The best student laptops won't just be the cheapest model on the market (although getting something affordable is definitely a factor). Students need a laptop that will support them throughout their course and provide enough power, performance, portability and durability for their needs.
When deciding on the best student laptop to invest in, it's worth considering what the course will require. If the most strenuous activity you'll be putting your machine through will be essay writing and the occasional Netflix marathon, then all the laptops listed below will fulfil your needs.
However, if you're doing a course that will need a more advanced laptop, such as graphic design, photography or filmmaking, then you'll need a well-specced machine. If this is the case, take a look at number 6 on our list below; or our guides to the best laptops for photo editing or the best laptops for video editing.
The Quick List
With a slim, lightweight design and 18-hour battery life, this is the MacBook Air that makes the most sense for students. it's powerful too, thanks to the fast and efficient M3 chip.
Read more below
There's a very powerful device hiding in this compact laptop-tablet hybrid. Microsoft Surface Pro 9 has top specs, a best-in-class kickstand, and a unique hinge design.
Read more below
The Surface Laptop Go is the cheapest Surface Laptop you can buy. It's also wonderfully light and compact, at just 1.1kg and 278 x 206 x 15.7mm. Battery life is rated at 13 hours.
Read more below
The best student laptops in 2024
Why you can trust Digital Camera World Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out how we test.
The best student laptop overall
The latest MacBook Air is by no means cheap, but if you have money to spend, we'd say this is the best student laptop overall. From a design perspective, it looks very stylish, and it's slim and light, making it easy to carry between classes. Its large 15.3-inch screen is great for opening multiple windows, side by side, helping to speed up your workflow. And the 18-hour battery life means you can work across campus without needing a power point.
Our reviewer found the keyboard and trackpad very comfortable, even during long writing sessions comfortable. The audio is impressively high quality, helping you enjoy a musical soundtrack to your study sessions. And the 256GB storage means you can fit plenty of content onto your hard drive, without having pay for cloud storage. On the downside, note that there are only two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, and of course, there's that high price.
One more thing: note that Apple has recently boosted RAM from 8GB to 16GB in the base model. So check the details first if you're buying from a third-party retailer, as you may be getting older stock that only has 8GB.
Read more: MacBook Air 15.3-inch M3 (2024) review
The best 2-in-1 student laptop
The Microsoft Surface Pro 9 is a very powerful device hiding in its compact laptop-tablet hybrid design. More than capable of plowing through any productivity tasks thrown at it, it can also handle a solid amount of photo editing on programs such as Photoshop and Lightroom, and while it might struggle slightly, it can even output some light video editing.
The Surface Pro 9 is a well-built, beautiful device with its best-in-class kickstand with a unique hinge design that still reigns supreme in the 2-in-1 world. If you choose to buy the optional Surface Type Cover and Surface Slim Pen (which you really should as they complete this device) then this is a fantastic productivity device for on the move between classes and cozying up in the library.
Read our full Surface Pro 9 review.
The best budget student laptop
The Surface Laptop Go is the cheapest Surface Laptop you can buy, making it one of the best student laptops. It's also wonderfully light and compact, at just 1.1kg and 278 x 206 x 15.7mm. Battery life is also stellar, rated at 13 hours for typical usage. The key to such great battery longevity is the power-sipping quad-core 10th gen Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor, though this is no speed demon, and the relatively small 12.4-inch screen will be restrictive for extended periods of image editing.
Three versions of the Surface Laptop Go are available, with the only key differences being RAM and storage capacity. The cheapest of the trio is best avoided, however, as its paltry 4GB RAM won't go far once you've opened a few web browser tabs and fired up a 1080P video, and its 64GB SSD storage is similarly stingy. The mid-range option is the pick of the bunch thanks to its 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. The flagship Surface Laptop Go gets you a larger 256GB SSD, but the corresponding price increase is too much to justify.
The best cheap student laptop
Rather than running Windows or Mac OS, this student laptop is based on Google's ChromeOS operating system. It's designed to be super simple to use and runs apps from Google's Play Store, just like an Android phone or tablet. As such you won't be able to use Windows software like the Office suite, but Google's own cloud-based productivity apps like Docs and Sheets are genuinely viable alternatives.
Despite its low price, this is one of the best Chromebooks you can buy right now, with its standout feature being its 14-inch Full HD 1080p screen. It's an IPS panel, so you needn't worry about restricted viewing angles or weak contrast. Be sure you go for this Full HD (FHD) version of the HP Chromebook 14 though, as other models are available with lesser screens
Of course, a laptop this cheap is never going be an image-editing powerhouse: the Intel Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM and 32GB on-board storage in the entry-level versions of the HP Chromebook 14 make it the minimum you can get away with for web browsing, image viewing and HD YouTube viewing. But the payoff for having such power-efficient hardware is up to 11 hours of battery life from a device that's exceptionally light and portable.
Best powerful student laptop
Need a lot of power from your laptop? Most students don't, but you're using powerful software such as 3D, animation or video editing tools, you'll want a powerful computer which can run them quickly and responsively. And that means the MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) could be worth the (high) investment. Thanks to Apple's latest M4 chip you'll be able to run creative tasks without any worries about slowdown or crashes. Our reviewer found this impressive laptop could handling multiple 4K 30fps video streams smoothly in Final Cut Pro and only showed limitations when pushing four simultaneous 4K 120fps streams.
It has a lovely screen too: a 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display with 3096 x 1964-pixel resolution with one billion colors and P3 wide color support. The base model comes with 16GB of RAM, which helps with demanding software. And battery life of over 18 hours and a light weight of just 3.4 lbs means it's great for carrying around campus too.
How to choose the best student laptop
Unless you have specific requirements, you may be better off buying an affordable model over the biggest powerhouses. If you won't need your laptop for much more than word processing, making Zoom calls and using the best streaming services, there's no point in splashing your cash. Plus, the less powerful your components, the less electricity you'll be using and the longer your battery life should be.
We understand that it might be tempting to pick out the cheapest possible machine, but you might end up kicking yourself in the long run. Even simply browsing the web can consume a lot of RAM (computer memory). In fact, with 15 Chrome tabs open and no other apps running, 31% of my 16GB of RAM on my own laptop has already been consumed. We would recommend going for a laptop with at least 8GB of RAM.
Meanwhile, hard drive storage is less of an issue. While it's getting increasingly rarer to find a best student laptop that can be upgraded with extra RAM, external storage is much more accessible. We would recommend going for a laptop that features a 128GB SSD or greater, as this should be enough for all of your apps (unless you're a gamer, in which case a 256GB SSD should be the bare minimum).
If you need extra storage in the future, you can easily pick up an external hard drive or portable SSD. This is a much more affordable option than configuring your new laptop with an equivalent amount of extra internal storage at the point of purchase.
How we test laptops
When reviewing a laptop, we assess its internal hardware features, build quality, ergonomics, performance in a variety of usage scenarios, value for money, and its overall suitability for its target buyer.
Although we'll evaluate a laptop with a typical user in mind, we will also pay particular attention to the perspective of photo and video enthusiasts, with special focus given to screen quality and color space coverage.
Where possible, a monitor calibrator will be used to measure a laptop's display performance to assess whether it matches a manufacturer's claims, and software benchmarks like GeekBench are used to measure a laptop's processor and graphics card capabilities. Find out more about how we test and review on Digital Camera World.
