Best laptops for students: MacBooks, the new Microsoft Surface, and more top our list

If you’re a student, your laptop is your toolbox, your textbook, your everything — and you need a solid machine that’s going to last you from orientation to graduation. It’s an essential tool, and you need one that you can rely on: No one has the extra cash to be replacing a subpar laptop halfway through school, and you don’t want to be dealing with unexpected repairs when you have papers to write and parties to attend. Luckily, there are a ton of options out there these days for affordable student laptops — as well as ones that (while a little pricier) are the specialized tools you need if you’re going into a field that requires specific hardware (think video game engineering). Whether you’re looking for a Mac or PC (and yes, you should definitely consider a PC), there’s something out there for any college student.

Memory and processors are important when you’re looking for the best laptop, especially for classwork: You’ll want something that can handle a ton of tabs and simultaneous programs, as well as enough storage to save downloaded lectures, textbooks, films, the dreaded term project, and other study materials. And that’s just speaking generally — if you’re studying graphic design, computer science, video production, or other computer-intensive subjects, you’ll need a laptop that has a little more oomph in the CPU department so you can power through those projects.

What’s the best laptop for students?

If you plan to go into a graphics-heavy field like video game engineering or data visualization, you’re going to want to have a machine that’s a little more powerful than your average Chromebook to get you through your processor-intensive coursework. Keep an eye out for video editing laptops or even gaming laptops — you’ll want to look for features like 8-core or AMD Ryzen processors that deliver superior smoothness when there’s a lot going on, as well as souped-up graphics cards.

We’ve found affordable student laptops that balance not-eye-watering price tags with performance and durability. It’s hard to get around the fact that quality laptops mostly cost north of a grand, so think of this as an investment in your next four years. That being said, the broke college kid life is real, so we’ve included some budget options you can rely on too. Here are our favorite student laptops for 2023.