College is expensive—including tuition, housing, and textbooks, not to mention food and other miscellaneous costs. So students need a reliable laptop that’ll last for years of taking notes, writing papers at 3 in the morning, and editing slides for a group project. But choosing the right laptop can be more challenging than writing a thousand words on Proust.
We test dozens of laptops every year, and for this guide we’ve rounded up the picks from our other guides that are the best for students. A laptop’s price-to-performance ratio is the most important factor, followed by its battery life, its size and weight, and its keyboard and trackpad. Our top pick offers the best balance of all those factors for high school and college students, whether they’re attending classes remotely or schlepping it to a physical classroom.
We also have more-portable picks, if you’re able to spend more. And for anyone on a tighter budget, we have less expensive options that are also well suited for younger kids. To achieve their more-affordable price tags, these cheaper options all make serious trade-offs—in shorter battery life, bulkier size, or more-limited functionality—and they’re not likely to last as long as our picks. If you’re a film or photography student and you need a laptop for photo and video editing, or if you want a laptop that can also play games, we have picks for you, too.
The research
Our pick
The Zenbook 14 is the best laptop you can get for the price. But its build quality isn’t as nice, and it won’t perform as well in a few years as our top picks.
This version of the Zenbook 14 performs just as well as our top pick, but it costs a couple hundred dollars more than the base model.
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | AMD Ryzen 5 7530U or Ryzen 7 7730U | Screen: | 14-inch 2880×1800 OLED touch |
| Memory: | 8 GB or 16 GB | Weight: | 3.06 pounds |
| Storage: | 256 GB or 512 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 11 hours |
Who these are for: Budget ultrabooks—thin and light laptops with good performance and long battery life and a price tag in the $700 to $800 range—are ideal for high school and college students because they provide the best value. These cheaper ultrabooks tend to make minor trade-offs compared with ultrabooks over $1,000: They may be a bit larger and heavier, may not last quite as long on a charge, may feel less sturdy or solid, or may lack convenient features such as a fingerprint reader or USB-C charging. But even with those drawbacks, budget ultrabooks still provide far better performance and overall quality compared with $500 laptops.
Why we like this one: Most high school or college students shopping for a laptop to last through graduation should get the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, either the base model with 8 GB of memory or the version with 16 GB of memory. It’s powerful and portable enough to use for a full day of classes, and it has a vivid screen and a solid keyboard and trackpad. Unlike most cheap ultrabooks, the Zenbook 14 is sturdy and equipped with a fingerprint reader, and it comes with a USB-C charger, which you can use to charge more devices and is generally cheaper to replace than specialty non–USB-C chargers. If you spend around $400 more for the HP Spectre x360 13.5, you get a sleeker, nicer laptop with a better webcam and potentially more memory. But for most students, those differences aren’t worth the $400.
You can read more about the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED and our other picks in our guide to Windows ultrabooks.
Upgrade pick
The Spectre x360 offers excellent battery life, a tall touchscreen, and a reliable keyboard and trackpad. It’s also thin and light enough to slip in a bag and take anywhere.
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-1335U or Core i7-1355U | Screen: | 13.5-inch 1920×1280 touch |
| Memory: | 16 GB | Weight: | 3.01 pounds |
| Storage: | 512 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 10 hours |
Who these are for: If you’re willing and able to pay more, get an ultrabook, which is a laptop with a great keyboard, screen, and battery life, as well as enough power to do everything most people need a computer for. It’s also thin, light, and portable. Because great ultrabooks provide a better experience and last longer than cheaper alternatives, they can cost more than many students are able to spend on a laptop—expect to pay between $1,100 and $1,300 for a great one that will last for years. But they lack the processing power to play high-end games or to handle demanding tasks like video editing or 3D modeling.
Why we like this one: The HP Spectre x360 13.5 has the best balance of what makes an ultrabook great: It offers fast performance, battery life for a full day of classes, a tall aspect ratio screen that’s ideal for browsing the web and writing papers, and a quality keyboard and trackpad. And if you take any classes remotely, the Spectre has the best webcam we tested this year. It also has a 360-degree hinge that lets you flip the touchscreen all the way around to use it as a tablet, and some models come with an active stylus for taking notes. The Spectre x360 13.5 isn’t as light or compact as some other Windows ultrabooks, but at 3 pounds it’s certainly not heavy, either. It ships with too much bloatware, but that’s easy to uninstall when the laptop arrives.
You can read more about the HP Spectre x360 13.5 and our other picks in our guide to Windows ultrabooks.
Our pick
The M1 MacBook Air has a comfortable keyboard, good performance, and a reasonable amount of storage—things that haven’t always been true of previous MacBook Airs.
Upgrade pick
The 2022 M2 MacBook Air offers an updated design, a brighter screen, and a better webcam, and it restores the fan-favorite MagSafe port.
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | eight-core Apple M1 or M2 CPU | Screen: | 13.3-inch 2560×1600 or 2560×1664 IPS |
| Memory: | 8 GB | Weight: | 2.8 pounds |
| Storage: | 256 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 14.5 hours |
Who these are for: If you prefer macOS or need exceptional tech support, a MacBook is a safe bet; the 13-inch models usually offer the best combination of size, weight, and speed. They’re great for most types of schoolwork, including writing, researching, and basic video and photo editing and coding. Once you factor in Apple’s education discount, you can get one with good enough specs and storage to last three to four years for less than $1,000. MacBooks are usually more expensive than Windows ultrabooks, especially if you want to upgrade the memory or storage; Apple’s SSD upgrade prices are so high that we usually recommend looking into cloud storage or an external SSD instead.
Why we liked this one: At $900 after an education discount, the 13-inch MacBook Air (M1, 2020) is Apple’s cheapest MacBook. If your budget can stretch another $100, we recommend the newer MacBook Air (M2, 2022, 13″), which has a brighter screen, a superior webcam, and a MagSafe charging port. Both models are more than fast enough for web browsing, working on documents, and light photo and video editing, plus they can even handle professional work like 3D rendering or compiling code. They also have great keyboards and trackpads, as well as all-day battery life. Like Apple’s other laptops, the Air has only USB-C ports; you may need a USB-C hub for certain peripherals. But the Air’s light weight, solid construction, and industry-leading support make it a great laptop, especially if you also own an iPhone or other Apple devices.
Our pick
Reliable performance, a spacious touch display, and long-enough battery life for a full workday make the Flex 5i the best Chromebook for the price. But it is a bit heavy.
Buying Options
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | Intel Core i3-1315U | Screen: | 14-inch 1920×1200 touch |
| Memory: | 8 GB | Weight: | 3.6 pounds |
| Storage: | 128 GB eMMC | Tested battery life: | 8.5 hours |
Who these are for: Chromebooks are ideal for students who don’t need Windows or macOS for specific programs. A good Chromebook can do almost anything a regular laptop can do, including document work, video calls, and streaming video—as long as it’s possible in a web browser or via Android apps. And $500 Chromebooks tend to be faster, lighter, and sleeker than similarly priced Windows laptops. Plus, Chromebooks are secure and easy to maintain. But Chromebooks may have trouble connecting to campus printers, and they can’t play Windows games. And they’re not good for people who need access to Mac or Windows apps for photo, video, or audio editing, or other specialized software.
Why we like this one: If you can complete all of your coursework on a Chromebook, we recommend the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus because it has the best combination of features and price of all the models we tested. It has fast performance, a reliable keyboard and trackpad, a tall touchscreen, surprisingly good speakers, and enough battery life to last a full day of classes. But we wish it were lighter—at 3.6 pounds, it’s heavy for a 14-inch laptop.
Budget Windows pick: Acer Aspire 3 Spin 14 (A3SP14-31PT)
Budget pick
Unlike most cheap Windows laptops, the Aspire 3 Spin 14 is fast, compact, and light, and it has a decent 1080p touchscreen and good battery life.
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | Intel Core i3-N305 | Screen: | 14-inch 1920×1200 touch |
| Memory: | 8 GB | Weight: | 3.3 pounds |
| Storage: | 128 GB or 256 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 8.5 hours |
Who these are for: If you need a Windows laptop for school and you can’t afford to spend a lot, you can find a decent one for less than $500, but you have to make some compromises. These models are best suited for grade-school or middle-school students, because most budget Windows laptops that are fast enough for school work tend to be bulky, heavy, and stuck with battery life that won’t last a full day of classes. You have to be extra-vigilant when shopping for a laptop in this price range to avoid slow or old processors, not enough memory, sluggish storage, and terrible, low-resolution displays.
Why we like this one: The Acer Aspire 3 Spin 14 (A3SP14-31PT) in any of our recommended configurations (37NV, 38YA, or 32M6) is the best Windows laptop you can find for the price. But we strongly recommend saving up for our top pick if you can—it’s better in nearly every way.
The Aspire 3 Spin 14 is fast enough to meet most people’s computing needs, and its keyboard and trackpad are reliable. It also has a decent-looking 14-inch 1920×1200 touchscreen with a tall aspect ratio, as well as a 360-degree hinge that allows you to use the device as a tablet to take handwritten notes (if you have a stylus). Compared with most bulky Windows laptops in this price range, the Aspire 3 Spin 14 is also more compact, and it has long enough battery life to last a full day of classes.
The Aspire 3 Spin 14 ships with Windows 11 S mode, which allows only apps from the Microsoft Store and limits you to Microsoft Edge for web browsing. But you can switch it to Windows 11 Home for free to install any program you need. It also comes with a ton of bloatware; we recommend following these steps to get rid of it.
Choosing a budget laptop is tricky, because you can find hundreds of variations, their prices fluctuate constantly, and companies release and discontinue models with no warning. If our pick isn’t available, check our full guide for other available options and advice on how to shop for a budget laptop.
Our pick
With a large screen, a fast-enough processor, and Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard support, the 9th-gen iPad offers the features most tablet users need.
Who these are for: Windows laptops and Chromebooks that cost around $300 are almost uniformly unpleasant to use—washed-out screens and crappy performance are the two biggest problems. A tablet isn’t good at all the things a laptop is good at, and if you’re taking programming classes or learning how to do high-end photo and video editing with apps such as Photoshop or Premiere, a tablet probably wouldn’t work for you. But if you mainly need to browse the internet, write papers, stream videos, draw, and take handwritten notes, an iPad can be a workable, inexpensive substitute for a traditional laptop. iPads feel faster than cheap laptops, they run the App Store’s huge selection of games (in addition to productivity apps), and their light weight makes them more convenient to use in bed or on a couch when your homework is done and you want to unwind.
Why we like this one: The 10.2-inch Apple iPad (9th generation) isn’t as fast as the much-more-expensive iPad Pro models or the newer 10th-gen iPad, but it is responsive and pleasant to use, its screen is bright and colorful, it has good battery life, and the Apple Pencil is great for drawing or taking notes. And Apple has made big strides forward in keyboard and mouse support, which makes the iPad feel a lot more like a traditional laptop when you put it in a case and pair it to a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (or one of Apple’s Magic Trackpads). If you can afford it, and especially if your iPad will be your only computer, consider the 256 GB version instead of the 64 GB version; with that version, you’ll need to rely on cloud storage less, and you’ll have more space for apps and other files.
Meet your guide
Kimber Streams is a senior staff writer and has been covering laptops, gaming gear, keyboards, storage, and more for Wirecutter since 2014. In that time they’ve tested hundreds of laptops and thousands of peripherals, and built way too many mechanical keyboards for their personal collection.
Further reading
The Best Laptops
VIDEO: Best Laptops 2022: Top 10 Thin & Light Laptops You Can Buy!The Tech Chapby Kimber Streams and Dave Gershgorn
From budget-friendly options to thin-and-light ultrabooks to powerful gaming laptops, we’ve spent hundreds of hours finding the best laptops for most people.
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