With each graduating class, parents and their son or daughter begin planning for college and with that comes the quest to find one of the best laptops for college students to take off to school with them. Questions include “what is the right model”, “what features do I need”, “do I need a laptop or will a desktop work”, and “what are some of the best laptop brands“.

Obtaining one of the best laptops for college students is much harder that you’d expect. The market is flooded with literally thousands of models all claiming to be the best. Hopefully there tips will help you find the best laptop for you.

If you grew up with a PC, you’ll say that PC’s are the best laptops for college students

Some of the more popular PC’s include companies like Dell, HP, Gateway, and Toshiba. PC’s are a great general use computer that can handle most tasks with ease. They’re also the go-to laptop for students when you’re on a budget because they tend to be very affordable compared to their Apple counter parts. You can pickup a good PC laptop for around $550.  If you want to stick with a PC, but are tired of having the boring grey colored computer, then you might want to look into some of those cool pink laptops that are available.

Note: Even the best laptops for college students usually don’t come with a license of Microsoft Office. While Open Office is a free alternative, most students will want to purchase a copy of Microsoft Office, the good news is students get a discount.

Students that grew up with Apple or Mac’s will say they are the best student laptops

If you were introduced or have used Apple computer before you will say the Macbook, Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air are the best laptops for for students. Their simplicity, reliability, and trendiness has done well for them. Now that Mac’s can run Windows if needed, they are becoming a great choice for a college laptop. They do however cost a bit more money than a comparable PC laptop.

If you are planning on spending over $800 on a student laptop then the Macbook is a great choice. It has everything a student could want is one of the best laptops for students. It has a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB’s of RAM, Bluetooth, a webcam, DVD burner, and a great graphics card. Apple even helps students out by giving them an additional discount on not only Apple laptops, but also all Apple products including the iPod. Last time I checked you could get a Macbook with the student discount for between $840 and $900 dollars.

When the best laptop for college students means the thinnest, lightest, most ridiculous laptop for college students.

That’s when you buy the Macbook Air. This laptop isn’t the most budget friendly, but it definitely fits into the category of best student laptops. It’s just over 13 inches in size and has a total weight of under 3 pounds. It’s also extremely thin…and I mean thin. It’s just over 3/4′s of an inch thick. It also includes all the normal features and then some. So Bluetooth, wireless, a webcam, etc are all part of the package. It’s the complete package that unfortunately comes at a bit of a price. Although in the past 6 months the price has come down quite a bit. Make sure you notice and plan for the fact that the Macbook Air doesn’t come with a built in CD-ROM. They do offer an external USB CD-ROM though so don’t worry.

Finding the best laptops for college students can be difficult.  There are literally thousands of different laptops out there from companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and Apple, so which one is right for you?  I’ve decided to do the research for you and will update this post every month with the latest deals.  I’m always surprised that some of the best laptops for students and also some of the cheapest laptops for college students believe it or not.  One final note before we jump into the best and cheapest…I’ve broken it down by category to help you get right to which laptop is best for each student.

UPDATED: Dec 2011

Best Laptops For College Students – On A Budget

These laptops for students won’t be the absolute cheapest, but they won’t be the most expensive either.  They have been picked because they’re a good compromise between price and features.

The Toshiba Satellite L655 is one of my personal favorites and what I my girlfriend ended up picking out as her laptop of choice when it comes to laptops for students this is my go-to recommendation.  It’s got an Intel Core i3 processor, a 640GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM and over 5 hours of battery life.

Cheap Laptops For College Students – Lowest Priced Options

The Toshiba Satellite C655 is the little brother of the Toshiba Satellite L655 mentioned above and it’s reflected in it’s price.  It still has the same amazing screen and overall Toshiba quality, but has a 320GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and and AMD E-series processor.  Battery is around 3 hours depending on use.  Right now this laptop is almost $200 cheaper than other models which makes it the perfect laptop if you’re on a budget, but still want one of the cheapest and best laptops for college students around.  It’s also rated in the top 5 laptops on Amazon.com.

Best Laptops For College Students – Top Of The Line

I’ve actually got two choices here for the best laptops for students.  I went back and worth about which one to include or if I should include both and after using both and personally owning the Macbook Air, I just had to post both. Apple is one of the best laptops brands around.

The Apple Macbook Pro is simply amazing.  Every Apple computer I’ve had has been a pleasure to use.  They are extremely reliable and can even run Windows if absolutely needed.  Obviously they aren’t the cheapest laptops around, but I’ve never heard anyone who’s purchased one say they regretted it.

The Apple Macbook Air is my personal laptop of choice and what I would have used it was available in college.  This is the smallest and lightest laptop around.  I carry mine with me everywhere I go and even prefer it over the Apple iPad which believe it or not I sold to help fund the purchase of the Macbook Air.

Well these are my picks for the best laptops for college students.  Do you currently own one of these?  If so I’d love for you to leave a comment and tell me which model and what you love/hate about it.  If none of these laptops match what you’re looking for I’d recommend heading over to Amazon’s Best Selling Laptops.  I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.

• The Affordable Laptops
• The Premium Laptops

The affordable laptops are best laptops for students as they come with decent and handy features but with less sophistication in terms of hardware, they also usually fall into the class of $200 laptops because of the cheaper hardware they use.
The premium ones on the other hand come with everything required with the high price that is expected.
Let us first look at the affordable 12 inch laptops.

The Asus 1201N with Nvidia ION

The Asus 1201N is a 12 inch laptop that has great looks and an exterior that is glossy polished with a slim body. These are one of the best laptops for students and they come in colors like black or silver.

This 12 inch laptop has a processor that is a Intel Atom N450, 250 Gb storage space, 2 GB of RAM and the Nvidia ION graphics.
This is a best laptop for student as this is priced at $484 with free shipping.

MSI Wind12 U230 with AMD Inside

These 12 inch laptops are best laptops for students as they are good performers in terms of speed and attractive prices at $479 and free shipping. They have a good battery life up to 3-4 hours though it is less compared to the other portable laptops. This is a configuration of 2 GB RAM, 1.6GHz AMD Athlon X2 L335 Processor and 320 GB Storage drive complete with the graphic solution ATI HD 3200.

The Premium 12 inch laptops
Compared to the affordable ones, these 12 inch laptops are expensive and great laptops for students.

The HP Touchsmart TM2

These are the best laptops for students as they come with wonderful autonomy and hardware. Priced at $1200, this Dual Core SU7300 Processor has 4GB RAM and 320GB hard drive. There is also Intel’s graphics GMA 4500.

For instance if you are interested in purchasing a business laptop for yourself, you could omit certain features like the graphics etc. The features on which you have to focus would be the battery life of the system, the speed of the processor and certain features which you would be working on regularly. In case the laptop you are purchasing is for a student, you could compromise on the processor speed as you would not be running many programs at a time.

eMachines eME527-2537 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Price: $448.88

(123 customer reviews)

2 used & new available from $448.88

Compaq Presario CQ62-210US Laptop PC

Price: —

(24 customer reviews)

0 used & new available from

Compaq Presario CQ56-110US 15.6-Inch Laptop PC – Up to 4.15 Hours of Battery Life (Black)

Price: $250.00

(26 customer reviews)

11 used & new available from $250.00

The following list contains some of the best laptops under 400 dollars

The ASUS Eee PC 1005HA costs about 356 dollars. It comes with 10 hours battery life with great speed and performance. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc come along with it. The screen is 10.3 x 7 inches and it weighs about 2.9 pounds. It is portable and extremely easy to use for all purposes.

ACER ASPIRE AS1410 costs around 399 dollars; it is a stylish laptop which comes with great processor speed and memory. The screen size is 8 x 11.2 x 1.2 inches and weighs about 3.1 pounds in weight. It is light in weight and easy to carry.

ASUS EEE PC 1101HA costs about 354 dollars and has a battery life up to 11 hours. Bluetooth and sleeve case come along with it. It has great processor speed, good memory and reasonable hard drive space. The over all dimensions are 11.3 x 7.7 x 1.4 inches and it weighs about 3 pounds.

DELL INSPIRON MINI is around 329 dollars, battery life of 8 hours. It has great memory, processor speed and hard drive. The over all dimension are 9.4 x 3.7 x 14.4 and its weighs 5 pounds.

These are just a few of the large number of laptops available under 400. Prior to buying one for yourself, look out for the features which suit you best and get one for your self.

When looking for one of the best laptops for students it’s important to find one that has as many USB ports as possible. I made the mistake of getting a laptop in college that only had 2 USB ports. I thought there was no way I’d ever need more than 2 at any given time. I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong I was. Here is a quick list of the 7 things I had plugged in almost all the time when my computer was at my desk.

1. External hard drive for back up and storage of all my music, photos, documents
2. External keyboard because it was easier to type on
3. External mouse to go next to the keyboard
4. USB Flash drive that had my current school work on it
5. My digital camera
6. My iPod / MP3 player
7. My printer

You can see how this was going be a big problem. There are a couple of solutions with the easiest being to buy a laptop with a lot of USB ports. You probably won’t find any cheap laptops for students that have 7+ USB ports which is ok. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, getting one of the best laptops for students should include Bluetooth which will help with the keyboard and mouse problem. You can also get a USB hub that turns one USB port into anywhere between 4 and 8 ports. They are extremely cheap and very useful. Believe it or not you can actually run 127 devices off from one USB port.

If you do happen to see any laptops for college students that do have the new USB 3.0 ports on them that’s great, but most likely you are going to see most of them will have USB 2.0 ports which is plenty fast and the current standard. It’s always nice to look forward and try to plan a head. It helps make your computer usable and relevant to the future which is great for making that computer last as long as possible.

When looking for an inexpensive laptop, identify all of the elements that you will need to have included on said laptop. Basic models may be offered at very low prices, but may not include certain essential features or programs that, when purchased separately, will bring up that initial purchase cost. Cheap laptops for students should still include an introductory word processing program, some form of anti-virus protection, and enough RAM and memory to process all computer projects quickly and reliably.

Be sure that the laptop computer you eventually purchase is only cheap in price, and not in quality. The laptop should last for at least the length or your degree program, but ideally should last beyond that. Purchasing a laptop that sacrifices quality for price could end up costing more in the long run, since unexpected breakdowns, or undue necessity for replacements, are more likely to occur in a shorter period of time. Students, as well as every individual, should inquire about the warranty that is included with the laptop purchase, and ensure that there is some form of backing from the manufacturer in the case of defect.

One consideration for locating cheap laptops for students is to search for refurbished laptops. These are computers that have been lightly used and returned to the manufacturer. The manufacturer then conducts a thorough inspection of the computer, makes any necessary repairs or corrections, and puts it back on the market at a reduced price point. Although refurbished laptops are not always the newest models on the market, they function as well as a brand new computer, at a fraction of the cost.

Additional ways of obtaining cheap laptops for students include inquiring about special offers. Often as a buying incentive stores or manufacturers will offer additional products with deep discounts, or even for free, with the purchase of a computer. This way, students can not only obtain a well-priced laptop computer, but also a printer, ink cartridges, or an added warranty package as well, bringing down the overall cost of the computer and necessary accessories.