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.

My Choices For The 2010 Best College Laptops

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For most students, college is a time to break away from the nest, meet new and different people and of course, see how you function without your parents, even though you’ll probably end up mssing them a lot. But a very known and popular way to cure homesickness, as well as make any work done for your classes a lot easier, is to have a laptop by your side. It’s very hard to go somewhere nowadays without seeing someone on their laptop. Whether it be at a local bookstore, your favorite coffee shop, or even a fast food chain restaurant, it’s nearly impossible to function without a laptop.

However when entering college, you need to research for the best laptop computer for college students. This will save hours of stress, making your college life a lot easier. When searching for the perfect laptop, you will need to look for a few features that are basically mandatory in the college world.

First and foremost, it must be light, small and easy to carry. This will make it easier to walk around campus, whether it be from class to class, or to meet up with friends to work on a research paper. Many models meet these features, models ranging from Sony, HP and Lenovo.

A very popular and good choice, are Vaio laptops, which come from the brand Sony. Not only thin and light, most systems come with DVD and/or Blu-Ray compatibility, ability to burn DVDs and CDs, as well as buy very powerful CPUs, 2GB RAM, and large hard drives, which allows you to store more information.

Another popular and important feature to look for, especially being a college student, is of course budget. For most students it’s easy to become short on money, and finding a good budget laptop will prove to be a good buy. To name just a few great models, Dell, Toshiba and HP. Two great models I would personally recommend would be from Toshiba and Dell.

Most Toshiba laptops are a great budget and you can also buy a dual core CPU, which works well with most applications needed for college and whatever needed for personal time. Dell Studio laptops are one of the best laptops, which is the laptop I personally use. The price may be a little high for some students, but is completely worth it. Not only can you design your own laptop, or buy other designs nearly everywhere online, it is a very light laptop and has a very good battery life. Although not very easy to move around, it is still completely worth every penny. Dell laptops are also good for their screen size, excellent graphics, and has an amazing processor, good memory and also includes an optical drive and webcam.

Another portable, small and light laptop would be the Lenovo ThinkPad. Capable of not only excellent computing performance, it also comes in a very small, sleek, compact package. The ThinkPad is the best Lenovo laptop for college and is a great choice for any student, though a bit pricey, it’s still affordable and worth the cost. On top of that, it has been called one of the best preforming laptops available and around. Most weigh no more than 3 pounds, which makes it very easy to carry around. Though most are targeted for school use only, it comes with an amazing hard drive, processor and CPU.

However there is one laptop that is known as the best college laptop, the Apple MacBook. This laptop has been called the perfect embodiment notebook for not only college students, but students in high school as well. Most customers to buy the MacBook are, ironically, college students and once reading it’s features, it comes to no surprise. With a big inch display, these laptops are as well light and portable. Though a bit expensive, it’s a purchase you wouldn’t regret in the future. With a great processor, amazing graphics, and 160 GB hard drive, it is seen with more college students than any other laptop. Though only 5 laptops are profiled here, there are plenty more out there and available that could work quite well for a college education. Other models not featured here that are also amazing are HP Pavilion, Gateway and Asus.

Also take into consideration what your needs and wants are before purchasing anything. Make sure whatever laptop you buy, can not only make your college work easier, but fits your style and is easy to carry any and everywhere with you.

This post continues our Best College Laptops 2010 series.