing more basic work. That all translates to an extended battery life that makes hopping from class to class a lot easier. Even the 8-cores on the integrated GPU are faster than the M1, so you’ll be able to get a bit of gaming in when you need a break from homework. The improved Neutral Engine should also accelerate AI and machine learning. Plus, with support for iOS apps on the MacBook Air, you’ll have plenty of ways to tackle your schoolwork and social life.

4. Microsoft Surface Laptop 5

Best “Windows-alternative” MacBook for College

Just like Apple’s Macbook Air, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 has a refined, toteable design that checks all the right boxes for students. Under the hood is a 12th gen Intel Core i5 processor paired with 8GB of LPDDR5X memory, providing enough muscle to speed along through research papers. However, if you want to game on this machine, you’ll probably be limited to streaming from the cloud.

The Surface Laptop 5 includes a solid 13.5-inch display with a sharp 2256 x 1504 resolution that gets surprisingly bright. And unlike Apple’s MacBooks, it supports touch inputs and even precise stylus input. Microsoft packs all of this capability into a 2.69-pound package that’s only a little over a half-inch thick while offering an all-day battery life despite its size.

5. MSI Sword

Best Gaming Laptop for College

Bringing your gaming PC to school probably isn’t an option, so the next best thing is a gaming laptop. And, you’ll love the MSI Sword when it blasts through competitors in your favorite games. Of course, this is after you’ve finished your schoolwork. This gaming laptop is souped-up with an Intel Core i5-12450H processor and Nvidia RTX 3050Ti, giving it more than enough power to make full use of its 15.6-inch, 1080p 144Hz display. And, with 8GB of RAM, you should have little trouble multitasking. So in between heated Overwatch sessions, you can open tons of tabs in your browser to tackle a big research assignment.

The MSI Sword manages to be super affordable on top of its capability. It comes in under $1,000 but will have no problem cruising through even the most intensive of games. There’s also 512GB of storage, which is a good amount of space for your gaming library, but you may want to add another SSD for your school assignments. Speaking of school, MSI has managed to keep this laptop under five pounds, so you’ll have no problem taking it between classes.

6. Acer Swift 5

Best Lightweight Laptop for College

The Acer Swift 5 won’t hold you back whether you’re doing your school work or getting from class to class, as it’s rocking an ultra-lightweight design and thin chassis for ultimate portability. If you want to enjoy the great outdoors while studying, the crisp IPS touch display even hits 425-nit brightness to ensure you can still see the screen. And the 9.5-hour battery life lets you keep up with your assignments while sipping on the battery for even long days away from an outlet.

Despite being conveniently compact, the Acer Swift 5 features powerful internals with its 12-core Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of memory for a snappy response. It’s truly a multitasking maven, so you can run several applications and go overboard with the number of tabs open in your browser. And 1TB of storage will let you keep all your schoolwork on the laptop while providing a little space for casual games, which the Intel Iris Xe Graphics can handle.

7. Lenovo ThinkBook 14S Yoga Gen 2

Best 2-in-1 Laptop for College

Lenovo has a knack for making quality laptops that pack plenty of performance into an affordable package, and that carries over to its extensive series of 2-in-1 laptops like the Lenovo ThinkBook 14S Yoga. At a price hovering right around $1000, you get a 14-inch, Full HD display that supports stylus and touch inputs, making it ideal for those looking to take advantage of its 360-degree hinge to use it like a tablet when designing or editing. In fact, it comes with a stylus that conveniently slots into the chassis.

Beyond this machine’s handy convertible nature, it’s powerful enough to chug through all your papers and research—or streaming shows, movies, and some games while taking a break from coursework. That’s thanks to its combination of an Intel Core i7-1255U and 16GB RAM. The Lenovo ThinkBook 14S Yoga also blows most of our other picks out of the water in terms of connectivity, as it’s packing a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, a Thunderbolt 4 port, an HDMI port, two USB-A ports, and a micro SD card reader.

8. Dell XPS 13

Most Portable Laptop for College

Dell’s XPS 13 line never fails to impress. It’s been a staple workhorse among students and business users for a while, and somehow Dell continues to figure out ways to make it better. With the XPS 13, you get a thin and lightweight build, which features a 13.4-inch Full HD+ anti-glare display with 500-nit brightness. So, it’ll be easy to see everything under the bright fluorescents in the classroom or get work done in the quad on a sunny day outside. The battery can also keep up as you shuffle from class to class, but if you forget to charge it up, an express charge feature can boost you up to 80% in less than one hour.

Our favorite version of the XPS 13 comes in just under $1,000 and is packing a 12th generation Intel Core i5 processor along with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. These internals should have no problem blasting through your coursework, and when you’re ready to take a break, it can take on some light gaming, too. However, if you think you might need more oomph, there are plenty of upgrade options available.

9. MacBook Pro

Best Chromebook For College

Thanks to its powerful M3 chip, the new 14-inch MacBook Pro is an ideal companion for college students, offering an 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU. Seamless multitasking for everyday activities and demanding projects is easily achieved, and extends to resource-intensive tasks like editing high-resolution photos and 4K videos.

While many laptops are limited somewhat by their battery life, the MacBook Pro M3 sports exceptional battery life of up to 22 hours. For students, this is particularly advantageous for long study sessions, lectures, or projects on the go. The inclusion of the 1080p FaceTime HD camera, studio-quality microphones, and a powerful six-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio, enhances video calls, making remote learning more engaging.

The MacBook Pro’s connectivity features, including MagSafe charging, Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, SDXC card slot, HDMI port, and Wi-Fi 6E, offer versatility and ease in connecting to various devices and peripherals.

What to look for in a Laptop for College

You may have noticed that the laptops for college we’ve chosen aren’t bangers that are going to wow you with incredible performance and the most premium designs. This is all on purpose. When you’re in college, you won’t need the absolute best laptops available on the market. Rather, what students need is a reliable, entry- to mid-level machine with enough computing horsepower and battery life to get you through the day.

For everyday schoolwork, basic web browsing and word processing, most students can even get away with a Chromebook. But if you want a machine capable of more than running web applications and Android apps, a Windows laptop or MacBook is what you should buy.

Once you’ve decided on which OS you want to work on, your processor is what you should be looking at next. Intel Core i5 and AMD Ryzen 5 processors are mid-level mobile CPUs equipped with mobile graphics, which should be more than capable of any school projects you take on. That said, students enrolled in visual and creative classes will want a machine powered by at least an Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 processor.

Those working with 3D modeling, video editing and other graphically intensive programs should also look into a laptop with discrete graphics options. The integrated graphics built into mobile CPUs are just not capable of keeping up with these demanding applications—though AMD’s integrated Vega graphics have proven to be surprisingly powerful.

In terms of memory and storage, almost always go for a machine with at least 8GB of memory (or RAM) and some amount of SSD storage, the latter of which will make your machine run so much faster than a hard drive. If the notebook you’re looking at only has room for one storage drive and it happens to be a solid-state drive, ensure that you chose a configuration with at least 256GB of storage space, which should be more than enough room to get through a semester. Once again those enrolled in a more creative curriculum that has them producing media should configure or upgrade their machine with larger SSDs and hard drive storage.

Should you start running out of capacity before the school term is over, there’s always the option of offloading your older data to an external hard drive or upgrading your machine with a larger drive yourself.

Jason Cipriani has covered technology full-time for the past 8 years. During that time he has freelanced for the likes of CNET, Fortune, Time, ZDNet, Macworld, Wired, and TechRadar.

Danielle Abraham is a freelance writer and unpaid music historian.