Top 10 Best Laptops for College Students in 2020 Reviews

Many college students understandably experience a dilemma of sorts as they shop for the most effective laptop. Is it more important to prioritize the price, the laptops claims to portability, its memory and CPU speeds or should HD display and multimedia processing capability be at the top of the list? The best laptops are the ones which incorporate the best combination of all these features in one neat package. After plenty of research, we are pretty certain that the following 10 laptops provide the best capability and value for money for discerning college students.

10. Gateway LT41P04u 10.1-Inch Touchscreen Laptop

Gateway may have been a bit late in catching on to the HD touch display craze but in this 10.1 inch wide screen laptop they have delivered yet another all-round product suitable for demands of the modern college student. Notable features include the frameless edge-edge screen with an incredible viewing experience and easy access to all your favorite apps and programs. At the heart of the laptop is an indefatigable Intel Celeron N2805 central processing unit performing at speeds of up to 1.46 GHz and backed by 1 megabyte of cache memory.

The LT41P04u touchscreen laptop is sold with 2GB of DDR3L SDRAM system memory and a pretty robust 320 gigabyte hard disk capable of read/ write speeds of up to 5,400 revolutions per minute. Running the latest version of Windows 8, everything which interests you on the web is just a touch, swipe or tap away: no need to bother with a fiddly keypad anymore.

9. Acer C720 Chromebook (11.6-Inch, 2GB)

Lightweight, fast and stylish are just some of the words which can be said to aptly describe this Chromebook from Acer. Designed to slot in seamlessly in your life on the fast lane, this somewhat unprepossessing web notebook computer is quickly establishing itself as a college students all time favorite device. This can be attributed mainly to the integrated dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 connectivity to keep you in touch with all the things you love on the web while still offering you time and place to work on your college projects.
Though, as is the case with all Chromebooks, not designed to work with locally installed applications and programs but rather web based, cloud dependent apps; this Acer Chromebook still comes with a versatile 16 gigabytes of solid state hard disk memory. The 11.6 HD 1366 x 768 resolution screen is as good as they come especially when you consider its anti-glare enhancement and throw in the latest Intel HD graphics technology for good measure.

8. Asus X102BA-HA41002F 10.1″ Touch-Screen Dual Core 4GB 320GB

The Asus X102BA-HA41002F may seem as unassuming a laptop as they come from the first glance but scratch under the surface and you emerge with a set of workhorse features to leave you whistling in amazement. Powered by an AMD A4 Series processor with speeds of 1.0 gigahertz, this is a laptop which is primed to browse the web at a canter, crunch through your research data without as much as a murmur and still leave plenty for entertainment on the side.
Every college student will appreciate the functionality and convenience of the Windows 8 operating system and Microsoft Office Student suite which come preinstalled. The Office suite of software packages (providing about 90% of the applications your average student requires for research and project work) alone represents $129.00 of free value addition. When you consider the laptop comes packaged with a mammoth 4GB of DDR3 internal memory, a 320 gigabyte hard disk and full HDMI functionality, you will have to stop your eyes from popping out in wonder at just how good the deal is. While some may consider the 10.1 inch screen as a wee-bit small, many college students will look at it as an advantage necessitated by desire for lightweight construction and portability.

7. Samsung Chromebook 2

Built around the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa 5420 1.9 GHz Processor Dual Core Processor with 2MB of cache memory, this is a nifty yet high performance notebook computer. Built to perform as the perfect companion to a college student, the 11.6 Inch Samsung Chromebeook comes with inbuilt 4G wireless broadband network connectivity as well as WiFi. This is an important feature considering that all devices in the entire Chromebook range are designed to perform web based tasks, especially using internet connectivity on the go.
With the typical applications you could find on the traditional PC now accessible via web based apps with the same level of functionality, the 11.6 Inch Samsung Chromebook is a laptop for the present as well as the future. It can even be argued that an online platform for performing common office applications such as word-processing and spreadsheet data analysis is vastly superior to the use of offline stand-alone platforms owing to the ease of sharing and collaboration as well as perpetual/ universal accessibility. But other than the web connectivity, this Chromebook comes with other notable features such as 4 GB of DDR3L SDRAM internal memory, a 1366 x 768 HD resolution LED screen and 16GB of eMMC solid state hard disk memory.

6. Toshiba Satellite L455-S5009 16-Inch Laptop Notebook – Intel Pentium Processor

This Toshiba student laptop is equipped with just the right features and built around a respectably high-performance processor and memory platform. The most notable of these features is the Intel Dual Core T4400 processor with 2.2 GHz speeds and the 4GB of DDR3 RAM. All these amount to a reliable and dependable package for all your research and data processing requirements.
The 15.6 inch TFT HD screen (1366×768 pixels) is wide enough to offer a vista of high quality graphics and video. A 320 GB hard disk is enough to offer all the storage you will all your notes, e-books, project data and still leave plenty of rooms for your music and videos. You will also come to love the inbuilt WiFi connectivity and built in stereo speakers.

5. HP 2000-2b20NR 15.6-Inch Laptop -400

In your quest for a high quality laptop, factors such as exceptional all-round performance, reliability and versatility in a wide range of processing tasks some of the most salient indicators. All these are factors which carry plenty of importance when you are looking for a good laptop for a college student. The best news is that when we tested this 15.6 inch laptop from HP, we found that it ticks all the boxes of this multifaceted criterion.
The HP 2000-2b20NR comes with a superfast and versatile 2.4 gigahertz processor backed by 4GB of DDR random access memory. Throw in a 500 GB hard disk, preinstalled Windows 8 OS and Intel HD Graphics 2000 display card and you have a laptop ready to take on any challenge you might throw its way with amazing ease.

4. Gateway 10.1″ Laptop 2GB 320GB 290

If you are looking for a high performance yet ultra-portable college student laptop, you can hardly better this deal from Gateway. Driven by a 1.46GHz Intel Celeron N2805 processor and relying on 2 GB of DDR3 SDRAM internal memory, you will soon begin to run out of challenges to make this lightweight notebook groan. A 320GB hard disk is big enough to provide all the storage you need for your college projects and still leave plenty of space for music and video entertainment features.
The 10.1″ HD screen is good enough for top of the range entertainment and gaming. What is more, as the notebook is driven by the latest version of Windows 8 OS, you are well primed to swipe, touch and tap your way through the web. And when you are done, the notebook folds up to an inch “thin” slab which will easily slide into your backpack with your books and lecture notes.

3. Dell Inspiron i15RV-10953BLK 15.6″, Intel Core i3, 6GB, 1TB

This is a laptop tooled to provide the most demanding of students with all the tools and leeway to succeed while offering gateways to relax and have it easy in equal measure. Built around the latest generation of third generation Intel Core set of processors (Intel Core i3-3217U CPU) and running the latest Windows 8 operating system, there is no task too complex or convoluted for this laptop to break a sweat while executing it. This is all the more apparent when you throw in the 6 gigabytes of DDR3 memory and the 1 terabyte hard disk.
The laptop’s 1 5.6″ WLED display screen with Truelife viewing experience offers the crispiest and stunning high definition delivery of graphics and video available on a portable computer. The 2014 version of the laptop features a new ultra-thin design too. At just over an inch at its thickest point, this version is around 21% thinner compared to the previous model. Portability and workhorse performance have never come in a tidier package.

2. Lenovo Thinkpad T440 14″ i5-4300U 8GB 500GB

Whether you prioritize ultra high speeds, stunning display or effortless data crunching capability in your laptop computer, chances are that you will keep coming back to this Lenovo 14 -inch display laptop in your search. It is the latest reincarnation of the award winning Lenovo Thinkpad series of high performance devices and comes backed up by innovative technology as well as limitless performance capacity that is most likely to remain underutilized for your entire college years.
Powered by the latest, third generation Intel Core i5-4300U Dual Core Processor with 3 megs of cache memory and capable of speeding up to 2.90GHz processing speeds, you are ready to cruise to peak performance without as much as a squeak. Add to this the cavernous 500GB hard disk optimized to perform at 7200rpm speeds and your quest for robust and versatile storage just got a timely boost.

1. Acer 15.6″ AS5251-1513 Notebook Pc 2GB DDR3 250GB HDMI

The AS5251-1513 Notebook from Acer represents real value for money especially when you consider its impressive array of high performance features. The most notable of these features are the 15.6 inch screen with a maximum resolution of 1366X768 pixels, 250 gigabyte DDR3 random access memory, not to mention inbuilt webcam, HDMI capability and card reader.
While some may consider the packaged AMD V120 single core processor as no match for the new generation of dual core processors, in actual fact there is barely perceptible difference in terms of speed and overall performance when performing ordinary tasks. The power saving options are worth a special mention here as you can get up to 2 and a half hour’s worth of extra battery life if you to Power Options in the Control Panel and opt for “performance” mode.

As a college student, it pays to be punctilious in your quest for the highest performance laptop whether your priority lies in data crunching or stunning sound and video processing. While a good college student laptop has to be portable and affordable to begin with, this does not mean you have to sacrifice your quest for high performance as a result. As the detailed reviews above show, leading computer brands have a plethora of high performance machines to meet and exceed this exacting criterion.