As we grow up and enter colleges and universities, laptops become somewhat important for us too. Having a reliable college laptop is essential for doing all your assignments and projects efficiently. There are some things that you need to consider before getting a laptop as a student. One of the key factors that you need to focus on is the price point, as getting top-rated laptops for students can sometimes cost a lot.
Every student is not the same, and there are tons of different tasks that an individual has to perform as; for a programming student, you will need the best programming laptop. If you are an art student, you need a device with enough storage to run all your art software smoothly. If you are a graphic designer you will need a smooth running device for illustration and other stuff.
Therefore to cover all the spectrums for a perfect student laptop, you should look for reliable storage space that features SSD as due to it the device runs more smoothly and efficiently, good display quality especially for art and graphic students who have to keep their entire focus on details, and solid battery life in the device.
Finding the right device can get complicated as there are a lot of products present in the market that looks premium and even sometimes costs a lot but still do not provide you with your desirable experience. Something that is a game-changer and that you should keep an eye out for is a laptop that is upgradeable, like the Acer Nitro 5.
An upgradeable laptop always comes in handy as you can move up to have a better experience without changing the entire device by investing some more money in it. As a student, keeping an upgradeable device is a pretty efficient way of keeping your laptop updated without having to change it every year for a better processor or more storage capacity.
To help you choose the perfect device for your work, we have discussed some of the best top-rated laptops for students below.
Top-Rated Laptops For Students
| Product Image | Title | Brand | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
  | Acer Swift 3 | Acer | Check Price |
  | HP Spectre X360 | HP | Check Price |
  | Lenovo Chromebook Duet | Lenovo | Check Price |
  | Dell XPS 15 | Dell | Check Price |
ACER SWIFT 3
SPECIFICATION
- Weight: 2.65 pounds
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 512 GB SSD
- Display: 14 inch
- Battery Life: 7 hours
Built and Design
Acer Swift 3 is a thin lightweight having a weight of 2.65 pounds and a sleek look somewhat like the MacBook Air. It has a silver matte finish look to it and is made up of an aluminum chassis, due to which the body looks quite premium.
The laptop is durable, and due to its lightweight, it is quite portable, as well; therefore, you can carry it around in your backpack effortlessly. It comes with an Acer logo right at the middle of the hood and looks pretty decent. You will find a bunch of ports on the laptop, which include: a USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, a USB Type-C port, an HDMI port, and an audio jack.
Sadly, the laptop does not come with an SD card reader, which is unfortunate as most laptops feature it, and it always comes in handy to transfer files much easier. Furthermore, you will find a fairly bright display screen of 14 inches, which shows pretty vibrant colors.
Swift 3 features a reliable quality keyboard and a responsive touchpad along with a fingerprint scanner. The keyboard has satisfactory clicky keys and comes with adequate key travel considering the size of the laptop.
The keys that the laptop features are black in color and come with decently bright white backlighting, which makes the keys look more visible and vibrant. The touchpad and the biometric fingerprint reader are responsive and efficient to use.
Features
Swift 3 features 8GB RAM and secondary storage of 512 GB SSD. As the laptop uses SSD, it makes the device a lot faster and effortless to use. For a student, having a device featuring SSD always comes in handy for performing all of their assignments and projects efficiently.
An 8 GB RAM is adequate, as well, if you don’t have to store heavy files that need a lot of storage capacity. It comes with an Intel UHD Graphics GPU, which provides adequate display quality and supports the Intel core i5 processor.
Performance
It comes with a webcam at the top panel above the display screen, which provides an acceptable camera quality. Furthermore, the dual speakers are at the bottom of the laptop. The audio quality that it provides is not the best, but the sound it supplies is saturated and decently distributed. The audio disperses quite reliably and is loud but somewhat sounds hollow.
Swift 3 comes with a battery life of around 7 hours and 30 minutes under no load, but when it is burdened with continuous web browsing and video streaming, the battery life decreases. The keyboard is relatively quiet, and the fingerprint scanner adds an extra layer of security to the laptop. Additionally, it also enables you to have quick access to your device just by scanning your finger.
What is impressive about this laptop is that it does not heat up even under a solid deal of pressure on it. It keeps relatively cold and thus doesn’t lag behind even when you are multitasking on it. The fans that it features are quiet and do their job appreciably by keeping the laptop impressively cool.
The display quality is impressive and shows all the colors with proper saturation and brightness. Additionally, the solid storage capacity makes it a perfect option for being one of the top-rated laptops for students. It can support a lot of editing and programming software, as well as; can run a lot of games pretty effortlessly.
HP SPECTRE X360
SPECIFICATION
- Weight: 2.9 pounds
- RAM: 16 GB
- Storage: 512 GB SSD
- Display: 13.3 inch
- Battery Life: 12 hours
Built and Design
Looking at it straight out of the box, it has a premium and classy look to it. HP Spectre X360 comes with a weight of 2.9 pounds, which is not a lot, and you can carry it around without it being much of a burden. The laptop comes with a brush-metallic finish to it with a black color theme. Along with metallic rose gold-ish hinges and a border.
You will find the logo in the middle of the hood, and the entire laptop looks aesthetically pleasing if you ask me. The hinges enable the laptop to swap up to 360 degrees. Letting it get into tablet mode whenever you want.
The laptop features a number of ports which include: the USB-A port, two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, an audio jack, an SD card reader, and an AC charging port. It features a rather bright display screen of 13.3 inches, and the side panels are pretty thin that they are almost ignorable.
What’s impressive is that, along with being lightweight, the laptop is surprisingly thin. Making it much more efficient to carry around. It comes with a pretty smooth keyboard with pleasant-to-use keys and safe key travel. The keys have decent white backlighting. Although it does not come with a separate number pad.
The touchpad that the laptop comes with is also quite responsive and sleek to use with smooth clicks and a wide area. From the looks of it, the laptop looks pretty classy, and the color scheme makes it stand out. Besides, the almost bezel-less display takes the win providing you with a 13.3-inch solid display screen.
Features
Spectre x360 comes with a solid ram of 16 GB and adequate secondary storage of 512GB SSD. The SSD enables the laptop to run smoothly and load up software and programs relatively fast.
Meanwhile, the 16GB ram provides you satisfactory storage capacity to store all your assignments, projects, and even games in your spare time. Due to the SSD, the laptop does not lag even when a decent load is applied to it.
Moreover, the device supports the 10th generation Intel Core i7 and the graphics of Intel iris plus that provide appreciable graphic quality. Due to a strong processor and solid storage capacity, you can perform your daily day-to-day tasks efficiently and quickly without any hurdles.
Performance
X360 has a battery life of 10 hours, which is quite impressive. However, the battery life does decrease to almost 4 hours under constant pressure. Another version of Spectre X360 is available in the market, which is somewhat cheaper than this model and features less power and storage capacity than this one.
Although it provides a better battery life. And if you don’t have several hectic tasks to perform on your laptop, you might go for that one. The webcam is located at the top of the display screen and supports 1080p resolution. Thus, the video quality you will find is relatively appreciable.
It performs well when there is a reliable source of lighting. However, in low lighting, the results you will get are not as impressive as usual. You can use the webcam for the purpose of live video streaming during a conference or while gaming, as the image will appear in an acceptable quality. It also supports the Windows Hello function in which the laptop uses the webcam for face recognition purposes.
It provides more security to the device and enables you to have quick access as well. The speakers that it features are fine, but the audio quality. What it provides is not the best one. Lastly, while appreciating how portably thin the laptop is, keep this in mind, it gives less space to adjust the fans for maintaining the temperature down.
X360 comes with two small fans to maintain the temperature of the device. It doesn’t stay very cool when the load is applied to it, and hot air comes out from either side of its chassis. The temperature does rise, but not to an extent that makes using the device uncomfortable.
LENOVO CHROMEBOOK DUET
SPECIFICATION
- Weight: 2.3 pounds
- RAM: 4 GB
- Storage: 128 GB SSD
- Display: 10.1 inch
- Battery Life: 13 hours
Built and Design
Lenovo Chromebook duet lies on more of the affordable side of the spectrum. It is a small lightweight 2-in-1 laptop having a weight of 2.3 pounds. It comes with a magnetized kickstand cover in the color theme of grey and looks decent.
The laptop is quite portable, travel-friendly, and definitely for students who have to carry their devices with them all the time. We know that the cost of the product has a direct effect on the quality of the product. And even though you can get a lot of better experiences in this price range, the keyboard and touchpad that it comes with feel sort of cheap and chunky.
The touchpad is surprisingly not very responsive, which is a disappointment. But the keyboard keys are not the worst out there. They are somewhat clicky and work just fine. But the touchpad could have been better. The keyboard looks a bit suffocated due to the small size as there is not a lot of gap between the layout and doesn’t have a number pad on it.
It has a fine look to it and can be used as a tablet if you want. Furthermore, it features a 10-inch touch-sensitive display screen which shows quite vibrant and saturated colors and is appreciably responsive as well. Another noticeable thing about it is that it does not come with a lot of ports and jacks like other laptops.
You will only find USB-C ports, which is used for both charger and headphones, except that there is no other option available. It keeps things simple but having extra ports always comes in handy in transferring data directly from one device to another or through an SD card.
Next to the USB port, you will find a volume button for the purpose of controlling the volume and a power button. The device comes with two different cameras, which can be used as a webcam while using the laptop model. You will find a 2mp camera on the front side of the device. And the other is on the rare side. It comes entirely in a dark greyish shade and looks pretty adequate for a cheap student laptop.
Features
Chromebook Duet supports 4 GB RAM and 128 GB secondary storage, which is adequate for a person who has no use in storing heavy files on their device.
This storage capacity is not the best one, but it still gets the job done quite decently. The 4GB RAM does get full rather quickly, which makes the device lag behind. Therefore, it is best to get this device if you know you will not be working with any heavy files.
Performance
Chromebook Duet comes with two separate cameras, one at the front and the other at back. The front camera is 2 megapixels. Thus, it does not provide the best image quality, and the back one is 8 megapixels. Which is slightly better than the front one but still could have been a lot better.
The audio quality is also loud and acceptable. It features a battery life of 13 hours, which is impressive. However, after being under the pressure of constant web surfing, video streaming, and gaming, the battery can die a lot quicker than expected.
Except for the light programs, software, and games work just fine on the device and do not get uncomfortably hot when burdened. The touch-sensitive screen is pretty responsive. And the keyboard will provide you with an acceptable experience as well.
It’s just the lack of responsiveness in the touchpad that is disappointing. Considering the price range of the laptop. The features that it comes with sound quite reasonable. Making it a great choice for students with a tight budget.
DELL XPS 15
SPECIFICATION
- Weight: 4 pounds
- RAM: 16 GB
- Storage: 512 GB SSD
- Display: 15.6 inch
- Battery Life: 12 hours
Built and Design
Dell XPS 15 is one of the heaviest laptops on this list, having a weight of 4 pounds. It is not lightweight but is thin in size and can be carried around; quite effortlessly. It is made up of an aluminum body and has a keyboard side of carbon fiber. The body is quite durable, and you will find the dell logo right at the front of the hood.
It comes in a metallic silver shade and looks quite premium and classy just by the looks of it. The keyboard is smooth to type on, and the keys have decent key travel. Therefore, typing on it is not a problem. The touchpad is responsive as well and is quite big too. Its keyboard supports decent white backlighting, which gives an appealing touch to its looks.
You will see the speakers above the keyboard, which is a better improvement than a lot of models before it features downward-facing speakers. XPS 15 features a couple of ports; which include three thunderbolt-3 ports, an audio jack, and an SD card reader. The SD card reader comes in handy to transfer videos, pictures, and files directly to the laptop efficiently.
Additionally, it features a 15.6-inch touch-sensitive display screen, which is appreciably bright, responsive, and shows vibrant colors too. The panel around the display is not very wide, and the webcam is located at the top of the screen. Appearance-wise the laptop is a win-win, having decent looks and satisfactory built quality.
Features
XPS 15 comes with an Intel Core i7 processor along with the graphics of Nvidia Geforce GTX1050. The graphics of the device are decent and look sharp. It comes with 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD storage capacity.
Which is quite enough for a college student if you ask me. You can even install a game or two in your spare time and work on your projects and assignments simultaneously without having to worry about the device lagging.
The SSD enables the device to run smoothly and load things up in no time effortlessly. The storage capacity is wonderful; along with the strong processor, the device works reliably.
Performance
The audio quality of the laptop is pretty decent, and it provides loud and clear audio. However, it is not the most balanced one but is still reliable considering it is audio from a laptop. The webcam provides an adequate image quality as well. It gets the job done in good lighting.
However, in case of low lighting, the results you will get will be somewhat disappointing. XPS 15 has an initial battery life of 12 hours, which is rather impressive. But the battery dies pretty quickly when the load is applied to it. The reliable battery life gives you enough time to work and spend a decent time on the laptop before charging it.
It stays appreciably cool, as well, and does not get very hot due to the fans, which come built-in the laptop at the bottom. They can sometimes get noisy when a ton of load is applied to them, and the temperature can also reach near 100 degrees. But that only happens when a solid burden is placed over them.
Another impressive thing about this laptop is that it is upgradeable. If you have money and need a better GPU or more storage capacity, you can upgrade the laptop anytime by investing some more money in it. Upgradeable laptops always come in handy as you don’t have to change the entire rig to get a better experience.
You can easily make what you have better by paying an extra amount for your better experience. Its touch-sensitive responsive screen, upgradeable configuration, and premium looks make it a considerable choice in the list of top-rated laptops for students.
Conclusion
All the laptops given above are reliable options for top-rated laptops for students. Each one has its own thing that makes it the perfect candidate as Levono ChromeBook Duet is pretty affordable. Therefore, is a great option for those who have a tight budget and can’t afford something expensive.
The best ones, according to me, are the Dell XPS 15 and the HP Spectre X360 due to their reliable storage capacity and stunning battery life. Although the storage capacity and performance of Acer Swift 3 are also appreciable, the battery life could have been better.