The best student laptops in 2024: top laptops for college and school (2024)

The best student laptops need to tick a lot of boxes - quality performance, good value for money, and enough battery life to get you through a full school day are three of the most vital factors. With that in mind, we've organized a list of the best laptops for college and school, carefully tailored to suit all needs and budgets.

It can be daunting to sift through the ocean of all the best laptops on the market, so we've narrowed the scope of our search here to include a curated mix of everything from the best Ultrabooks to the best MacBooks and even some of the best Chromebooks. Whatever operating system you prefer, we've got you covered.

Price is naturally one of the most important things when it comes to buying a laptop for schoolwork, since students might be more cash-strapped and need to get as much bang for their buck as possible. That doesn't mean skimping on performance, though - especially since some students will need a laptop capable of more demanding tasks like 3D rendering and scientific modeling.

If you're looking for something super-cheap, you might want to check out our ranking of the best budget laptops too. However, suppose you've got a bit more cash to throw around and want something highly versatile for when you're on the go. In that case, we'd also recommend taking a look at the best 2-in-1 laptops, which can pull double duty as a laptop and a tablet - potentially perfect for creative students who want to use a stylus.

Australians can check out our best laptop deals and best cheap laptop deals pages.

The quick list

If you want to get right to it and see the best student laptop in every category, check out our quick roundup of top picks below. Don't worry though, you can easily jump to a more detailed view of every pick along with a price comparison tool to help you find the best laptop deals for students no matter your budget.

The best student laptop overall

The Acer Aspire 5 (2022) remains our pick as the best student laptop you can buy right now. That's because it's got a low price, but decent specs (OK, the 11-gen Intel CPU isn't the most recent, but it does the job well, especially compared to the processors you find in similarly-priced laptops) mean it's a dependable performer for most day-to-day tasks students will use it for.

As it's a Windows 11 laptop, it can run full-desktop applications, unlike Chromebooks which often have to make do with pared-back apps that don't offer the full range of features.

Of course, you need to set your expectations for this laptop. It's price and age means this isn't going to be a powerful laptop that can handle media editing or gaming, but for writing up essays and researching for your course, it remains an excellent choice, especially if you're on a budget, but don't want a Chromebook.

Read our full Acer Aspire 5 (2022) review

The best budget Chromebook for students

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3 Chromebook is a decent Chromebook for students who are looking for a bargain. Its low price means this isn't a particularly powerful device, even by Chromebook standards, but ChromeOS runs impressively well, and it won't let you down for day-to-day tasks like web browsing, document creation and emailing.

It can also be used for media streaming when you're winding down after a day of studying, though the small screen isn't ideal for truly immersing yourself in TVs and films.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3 Chromebook is a great laptop for students because of its 2-in-1 design, which can be quite rare for laptops at this price. This allows you to use it as both a laptop and as a tablet-like device, and this kind of flexibility is super handy for students - especially as it means they don't need two separate devices.

The battery life lasted an excellent 16 hours in our video playback test when we reviewed the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3 Chromebook, so it'll easily last an entire school day without needing to be charge.

Read our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3 Chromebook

The best overall Chromebook for students

The brilliant Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook is a great example of how Chromebooks don't need to be cheap, budget affairs. Thanks to its gorgeous 1080p OLED display, 8GB RAM and Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen2 processor, this is one of the most powerful Chromebooks out there, and is ideal for students who want a device to work and watch movies on.

The design itself is excellent, with a slimline body and detachable keyboard - there's certainly no chance of this being mistaken for a budget device. And as a 2-in-1 device, you can use this as both a traditional laptop, or a tablet-like device. Putting it into 'tent mode' also makes it a small screen for watching TV and movies on - so this is a great option for students who don't have the money (or space) for multiple devices.

In our review, we were particularly impressed by the stunning OLED screen - which is a rarity in Chromebooks, and thanks to its Snapdragon CPU, battery life is amazing, lasting over 16 hours in our tests. That blows past most Windows 11 laptops and MacBooks - and even a lot of Chromebooks as well. So, students can happily work on the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook for multiple school days without needing to charge. All of these premium features does mean the price tag is higher than you may expect from a Chromebook, but it still offers plenty of value, making it a great option for students with a bit of flex in their budgets.

Read the full Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook review

The best premium Chromebook for students

The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 might be a bit on the pricier side when it comes to Chromebooks, but it offers a lot for the money: powerful components, great user accessibility, and strong versatility thanks to its 360-degree hinge and touch display - just like the best 2-in-1 laptops. When we reviewed it, we praised its great performance, robust build quality, and all-day battery life.

Still, starting at the $500/£500 mark means the Spin 514 is cheaper than many Windows laptops with similar specs, and it should still be accessible for students who want a high-end Chromebook. It's not the most expensive Chromebook on the market - that would be the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook.

Pricing aside, this is a solid 2-in-1 laptop with great internal specs, meaning that it should be easily capable of lasting through three, four, or even five years of study at university. A student laptop is often an investment - and in this case, you can rest assured it's a good one.

Read the full Acer Chromebook Spin 514 (2022) review

The best premium Windows student laptop

The Dell XPS 13 Plus (2023) is a sidestep from the main XPS series from Dell, but it's no less excellent - this is the definitive Windows Ultrabook, a sleek combination of portability, performance, and refined design. We've reviewed a lot of XPS laptops over the years, and this ranks among the best.

With a 13th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and up to a hefty 32GB of RAM, the XPS 13 Plus chews through productivity workloads despite its compact design. Weighing in at 1.26kg and just 1.5cm thick with the lid closed, it's easy to toss into a bag and take with you on the go. In our review, we praised its responsiveness and noted that it could even handle some light gaming on the side.

If you're looking for something with a bit more muscle, you might want to consider the Dell XPS 15 - the big brother to the 13-inch XPS models, which offers a larger screen and a dedicated GPU for students who need the processing power to work on video-editing or 3D-modelling workloads.

Read our full Dell XPS 13 Plus (2023) review

The best creative laptop for students

If you're a student taking a creative course - or you're a serious hobbyist when it comes to content creation - then the latest MacBook Air is arguably the best choice. Apple's M-series silicon is almost unparalleled when it comes to creative workloads, and the latest 13-inch MacBook Air crams all that creative power into a svelte, compact, but durable metal chassis. Students who prefer a bigger display can opt instead for the M3 MacBook Air 15-inch.

The M3 system-on-a-chip (SoC) offers yet another step up in performance from the 2022 M2 model, marking this as a prime pick for any students who plan to spend a lot of time doing tasks like digital art, video editing, 3D design, and animation. Despite the great performance, it's also silent in use since it's passively cooled with no fans, and the battery life is phenomenal.

Naturally, you'll be paying the infamous 'Apple Tax' here - this is one of the most expensive laptops on this list, so it's not for the faint of heart. You'll probably want to opt for a model slightly above the base version too, since that iteration skimps on RAM with only 8GB where 16GB should really be the minimum. However, Mac lovers on tighter budgets should definitely still consider older models, like the 2022 M2 MacBook Air or even the still-excellent 2020 M1 MacBook Air.

Read our full MacBook Air 13-inch (M3, 2024) review

The best affordable 2-in-1 laptop for students

The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a great laptop, but it's a tad on the large side for the average student (and a bit expensive too). On the other hand, its little sibling the Inspiron 14 2-in-1 could be the perfect college companion.

Besides the smaller 14-inch display, it's largely similar to the bigger Inspiron 2-in-1 model: strong performance, versatility thanks to its touchscreen and 360-degree hinge, and competitive pricing. It does fall short in the same areas as the 16-inch model, with the lack of a bundled stylus being a key point of contention in our review.

Despite this, we still found a lot to love when reviewing the Inspiron 14 2-in-1. The 1080p webcam is a nice touch for video calls and virtual classes (who'd want 720p in 2024?), and the overall performance is strong - with even some light gaming possible. The battery life and speedy charge time were also excellent to see, making this a hard laptop for us not to recommend.

Read the full Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 review

The best premium 2-in-1 laptop for students

Acer's Spin series of laptops and Chromebooks have been good choices for students for years, thanks to their solid performance and good versatility. The 'spin' part of the name refers to their 360-degree hinges, which combined with a touchscreen let you flip instantly between laptop and tablet mode - and the Acer Spin 5 (2022) is a great example of this.

A built-in garaged stylus that charges when it's nestled inside the laptop makes this a fantastic laptop for artistic types, and the all-day battery life means you'll still have charge leftover when the school day is done to kick back and watch some Netflix. Add a high-quality webcam for distance learning and some generally strong performance in our internal tests, and you've got one stellar student laptop.

This is one of the more expensive laptops on this list, marking it out as a more premium device, but for those students who are willing to view their college laptop as an investment, it's a great choice that should carry you through several years of coursework.

Read our full Acer Spin 5 (2022) review

The best gaming laptop for students

Even the most studious of students need some downtime, but even the best cheap gaming laptops can cost way more than a student's budget can afford. Fortunately, for them, the MSI GF63 Thin is almost tailor-made for their academic and non-academic needs.

While it might not have the portability of a MacBook Air or Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1, the GF63 Thin is still fairly manageable for a gaming laptop. What's more, its specs include up to an Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU, and plenty of RAM, so performance isn't going to be too much of an issue.When we reviewed it, we ruled that it offered fantastic value for money in terms of performance, and the dedicated GPU means that it should handle graphically-intensive tasks better than many of the other laptops on this list.

Those beefy specs are also going to be great for productivity work, especially if you're going into technical fields like engineering which often require special computer hardware for coursework. The MSI GF63 Thin is a fair compromise, then, between getting your school work done and having something to mess around with once you're done — all without absolutely blowing a hole in your budget.

Read the full MSI GF63 Thin (2022) review

How to choose the best student laptop for you

The best student laptop is going to give you the right balance between sufficient performance for productivity tasks, affordability for a student's budget, and durability to handle the kind of wear-and-tear that a student can put their laptops through – and having it look good never hurts.

But that can be a hard thing for students and families to balance, especially if they aren't as familiar with computer hardware as they'd like to be. Fortunately, there are some general guidelines that you can follow to get the right student laptop for your needs and budget.

How we tested these student laptops

We know that buying a new laptop can be a huge investment. Even more so with laptops for college students. That’s why we take our jobs seriously, and test every laptop we recommend on this list extensively.

That process involves using them in our day-to-day lives to see how long their battery lasts, how robust they are – college kids have hectic lives, after all, and how cool they stay under pressure. We also look at their design, including how stylish they are, if they are thin and light enough to carry around with, and how comfortable they are to work on. Because the webcam and microphone in a laptop are also incredibly important, especially these days, we take time to test those out as well.

When it comes to performance, we use a mix of real-world tests and synthetic benchmarks to see how powerful (or not) these laptops are. This means using Windows 10 (or Chrome OS on Chromebooks and macOS on MacBooks) and running various apps and seeing how fast they load, noting down any problems.

Battery lives are also important, so we’ll keep track of how long we can use the laptop without needing to charge it. To get specific numbers, we also run our own battery life benchmark that plays a looped 1080p movie until the battery dies and the PC Mark 10 battery life benchmark, which replicates real-world usage, such as web browsing and document creation. These tests give us an excellent idea of how long the batteries in these laptops last.

When all is said and done, we then take everything we’ve learned about the laptop and compare it to its price, to see if it offers the best value to students.

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