Best College Laptops

Five College Laptops You Should Consider (and why)

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This is a guest post by Jim Walken, who is well known about here as someone always willing to help out and answer a question. Thanks Jim!

One of the necessities a college student needs to help them in college is a laptop for term papers, researching, keeping in contact with family, etc. Of course, there are student computer labs on a college campus, but it is difficult and inconvenient to not have a laptop with you wherever you go instead of hanging around the computer lab until the hours close. However, when deciding on a laptop, there are certain laptops that are much better than others for college students.

You’ve heard me say it before….the best laptops for college students will be ones that can best fit the student’s needs. Being a college student myself, I have been through my share of laptops and seen what everyone else uses as well, so I have come up with the best laptops that I think are great for college students like myself.

First off, I prefer Mac to PC, so one of my pick for the best college laptop of the five is the Apple MacBook. The MacBook is not extremely cheap, but for under a grand you can get a decent sized laptop with great power and functionality. Mac is a different operating system and a different interface than PC, but it is not very hard to learn how to work on one. I like the MacBook because it is a decent size, it’s still portable and actually quite popular with a lot of college students. It also has a great battery life, and also has attractive features, and you buy it with different memory sizes and different options, but the basic MacBook is just under a grand without tax, not too much for a college student. They can get up to as much as $2,000, depending on the size of the screen and what core components you decide on.

I would also pick the new Apple iPad for college students as well. I actually have one, as do a few students that I know, and it is fully capable of many things that a regular laptop could do, except it does not have a web camera. It is very light, and very versatile, allowing students to buy their eTextbooks on it and read them right at their fingertips. It also works as a sketchpad, where students can purchase a pen for the iPad and draw and take notes. It also has a very long battery life, and even though the keyboard is on the touchscreen itself, it is not that difficult to use. If students have an issue with this, they can purchase an optional wireless keyboard for around $70 and use it with the iPad. I have asked a few people besides myself about the iPads that they own, if they prefer their laptop or their iPad, and many prefer the iPad as it is easier to carry, and less weight in their backpack. The iPad comes with two options, with the Apple 3G wireless network ability and WiFi, or just WiFi, and the option of 3G adds to the cost of the iPad by about $150. The iPad comes in different sizes of memory, from 16GB, 32GB to 64GB. I also really like the touch screen, and the thousands of apps available. You could think of it as a larger iPhone, but more like a PC tablet, without the phone capability. The iPad starts at $499, and goes up to a little over $800, cheaper than the MacBook.

Another personal favorite of mine would be the ASUS Eee pc, a small and portable netbook perfect for web browsing and taking notes. It is rather small, and is primarily used for just web browsing, at netbooks are made for, but at a price of around $400, and a full keyboard, it is still a pretty good deal for a college student. It does able you to run programs like Microsoft Word and programs you would generally need for classes, but only if you want a portable laptop for only taking notes and web browsing. Otherwise, the ASUS Eee netbook probably would not be what you want if you are looking at doing more than strictly class work on it.

Another top pick for college students would be another small one, the Acer Aspire AS1410-2954 laptop. It is a decent screen size of 11.6 inches, and is considered a laptop. It has Windows 7 on it, a relatively newer operating system, but it is not hard at all to get used to. It also comes in a very stylish maroon, instead of a traditional black, white or silver, giving it a little bit of character as well. It costs around $500, which for the portability, the features and the screen size, it is a pretty great deal in my opinion.

The last top pick I would suggest for college students is the HP Pavilion DV6-2162NR. Hewlett Packard has constantly kept its laptops fast, and fair priced, without sacrificing on much as well. It has a large screen of 15.6 inches, and allows to upgrade to a lot of RAM and memory for students who need more for classes like computer science majors, or for watching movies, playing games, or running multiple programs at one time. This laptop is under $1000 at the basic model, and adding more components, memory and features will raise the price, but for everything the laptop has to offer, it is a reasonable deal for students in college.

The best laptop for a college student truly depends on their needs for classes, and their personal preferences. Some students may prefer a Mac operating system to a PC, or they may want something smaller and portable. It also depends on your budget as a college student, and how much you are looking for in a laptop. It depends on how much you will use the laptop as well. Some students have a netbook or tablet and a regular sized laptop, so they can use one at home, and take the smaller one to class instead of a notepad. It all depends on the student and what is the best option for them.

Five Cheap Laptops For College

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Money is tight for everyone right now, especially college students. More and more students are doing away with the bells and whistels in a laptop and buying just what they need for their studies. This review was submitted by one of our new readers, Clyde Taylor.

1. The HP G62-339WM Laptop is Black with a 15.6″ screen. This computer comes with a decent processor, the AMD Athlon II P320 and 3GB of RAM. IT will handle your standard essays, online homework assignments etc, just don’t look for the hardcore gaming experience. With Windows 7 you will have access to almost any software suite your professors throw at you. And the double layer DVD burner will make short work of any media projects you turn in. For the science majors the heavy number crunching modelling will be slow but not impossible, just start it Friday night before you leave for the party and by Sunday night your assignment will be ready. New the computer will run you $499 but you could find a refurbished unit in the $400 range.

2. The HP Pavilion Laptop series has a 14.1″ Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with 1 GB RAM and 160 GB Hard Drive, Single layer DVD and comes standard with Vista Premium. Vista will be a pain and you will end up having to upgrade it quickly, as online assignments seem to annoy Vista quickly and often. The screen and graphics processor will be above average in terms of gaming quality, if a bit small. Again, the heavy mathematics students will cringe at doing any intensive work on this, but that’s what the computer lab is for, right? The lack of a built-in webcam will make chat roulette impossible without a peripheral camera but with a plethora of USB/Firewire ports you will have space to plug it in. This model runs from $499 to $550 depending on where you order from.

3. Acer Aspire One, although technical a netbook, with its 10.1″ screen and hefty Intel Atom N450 processor and 1 GB RAM it can handle the day to day grind of taking notes, writing reports and providing entertainment in the library. Its light weight and wide choice of colors makes it attractive to look at and carry. With an additional monitor in your room you can even use it in more robust media projects. And at $298 it leaves plenty of room in the budget for add-ons or other priorities.

4. The Toshiba Satellite has a Celeron 2.2 GHz processor, 15.6? screen and 3 GB of RAM. From most distributors it comes with Windows 7 and the lack of a webcam is again not a problem with the number of USB ports available. It is a bit on the heavy side, weighing in at 5.9 lbs. It will be difficult to lug between classes and its WIFI card is undersized for wireless internet access. However, if screen size and robust OS is your main priority you will be hard pressed to beat this one at $350.

5. Dell Inspiron Laptop with a generic Pentium Processor and 15.6″ display comes with 2 GB of RAM for $400. Although Dell’s service reputation is not what it once was this machine will serve you well in the day to day student activities. It will also be more than enough for all the viral videos, and facebook updates you desire. The lack of a DVD burner will mean that thumbdrives and online storage will be the online way to move data around but these days that’s all you really need 95%.