Best laptops for college students 2024: Top picks and expert advice

Why we like the Samsung Galaxy Book3

The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 offers a lot of goodies for the price ($1,699) such as a convertible form factor, a 1080p webcam, a superb OLED display, and long battery life. It also weighs just 3.66, so it’s light enough to take with you from class to class. The 1080p webcam will make you look fine as heck during remote learning sessions and the 13.5 hours of battery life means you’ll be able to keep working well into the evening hours. Everyday performance is snappy thanks to the Intel Core i7-1360P CPU and 16GB of memory, and the 16-inch AMOLED touch display features a resolution of 2880×1800 and a refresh rate of 120Hz, resulting in vibrant visuals. This laptop really has it all.

Who should buy the Samsung Galaxy Book3

Any college student that’s looking for a well-rounded laptop. You can use it like a tablet for easy note taking or prop it up like a tent for sharing information or calling in for remote sessions. Multitasking is a real breeze thanks to the display’s 16:10 aspect ratio, which means the screen is taller and more square than rectangular. While we like the way the 1080p webcam makes you look in video calls, some of the effects such as Eye Contact are finicky to use. Aside from a couple of minor nitpicks, we feel as though the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 is the best choice for most people.

Why we like the Lenovo Flex

The Lenovo Flex 5i is a great Chromebook because of its convertible design, fast performance, superb typing experience, and touchscreen display. The chassis has a luxurious aluminum finish on it, which makes it feel three or four times as expensive. The 360-degree hinge that connects the display to the rest of the laptops feels strong and like it won’t wear out anytime soon. The keyboard is also a dream to type on and easy to adjust to, and the 1200p display produces sharp, colorful visuals. Sure, it’s heavier than we expected right out of the box and the stylus isn’t included, but those are small trade-offs in the grand scheme of things. Overall, this is a really well-rounded machine.

Who should buy the Lenovo Flex

We feel as though the Lenovo Flex 5i is a good option for those who prefer using Google’s ecosystem. The beautiful touchscreen display and the convertible design really gives it the edge over other Chromebooks and even some Windows laptops, as you usually see those features in machines that cost much more. While the nine hour battery life is a little below average for a Chromebook, it’ll still last you a full school day and then some. At the end of the day, the Lenovo Flex 5i’s list of compromises is quite small.

Why we like the Acer Aspire

For under $500, the Acer Aspire 3 laptop provides reliable performance as well as a durable build. It’s zippy enough for day-to-day productivity like binging your favorite shows on Netflix, checking e-mail, and so on. There’s even a full-sized keyboard and a 1080p screen. It even smashed the competition with a Cinebench R15 score of 1,925, edging out the Acer Aspire Vero 14, which has comparable hardware. By the way, the Cinebench benchmark measures how well a laptop handles processor-intensive workloads.

Who should buy the Acer Aspire

Anyone who’s on a restricted budget! To get more specific, we feel as though the Acer Aspire 3 is a good option for students because it’s affordable and a good performer. The HD webcam also produces “clean, crisp video” according to our review, which means you’ll always look your best in remote learning sessions. The 40 watt-hour battery is quite good too, lasting a total of eight hours on a single charge, so you don’t have to stop and go outlet hunting as you’re traversing from class to class.

Why we like the MacBook Air

From the outstanding battery life to the spacious Liquid Retina display, the MacBook Air (M3) received high marks across the board. It comes with an 8-core CPU (M3) and a 10-core GPU as well as two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a 66.5 watt-hour battery. Performance is similar to the MacBook Pro (M3), which means it can blitz through school work and casual use tasks. The only difference between the two is that the MacBook Air doesn’t have fans, resulting in quieter operation. This laptop also managed a whopping 19 hours on a single charge, which is great news for those with jam-packed schedules and have zero time to plug into the nearest outlet.

Who should buy the MacBook Air

Anyone who prefers MacOS over other operating systems! The battery life is incredible and the laptop itself weighs just a little over three pounds, which means you can easily take it anywhere with you. The 15-inch Liquid Retina (LED) screen is considered a step-down from the MacBook Pro’s Liquid Retina XDR (mini-LED) display, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t look great, especially for everyday use. The $1,299 price tag is also reasonable for the performance and features. However, the 8GB of RAM is a little light.

Why we like the Acer Swift Edge

In addition to its lightweight form factor, the Acer Swift Edge 16 is also the perfect combination of affordable and powerful. This sub-$1,000 laptop weighs just 2.71 pounds and is capable of out-performing machines that cost hundreds of dollars more (like the Acer Swift Go 16) due to the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U CPU. The 2000p OLED machine is lovely, too. According to our review, it “delivers an infinite contrast ratio and deep, inky black levels that produce convincing shadows in dark scenes.” Whether you’re watching your favorite flicks or working on an important assignment, you can count on a gorgeous picture either way.

Who should buy the Acer Swift Edge

If you’re looking for a lightweight ultraportable with strong performance, the sub-$1,000 Acer Swift Edge 16 is the one to pick. It’s thin and light enough to toss in a bag, and the display is fantastic for school work or watching YouTube. The 54 watt-hour battery is rather small, but it still manages a respectable seven hours on a single charge. For under a grand, we believe the trade-offs are reasonable. Besides, you won’t find many large screen laptops at this price point.

Why we like the Asus TUF Gaming

The Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition is something of a rare gem in the sand dune. This specific model exhibits strong graphics performance as well as long battery life, which is unusual for a gaming laptop. Most gaming laptops last only a couple of hours on a single charge. Well, the Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition and its 11 and a half hours of battery life is out here changing the script. That’s more than a full school day. Also, thanks to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, it also managed 123 frames-per-second in the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark. That’s pretty darn good, especially for a sub-$1,000 gaming laptop.

Who should buy the Asus TUF Gaming

The Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition is a great option for those who like to game after class. The pricing is reasonable and you’re getting reliable graphics performance as well as a spacious keyboard and decent battery life. It’s also a good purpose machine, so you can use it for coursework and day-to-day productivity. With a solid Cinebench R20 score of 589, it should have “no trouble running lightweight apps and programs,” according to our review.

The Lenovo LOQ 15, which we reviewed recently, stands as another solid budget option. It’s more than capable of 1080p gaming thanks to its more powerful RTX 4060 and the design is very sci-fi inspired. That said, it didn’t nab the top pick because of the poor battery life (not unusual for a gaming laptop) and limited port selection.