THE BEST LAPTOPS FOR STUDENTS OF 2024

 The best laptop for students of all ages can make the difference between a passing grade and missing the deadline on your final paper. To take some of the stress out of the decision, we've tested many Windows machines, MacBooks, 2-in-1s, Chromebooks, and more to find the best laptops for students.

Our top pick is the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (available at Best Buy for $1,099.99) , a powerful gaming laptop that is as pretty as a MacBook and packs a 12 hour battery life. Its display, keyboard, trackpad, and performance sum up to a user experience that’s sublime. Whether you’re a film student or an engineer, you will find much to love about the ROG Zephyrus G14. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn it’s also our best laptop overall and our best gaming laptop.

Credit: Reviewed / Tim Renzi

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 proves that a gaming laptop can beat productivity laptops at their own game.

BEST LAPTOP FOR STUDENTS

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024)

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor (8 cores, 16 threads at 4GHz (up to 5.2 GHz))
• Graphics: Nvidia RTX 4060 mobile (discrete), AMD Radeon 780M integrated graphics
• Memory: 16GB DDR5 at 6400MHz (non-replaceable)
• Storage: 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD
• Display: 14-inch, 2880 x 1800 at 120Hz OLED panel, 500 nits (rated), 410 nits (measured), 100% DCI-P3, 0.2ms response time, Nvidia G-Sync compatible, supports Dolby Vision HDR
• Battery life: 12 hours

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a phenomenal laptop for students at any level. It’s a Windows PC with 12 hours of battery life, a bright 2K OLED display, one of the most powerful processors available, and a discrete graphics card all contained in a light, portable all-metal body. Best of all, it’s hundreds of dollars cheaper than the comparable Razer Blade 14 and MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro.

Students using CAD engineering software will get a lot of mileage out of the ROG Zephyrus G14’s discrete graphics and powerful processor. It’s also a great laptop for other content creators—the 120Hz OLED panel can handle HDR content with full P3 color coverage and excellent response time.

On the other hand, you might not need a laptop with excellent graphics performance or a beefy processor. If you’re going to spend most of your time in Google Docs and Netflix, the Lenovo Yoga 9i, the MacBook Air M3, or the HP Pavilion Plus 16 will still deliver a great experience.

While this 14-inch laptop can’t outperform behemoths like the Asus Rog Strix G18 or Lenovo Legion 5i, it’s fast enough to run graphically intense games at 2K resolution without dipping below 60fps.

Read our full Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) review.

Pros

• Fantastic performance

• Gorgeous OLED screen

• 12-hour battery life

Cons

• Soldered on memory

• Fewer graphics card configurations than previous years

Buy from Amazon 

Credit: Reviewed / Tim Renzi

The HP Pavilion 16t provides incredible performance for its price, and it's almost as polished as the more expensive HP Envy.

BEST VALUE LAPTOP FOR STUDENTS

HP Pavilion Plus 16 (2023)

• Processor: Intel Core i5-13500H
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated), Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB (discrete)
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5x 5200MHz
• Storage: 512GB M.2 PCIe 4.0 with TLC
• Display: 16-inch, 2560 x 1600, 400 nits max (rated); 458.1 nits max (measured), variable refresh rate enabled (48-120Hz), IPS anti-glare
• Battery life: 13+ hours

For a general purpose laptop you can take with you all day, the HP Pavilion Plus 16 is fantastic. Its 13-hour battery life, strong performance, and ample memory and storage make it a no-brainer for those after the best performance per dollar—it frequently goes on sale for under $800.

The Pavilion Plus 16 is powerful enough to handle content creation and gaming, but more intense games like Cyberpunk 2077 may struggle at maxed out graphics settings. It’s also hard to deny that the Pavilion Plus 16 is not as robust as a more premium laptop. The variable refresh rate screen sounds like an awesome feature until you realize the panel lags every time it tries to auto-adjust the framerate. If you’re a frequent flyer, the 16-inch size will cramp your seat. There are also some nitpicks: you can’t choose a default graphics processor, and the keyboard has some awkward key placement around the arrow keys.

That said, the HP Pavilion Plus 16 is still a great laptop for commuting and for staying on campus from sunrise to sunset. The sturdy chassis and light weight are boons for people who prefer 16-inch laptops to their smaller counterparts.

Read our full HP Pavilion Plus 16 review.

Pros

• Great performance and battery life

• Bright and clear display

• Slim design

Cons

• So-so keyboard

• No simple GPU toggle

Buy now at AMAZON

Credit: Reviewed / Kris Wouk

BEST 2-IN-1 LAPTOP FOR STUDENTS

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i (2023)

• Processor: Intel Core i5-1335U
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR4 4267MHz
• Storage: 512GB SSD
• Display: 14-inch, 1920 × 1200, 60Hz, IPS LED-backlit touchscreen with stylus support
• Battery: 7.5+ hours

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i is a solid and reliable 2-in-1 laptop that starts at $650, a much more affordable price point for students looking to purchase a new laptop compared to others on this list. The model we reviewed cost $800, and that’s still a steal of a price for the performance, reliability, and versatility it offers.

Its processor keeps up with Intel’s 12th-gen Core i7 H-series chips, it has every type of port you could ever realistically need, and it also looks more expensive than it actually is. We were most impressed with the responsive touchscreen, a crucial aspect of any 2-in-1 laptop. The display brightness was lower than we would have liked to see, but that only starts to cause glare problems if you use the laptop outside on a super sunny day.

Read our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i review.

Pros

• Good performance for the price

• Responsive touchscreen

• Higher-end look than the price suggests

Cons

• Screen isn’t the brightest or most colorful

• Heavy

Buy now at AMAZON

Credit: Reviewed / Tim Renzi

The MacBook Air M3 is sleek and powerful, striking a great balance between value and quality.

BEST MACBOOK FOR STUDENTS

Apple MacBook Air 13 M3 (2024)

• Processor: Apple M3 (8-core, 4 performance, 4 efficient)
• Graphics: Apple M3 10-core (integrated)
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5x, unified
• Storage size: 512GB SSD
• Display: 13.6-inch, 2560 x 1644 resolution, 500 nits max (rated), 518 nits max (measured), 100% DCI-P3, LED display
• Battery life: 10+ hours

Apple’s MacBook Air 13 M3 is a master of all trades. It’s fast, extremely portable, packs an awesome display in a slim profile, and can reach over 10 hours of battery life—all while being one of Apple’s cheapest laptops.

It outperforms most Windows productivity laptops in its price range thanks to its M3 processor, and its HDR-compatible 2K display looks as gorgeous as the best OLED screens from the competition.

The one downside to the Apple MacBook Air 13’s M3 processor is its graphics performance, which is fine for day-to-day productivity and light creative content, but it lags behind the integrated graphics aboard Intel and AMD’s latest processors.

Even so, more powerful laptops tend to be larger, have worse battery life, or both when compared to the MacBook Air 13 M3. It’s one of the best laptops you can get, and it has nothing to envy from the more expensive MacBook Pro lineup.

Read our full Apple MacBook Air 13 M3 (2024) review.

Pros

• Thin, lightweight body

• Excellent audio

• Bright display

Cons

• Slow SSD performance

• Marginal upgrade over last gen

 

$1,299.00 from Amazon

 

Acer Swift 3 OLED (2022)

• Processor: Intel Core i7-12700H
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated)
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5
• Storage: 1TB SSD
• Display: 14-inch, 2880 x 1800, 16:10 OLED
• Battery: 5.5+ hours

The Acer Swift 3 OLED has a beautiful display that any student would appreciate. Other laptops are more aesthetically pleasing, have a better key feel, and are thinner and lighter than the Swift 3 OLED, but they usually don’t come with an OLED display.

During testing, we measured a max brightness of 421 nits, more than what most people need from a laptop. The Swift 3’s OLED display covers 99.1% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, as well as 100% of the sRGB gamut and 97.4% of the Adobe RGB gamut.

The Swift 3 OLED also features an H-series Intel processor, which is more commonly found in gaming laptops, while most other mid-tier laptops use one of Intel’s slower P-series processors. While it’s not as fast as Apple’s M3 chips or the latest-gen Intel and AMD chips, it keeps up with newer processors like the Intel Core i7-1360P.

Read our full Acer Swift 3 OLED review.

Pros

• Speedy Intel H processor

• Gorgeous OLED display

Cons

• Design quirks

• Sad audio

• So-so battery life

$1,199.99 from Best Buy

$1,166.00 from Amazon

Apple Macbook Pro 14 M2 Pro (2023)

Processor: Apple M2 Pro (10-core)
Graphics: Integrated (16-core)
Memory: 8GB to 96GB
Storage: 256GB to 8TB SSD
Display: 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR (3024 x 1964)
Battery: 24+ hours
Apple’s MacBook Pro 14 M2 Pro is a master of all trades. It’s fast, extremely portable, packs an awesome display in a slim profile—and can reach an incredible 24 hours of battery life, the longest of any laptop we’ve tested.
Its performance keeps up with Intel and AMD’s current-gen midrange processors like the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H. The screen reaches 1,000 nits of brightness in HDR content thanks to Apple’s mini-LED, Liquid Retina XDR display, and even offers more hardware upgrades than most Windows laptops of similar size.Windows alternatives like the Dell XPS 13 and HP Spectre x360 are compelling alternatives, but they can’t beat Apple in battery life.

$1,199.99 from Best Buy

$1,166.00 from Amazon