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.

Who Makes The Best College Laptops?

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How do you know what are the best laptops for college? What do college students think the best laptop they have owned is? First is best to look at what type of feature is most important to you. Speaking as a college student, there are a couple of main categories that you want to look at. These include: price, size and portability (convenience), amount of memory and programs it is packaged with, and the type of operating system.

Usually most important for college students, is price. College students don’t have a lot of money to throw around and though a laptop is essential to college life, you cannot sell a limb to get it. The price needs to be low. Most of the time, the best laptop for college students can be found for under $1,000. A laptop is a big investment and a solid laptop usually ranges anywhere from $500-$1000. As a final note on price, the best laptop is one that is one sale. Stores know the season when college students are heading off, and thus give great deals that cater to students. Look for them and you will not regret the savings.

The second most important aspect is the size and portability of a laptop. In general, the smaller the laptop the better it will be for college students. Many times this laptop will go into a backpack, be carried around the shoulder in a pack, or be carried in-hand. College students already have a lot of books, papers, and notebooks to carry around so adding a few extra pounds is never good! Always strive for a laptop that makes an effort to be more portable by weight and size. Screen size also determines the main bulk of the laptop. Usually, while 13” is a little small for some of the fun activities college students do like watching TV, movies or playing games 17” is too large to carry. Thus, 15” is usually the perfect middle ground.

The third most important aspect is the amount of memory and programs a laptop is packaged with. These I will combine to form “packaged features”. Memory is always important for a college student to store their documents and anything else they may need later on their laptop. A good laptop has at least 250GB of memory on the hard drive. This will help college students store everything they may need. Regarding programs, it is always best to look for a laptop packaged with Microsoft office. Most importantly, Microsoft word, excel, and powerpoint. These are the programs are the most common ones college student will use.

The last deciding factor is operating system. Namely, Macintosh or Windows. The trend has lately been to go for the more hip Macintosh that is more user-friendly. However, many students may need to use programs in classes that run on Windows only. It is best for students majoring in technical things like engineering and computer science to go for a Windows computer. Ultimately, it is up to the customer to weight the individual criteria listed above. For some people, one aspect may be much more important than another. If one sticks out, make that one the most important and look for one that meets all the other criteria but excels in that specific category.

The top 5 laptops that meet much of these criteria are:

1. Sony Vaio EA Series $599.99 640GB hard drive 14.2” screen, 5.2 pounds Windows 7 Professional

2. MacBook $999.00 250 GB hard drive 13” screen, 1.08” thick and 4.7 pounds Macintosh operating system.

3.Dell XPS 15 $799.99 500GB hard drive 15.6” screen, 6.1 pounds Windows 7 Home Premium

4. Toshiba A215-S4807 $779 160GB hard drive 15.4” screen, 6.3 pounds Windows XP

5. Samsung R780 $849 500GB hard drive 17.3” screen, 6.4 pounds Windows 7 Home Premium