The largest factor in purchasing a laptop for college use is often price. This is understandable, although there are many other factors to consider. Here are a few of my suggestions for good laptops for college students. 

Cheap laptops of many brands are available, but Toshiba Satellites have shown greater quality than the competitor’s in their price range. The Toshiba Satellite C650 is a good starting point in a good, but usable laptop. It has decent battery life, and is priced in the neighborhood of 400 dollars. The Toshiba Satellite laptops have a full numberpad on the keyboard, but this takes up space that might be better spent on other keys. It is still much easier to type on than a netbook, though.

For those that have the money, and want to get the top quality for it, the Macbook reigns as one of the best college laptops. While it costs nearly 1000 dollars, the Macbook has been praised as lightweight, easy to use, high quality, stylish, durable, and well worth the investment for anyone that has the money. Some people dislike the occasional quirks in, and general lack of games available for the Mac OS.

If price isn’t an issue, but needing a solid Windows platform is, the Lenovo Thinkpad may be perfect for you. The Thinkpad T series fall at around 900 dollars, but are well built, fast, and have a large array of options. Derived from the IBM Thinkpad, the Lenovo Thinkpad has one of the lowest failure rates of all laptops, helping to insure that you will have your laptop when you need it.

The most popular computer brand on the market is undoubtedly Hewlett Packard. HP offers cheap, medium quality laptops, which fall behind the Thinkpad in performance, behind the Macbook in style, and behind the Satellite in price. However, there is definitely something to be said for mediocrity. An HP Pavillion dv6 has the raw computer power of a Thinkpad or Macbook, but lacks the high price, exacting standards, and incredible feel. The Pavillion will set you back around 500 dollars, and has a higher failure rate than the Thinkpad and Macbook, but is generally is good choice for a normal college student.

For portability, there are expensive ultraportables from the Sony Vaio to the Macbook Air that cram the power of a larger laptop into just a few pound, but the high price precludes these from the college laptop market. Netbooks are a viable way to go if you are always on the go. The MSI Wind is one of the better choices of netbooks. At around 300 dollars, the Wind is small, light, and cheap, while managing to stay on battery for longer than the average netbook today. Like all netbooks, though, the light weight ans low price come at the cost of a higher failure rate, and a miniscule keyboard. If you go this route, definitely find a netbook that you can type on for a while to insure it doesn’t drive you insane.

Ultimately, there is no single best college laptop. The choice you ought to make depends on how much you’re willing to pay, whether you value style in addition to function, and what you need from your laptop. The best laptop you can have is the one that matches you best.

If you can’t make up your mind, and just need something to type papers on, side with the Toshiba. If you’re into gaming, get a Thinkpad with a discrete graphics card. If you want something that will simply work, go with the Macbook. The Wind can be carried with you easily. The Pavillion is a good bet if you don’t really know what you want, or if you want a little bit of everything.

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.

When you go to buy the best college laptops for students, it has to be lightweight yet sturdy enough so that it gives a good throbbing. It should be small enough to fit in under your arms or in a backpack as well as should be easy to carry from class to class also. The performance and battery life should be excellent and unforgettably should be inexpensive too. It is observed that netbooks prove to be best and ideal mini-laptops for students as they are small in size along with good battery backup.

IBM ThinkPad X40 from Lenovo is ultra thin and sleek and is quite ideal for many professionals as well as students who are shopping for good college laptops. The style and performance along with its being extremely light in weight, makes it the best choice. However the most attractive and remarkable feature of this laptop is keyboard, which is simply great rather perfect. The keyboard helps in solid typing and offers a ‘full body’ feeling in addition. It is just 3.2 pounds in weight and 1.3 inches tall. It has 40GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM that is built in. The screen is 12.1 inch and is quite bright and crisp. It has all the basic features like couple of USB ports, a monitor connection, network and modem jacks, an SD Card slot and basic audio facility too.

Another remarkable feature is the Thinklight, which enables the user to type even in the dark, which really is extremely helpful for students. This also helps while traveling so that you do not disturb anyone else because of your work. The only thing lacking is the absence of touchpad, which is very helpful and easier, actually for the students. Despite this drawback, X40 proves to be one of the best laptops that has the quality of IBM and is ultra portable.

Every college student needs the perfect laptop to take their college experience over the top. When searching for the perfect laptop, one brand rises above the other, setting the bar for innovation and durability; Lenovo. Without a doubt, the best Lenovo laptop for college, outranking the others in performance, portability and durability is the Lenovo ThinkPad X300; ultra-light, super-portable, this laptop is nearly unbreakable and comes with a ton of features that make it a sweet deal for any student and one of the best laptops for college.

A 13” screen make this laptop user friendly for in-class use and for cramped dorm rooms, yet its rugged exterior makes it virtually indestructible, a must for any college student. The Lenovo X300 ThinkPad is also energy-star certified, making it environmentally friendly as well as user friendly. The integrated DVD burner and ultra-fast media streaming capabilities make it a cinch to turn your class presentations into something professional, which will no doubt impress your professors and awe your classmates, making you the envy of the dorm.

The Lenovo X300 also allows for easy sharing of documents and class lectures, making it all the easier to shrug off that early philosophy class in exchange for another hour of sleep or two. An Intel Core 2 Duo SL700/1.2 GHz processor comes standard and the Lenovo X300 comes Windows Vista capable, for those students who prefer that operating system. A Microsoft Office 2007 icon comes preinstalled with a sixty day free trial, as does Norton Security, with a 90-day free trial offer; all it takes is a click of the mouse and you can access and purchase the full versions of the programs.

The battery has an average run-time of 6.5 hours which allows for a full day of classes without needing to haul around the power cord and the three year limited warranty covers the basics and is similar to warranties for other laptops on the market. Power-saver technology allows for sleeper mode while not in use, extending battery life during down times in classes, a helpful feature during classes with a lab component.

Possibly one of the best features of this laptop is the fingerprint reader, a bonus for dorm room living, protecting both your personal information and your hard earned class work from the eyes of your dorm-mates and those around you at any time, as well as acting as a strong antitheft feature, not to mention adding to the overall coolness rating of the Lenovo X300 ThinkPad.

Other features include integrated Bluetooth and webcam, microphone and integrated high-definition speakers for rocking out those all night study sessions in style. USB and Ethernet slots as well as memory card slots and headphone jack come standard, making downloading pictures, syncing cameras, PDAs and other devices a breeze.

All in all, the Lenovo X300 ThinkPad could be the best college laptop on the market these days. Highly rated by reviewers and users alike, the Lenovo X300 lives up to expectations and is a sleek, smart laptop that delivers everything a college student could need, except of course the free pizza and beer. For that, you’re on your own.

Reader Question: For those who have owned a Lenovo, which one did you have and were you satisfied with it?