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.

Apple

Apple computers have always been great for me.  All the way through college I had a Macbook and then recently purchased both a Mac Mini and Macbook Air.  My reason behind recommending them as one of the best laptops brands is simple, they are reliable.  I have had very few problems with any of my Apple computers.  No company is perfect however and I did have a couple things break or go wrong which leads me to the next reason why they’re so great.  The Genius Bar…every Apple store has one and you can schedule a time with them and bring your computer in to get looked and and usually fixed for free.  Obviously if you need some new hardware they can’t help, but for most problems they are extremely helpful.

Toshiba

Toshiba laptops are my second favorite.  I’ve actually had the fewest problems with the two that I’ve owned.  I’ve always purchased the Toshiba Satellite models and haven’t been disappointed yet.  I’m not sure what else to say about Toshiba laptops other than they are usually a lot cheaper than Apple ones if you’re on a budget or looking to spend around $500 dollars.

So why didn’t I include Dell, Asus, etc on my list of the best laptops brands?  I guess only because I’ve had better luck with the two mentioned above.  I know people who swear by Dell computers and won’t purchase anything else, but I’ve had great luck and plan on sticking with Apple or Toshiba.

Original Post Below
One can never arrive at a conclusion for this question. Favorites will change with each individual as per his or her usage in the laptop. There are quite a few ones we can consider as best brand of laptop especially the laptops for students.

Coming to the point, laptops are usually used for its important feature called portability that makes it used by people every where. Frequent checking of the web and keeping ourselves updated of the developments through mails is very crucial with the work.

Hence, laptop being a very versatile machine is an importance for everybody. There are different kinds of laptop users and let us sneak in to their way of usage and explore the reason why few laptops are considered best.

Best Laptops Brand: The On-The-Go User

ASUS Eee Pc: This is the best brand of laptop for those who are always on the move. These netbooks are light weighted and priced at $399 with 11hours of battery life. All important functions such as word processing, web surfing etc can be done very well here. This is hence ideal and a best brand of laptop.

Best Laptop Brand: The ‘Just Basics’ User

Dell Inspiron: These laptops have fairly large screen and are affordable at $580. They can come in size as small as 11 inches to bigger ones at 15 inches. Simple computing, uploading pictures and photos, emailing and web-surfing, video chatting are some of the features on this reasonable powerful laptop with dual-core processors. This is one of the best brands of laptop for students.

Best Laptop Brand: The Cool, Creative User

Apple MacBook: These are ever-present in class rooms of most colleges, urban centers or coffee shops. Sized at 13 inches, this laptop is capable of handling functions like productivity and high end computing. This is priced at $999 and has an OS that is virus resistant making it the best brand of laptop for students.

If you are looking for one of the best laptops under $500 however then some of the ones below might be a better fit.  These are all pulled from the top best laptops under $500 dollars on Amazon.  It appears that the Compaq at the bottom has jumped up in price however for some odd reason.

HP G62-340us 15.6-Inch Laptop PC – Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Charcoal)

Price: $459.95

(65 customer reviews)

21 used & new available from $312.97

Compaq Presario CQ62-220US Laptop PC

Price: $429.95

(12 customer reviews)

3 used & new available from $329.95

Toshiba Satellite L645D-S4036 LED TruBrite 14-Inch Laptop (Black)

Price: $758.00

(185 customer reviews)

7 used & new available from $540.00

These laptops under 500 range a lot in size.  The Toshiba Satellite T215 at the bottom right is a very nice laptop that is packed with performance in an incredibly small size, 11.6 inches to be exact.  Most other models fall into the most common laptop size of 15.6 inches which really is the perfect size when you’re considering laptops for students.  I personally own two Lenovo laptops and have been very happy with both of them.  Their new Ideapad line is great and the G550 is no exception.

It’s really hard though to justify spending more money on a laptop than you absolutely need to and with the HP G62-340us 15.6-Inch Laptop currently available at such a great price on amazon with a 3.5 star rating I’m not sure I can recommend that you spend MORE money unless you are sure you need a specific option that isn’t included with the eMachine.  So here is a quick rundown on my suggestion as the best laptop under $500.

• Intel Celeron Processor
• 15.6 inch High Definition Widescreen Display
• 160GB Hard Drive
• Wireless Card (802.11n)

If you’ve already purchased your laptop for school or work what did you get?  Do you have any other suggestions for laptops under $500?  If so please leave a comment below or get a hold of us through the contact us page at the top of the screen.  When it comes to laptops no matter what the price reliability should be your number one concern and that’s another reason why the eMachine is such a good choice with a customer satisfaction rating of 4.5 stars.

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: $450.00

(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: $299.94

(24 customer reviews)

6 used & new available from $299.94

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.

Lenovo 3000 N200
The Lenovo 3000 N200 model is the particular model I own and love. It’s got a Intel Core Duo processor in it instead of the Celeron found in a lot of laptops. It came in two different sizes, the 14.1 inch and the 15.4 inch. I opted to get the 15.4 inch model, but looking back having a slightly smaller screen would of been worth it for the ease of carrying it around.

Lenovo 3000 N100
The Lenovo 3000 N100 is quite a bit like the N200, so much so in fact that you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference just by looking at them. The Lenovo 3000 N100 did have a slightly larger harddrive (120GB instead of 80GB) and it also has a slightly faster processor (1.86Ghz vs 1.8Ghz).

Lenovo 3000 G530
The G530 model was a great laptop as well. It’s got very similar specs to the other sub models as you’ve probably started to notice. It came with an even larger than the N100 and N200 models. You had the option of 160GB or 250GB with 2 or 3GB of RAM. It’s also got a nice 6 cell battery that was rated at 4.5 hours.

Lenovo 3000 N500
I actually don’t know a lot about the Lenovo 3000 N500. From the little I’ve looked into it it’s almost the exact same at the G530, with the exception of the battery which is only rated at 3.8 hours compared to the G530′s 4.5.

No matter what model of the Lenovo 3000 you get you’ll be happy. They were such a popular model that finding things such as batteries, drivers, and other replacement parts is no problem. I also don’t know if I would rate this THE best laptop for school, but it’s definitely in my top 5 best laptops for college students. Mainly because you can get them used at such a good price right now and they are very reliable.

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.

Thankfully, due to this increased need and subsequent demand, laptops for students are now being made available in a variety of different models, and at a variety of price points; several of which are quite reasonable. Students now have the opportunity to obtain a basic laptop with wifi and Bluetooth capabilities, good memory capacity, and word processing programs, for under $400.00 USD. For those individuals that desire or require a higher level of speed, memory, or additional functions, there also exist mid-level and luxury models that are generally available at slightly higher price points and for those who are looking to spend the absolute minimum can hunt around for $200 laptops.

When beginning your search for the perfect laptop, be sure to identify your needs. If you mainly use computers for simple word processing tasks such as completing written assignments, for collecting information online, or communicating via email, you would likely benefit from a basic, inexpensive laptop. If you are a heavy computer user however, who enjoys online gaming, or who works on serious multi-media projects, then a higher-end, more expensive model with speedier processing and increased memory may be required.

To obtain the best deals on a variety of laptop makes and models, be sure to conduct extensive research, and do not forget to inquire with your post secondary institution. Frequently, university and college bookstores or technical support stores will offer special deals on laptops for students that can only be applied to purchases made by current students of the given institution, and directly through them. This option, if it is available, can save students hundreds of dollars, and will often include word processing programs at far below the set retail price.

Look into the variety of best laptops for students available on today’s market, and discover how the convenience and speed that they offer on a daily basis can benefit your course of study.

Laptops are an excellent tool for post secondary students due to their excellent portability, and the convenience that they offer. Students no longer have to spend their evenings inputting their hand written notes into their home desktop computers; instead they can easily take notes with their computer placed comfortable on their laps during class lectures, while cross-referencing terms or ideas with internet resources in order to clarify hard-to-understand concepts.

The best laptops for students are lightweight and easy to fit inside a school or book bag. They should have comfortable keyboards to facilitate regular and large volumes of typing, and screens that are large enough to provide comfortable viewing without being cumbersome or adding to the computer’s weight. Most modern computers are now constructed to include a wireless card, allowing internet access with the touch of a button and the input of a password. This feature will prove invaluable to students, who will easily be able to perform research, check online class schedules, or chat with classmates, from virtually anywhere.

The best laptops for students should also have adequate RAM and hard drive capabilities. In lay terms, they should have fast processors and enough internal memory to store necessary programs and files. Frequently students will also use their laptops to collect and listen to music, play games, or watch movies. The best modern computers have the capacity to perform all of these functions without compromising performance, speed, or quality.

Although students’ laptops do not need to be of the highest quality, they do need to be durable in order to sustain long days of wear and tear, and they should last at least for the duration of the degree program. Students should be sure to inquire about warranties or guaranties offered by various companies, manufacturers and retailers, in the off chance that the computer system should be compromised in any way. At the very least, look for companies that offer technical support for their products, either in person or over the phone.

With the right laptop, students can increase their productivity exponentially, while having access to the internet, and a means of communicating with friends and family. The best laptops for students will allow them to perform all of the above functions, and so much more, quickly and easily.