Best College Laptops

My Five Laptop Choices For College

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This is a guest post by Shawn Poolern, a longtime reader and friend.
Preparing to go to college can be very exciting, but it can be easy to overlook one important piece of equipment: your laptop. The best college laptop for you will depend on what you are studying: a student studying photography or film will need to use complex editing programs, and will need a lot of hard drive space while a student studying a humanities subject such as English or history, or a studying for a business qualification will have different requirements again. This post will discuss the best college laptops for a student who mostly intends to write essays and complete written coursework.

The type of laptop required for more specialized courses is something which should be discussed with people experienced in the field, and possibly your prospective school as they will be able to advise on what capabilities are needed to complete the college degree.

First is the HP Pavilion dv6-3120us 15.6” laptop. With 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive it will run quickly and won’t fill up with data too swiftly unless you store a lot of movies and music on your computer. It comes in an attractive champagne colour, and has a full size keyboard. You might think worrying about the key board is a trifling matter, and it’s what’s ‘under the hood’ which counts, but you may find you feel differently after tapping out a 2500 word essay.

Second is the Acer Aspire AS1551-4755 11.6” laptop. It’s lighter on RAM and hard drive space (3GN and 250GB, respectively) but it’s also physically lighter. At about 3lbs, this laptop is ideal for carrying from class to class to take notes on the go.

Next we have the Apple MacBook MC240LL/A 13.3” laptop. Some people prefer Apple operating systems to Windows, and if you’re one of them this is a fantastic option. Not too big, not too small and in the classic Apple white this is a stylish option packed with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.

Also worth considering is the Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5102 15.6” laptop. It has a large screen, making it a good multi-tasker, suitable for watching movies on and completing course work. The Satellite also has a built in webcam for keeping in touch with friends and family, and has enough power – 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive – to run smoothly through day to day tasks.

Last but not least is the smallest of today’s selection: the Sony VAIO VPCW222AX/WI 10.1” laptop. It’s small enough to pop in your bag and carry between classes without dragging you down, but with a 250GB hard drive and an Intel Atom processer, it’s certainly not a toy.

When it comes down to it, your choice of laptop is as much about personal preference as the specifications of one versus another, but don’t let a pretty exterior fool you into ending up with a substandard piece of technology. Any one of these five laptops will get the job done right, and look good doing it.

Should You Buy The Lowest Price Laptop For College?

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The decision to purchase a laptop for school can be one of the most nerve-wracking purchases one can make. Will it be fast enough? What size do I get? What does it come with? And most importantly, how much does it cost? Don’t automatically buy the lowest price laptop you find. There’s a lot more to consider than just cost. Read on to find out how these factors should balance out in an ideal college student’s laptop.

Being a college student myself helps me keep the mind-frame of a student at the forefront of this discussion. There are essentially two main components you need to focus on when looking at the speed of a machine. RAM (memory) and the Processor will determine how fast your computer can handle tasks and access stored data.

Big Budget: Hewlett- Packard Pavilion DV6: This model is highly customizable through the HP online site, but you can expect to pay a bit more for it. A Pentium i5 processor with 6+ gigabytes of RAM will keep this machine up to industry standards for a good four years (or five for any super seniors). This particular model also includes standard HDMI out ports ( to turn your HD tv into a monitor) and optional blu-ray drives. For the price this model is easily one of the most powerful and versatile machines a student should throw down their wallet for. Of course, a price tag starting at $700 and quickly working its way up with each add on could be putting itself out of a student’s admittedly limited budget. This could be one to ask Santa Claus (or your parents) for.

Medium budget: Toshiba Satellite L655-S5107: This model boasts 4gb of RAM and a Pentium i3 processor that is essentially an industry standard at this point in time. You’ll be sacrificing a couple of features that are standard on HP models like the HDMI port, but for some this won’t make much of a difference. In this model you’ll be gaining a good inch of screen size, but lose some of the resolution as the video card is not as powerful as the DV6. With a price tag of $600 dollars, this model tends to be a little better fit for those students paying with loan money.

Low Budget: MSI CR500-438US: MSI has been a major motherboard manufacturer for many years now, but has recently stormed onto the scene as a major PC manufacturing competitor. Most of their machines tend to be a bit more cost effective as their reputation in the fully assembled computers industry is in its early stages. This particular model includes 4gb of RAM, a 15 inch screen, and a Pentium dual core processor. It’s a fairly cut down model in almost every other aspect, but does include the HDMI output found on the HP. At an asking price of $500 this represents one of the most competitively priced machines discussed. It should do everything a student needs it to, but not a whole lot else.

All of these machines should be able to handle the challenges a college student’s professors may throw at it, but you have to consider how long term your investment will be. Hopefully after talking about some of these laptops you have a better idea of what too look for in a good student PC.