Finding a good college laptop isn’t as easy as it used to be. With thousands of models available on Amazon, it’s easy to get lost in the sauce (as they say).
Whether you need a basic laptop for taking notes and writing papers or a versatile 2-in-1 for those long days in the campus library, these are the student laptops we recommend from Amazon right now. We’ll keep updating this list as new laptops become available (and as prices change!), so make sure you check back in!
How did we pick these laptops? We base our recommendations on a combination of hands-on laptop testing and our knowledge of the current market. We take power, portability, and battery life into consideration — as these are top priorities for most students. For laptops we haven’t personally reviewed, we carefully evaluate available configurations and compare them against similar models we’ve tested. Our goal here at PCWorld is to help you find the right laptop so you don’t get too bogged down in confusing model numbers, specification alphabet soup, and features you probably won’t ever use.
If you’re looking for a college laptop that has it all, the Acer Swift 16 AI is it. Light enough to carry around campus at just over three pounds and boasting a 16-inch 2880×1800 OLED panel that’s lovely to look at, this laptop probably satisfies most students’ needs. Inside there’s an Intel Core 7 chip, Intel Arc graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. All of that means it’s capable of crushing schoolwork, nightly browsing, and some casual gaming. As for battery life, the Acer Swift 16 AI lasted up to 17 hours in our testing, meaning you don’t have to stress (too much) about finding an outlet between classes.
The OLED screen is the icing on the cake — it’s bright, colorful, and clear. As far as negatives go, there aren’t many to name! The touchpad is on the smaller side, which may pose a problem if you’ve got larger hands.
Buy the Acer Swift 16 AI for $1,239 on Amazon
MacBooks are kind of in a category of their own. They’re known for their premium designs and color-rich displays, that much is true. But they’re also known for being more expensive than their Windows counterparts. But at $699.99 MSRP, the MacBook Neo is the cheapest one Apple has ever made. That’s a big deal because you’re getting the same MacBook quality, but at a more reasonable price.
The Neo is rocking a A19 Pro chip with six CPU cores, a 16-core Neural Engine, 5-core GPU, 8GB of memory, and a 256GB SSD. That’s more than enough power for lighter activities like browsing, emailing, writing papers, streaming, etc. The 13-inch 2408X1506 Liquid Retina display is bright and sharp, and the aluminum chassis feels strong and lightweight.
The MacBook Neo isn’t without a few (very tiny) flaws. There’s no Thunderbolt connectivity and one of the USB-C ports is pretty slow (according to our review).
Buy the MacBook Neo for $689.99 on Amazon
Engineering programs normally require a good amount of power. The problem is that laptops with a lot of power tend to be big and bulky. That’s because they need the extra space for better airflow, as high-performance parts get hot.
This is where the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED comes in. Despite its slim design, performance is actually respectable.
Its AMD Ryzen 7 processor has eight cores, which helps it run things like CAD simulations. It’s got 16 threads, too. Those let the processor run more tasks simultaneously. It’s also thin at 0.59 inches and light at just 2.82 pounds.
Battery life is good if not class-leading. It completed a runtime of over 16 hours in our testing, which should comfortably cover a full day of classes.
This is very minor, but worth noting. Some of the keys are pretty small, especially the backspace key. It’s not a huge deal, but it may take some getting used to. And while the processor can handle lighter software, it might struggle with more GPU-heavy tasks like 3D rendering.
