With the summer months ending and the time to head back to school is quicky approaching, you need to one of the best laptops out there. There are many factors to consider when getting a new laptop and functionality, getting the best budget friendly laptop or possibly even a gaming laptop that your loved may want. We recommend going with a laptop that is running the latest version of Windows 11 if you are looking for a Microsoft windows Laptop. However, there are some other great ones if you are running in the iOS ecosystem running MACOS, then a new Apple Macbook Air 13 might just be the laptop you need. Apple also has higher end laptops like the Macbook Pro. Ultimately you will find a powerful laptop running Windows 11 from many manufacturers like Samsung, Asus which has an extensive lineup including the Asus ZenBook the Acer Aspire, and laptops from Lenovo like their wonderful Lenovo IdeaPad and the Lenovo Yoga which can operate as a 2-in1-laptop, which means this can be used as tablet as well. There are also some good options from Dell as well, such as the Dell XPS series and the more budget friendly Dell Inspiron series. Microsoft surface tablets and laptops also make great options for what you may need for school. You can look at retailers like Walmart, Best Buy and others for their available lineup of laptops, but as you will see Buydig.com has all the different types of laptops you will need.
School students including high school and college students may require something a bit simpler but something that can still operate for their school needs. Chromebooks are very popular in this regard. Chromebooks running Chrome OS can be used as the primary function in a school setting. There are some great options in this regard like the Acer Chromebook. Chromebooks are a cheaper alternative to Windows Laptops, as they usually come with less RAM or memory making them budget laptops, but make for great school laptops to complete schoolwork, as they application running on Chrome OS should suffice for all your back-to-school CPU needs.
Now that we have established a bit of what may appeal to a high school or college student, let’s take a deeper dive into what specs and features will be perfect for your loved one heading back to school. In addition, we will provide some other wonderful laptop options with tremendous build quality and other tremendous features.
What do you need to get Back to School?
What are some of the important features that a high school or college student need to help improve their schoolwork and get better grades?
Power and Hard Drives
One of the first things we recommend checking is what type of power your CPU has. For students we feel that an Intel Core I5 or the more powerful Intel Core I7 can really make a difference in how the laptop can process the apps that are running in on your screen. That would include multiple window tabs as well. Ram or memory will also help these tasks run smoothly. AMD makes a great competitor to the Intel chips with the AMD Ryzen series. While the AMD chipsets are great and usually more budget friendly, we recommend the Intel series if possible.
Having the right hard drive is also extremely important to the processing power of the computer. Stepping up from traditional HDD to an SSD hard drive which stands for Solid State Drive. These are tremendously faster than older HDD drives and make for great boot drives as well. You will see this verbiage when looking for a laptop and going with a smaller hard drive like a 256GB SSD should suffice for students. However, if they will be using their laptop for a large amount of storage, then you should look for a laptop that has at least a 512GB SSD. Not only are SSD drives faster with their read/write speeds than older HDD drives, and they have more longevity as they do not run on a platter which can degrade over time.
Graphics/Display
Having a laptop with a top-notch graphics card can mean a lot to a college student who may be majoring in art, or possibly interior designing than having a powerful GPU to run intensive graphics tasks. We recommend the Nvidia Geforce RTX lineup of graphics cards and it they are great for video editing. You will surely find the one which has the power you need for your specific schoolwork. Your laptop display may only have the power to display images in FHD or Full HD 1080P, however there are great IPS and OLED 4K displays as well. A laptop with a touch screen is also a great boon for students, as it makes schoolwork more efficient, and you can use a stylus as a pencil on your touch screen laptop.
Gamers
While you are searching for a new laptop, keep in mind that besides schoolwork, you will most likely want to play your favorite games. On a Windows Laptop, you may want to access the XBOX features and use that as your gaming device. So, getting a great GPU will not only help school work but gaming as well, with a fluid blur free display. Some great gaming laptops from manufacturers like LG, HP, or the high end MSI laptops which offer all the features that gamers will need to get upper edge in competitive online gaming.
Size you will Need
As school students are usually moving around quite a lot from class to class, the library and their dorm room, you want a laptop which has good portability. So, what size inch laptop should you get? Well for extreme portability, a 13” laptop would be great. If your student prefers a larger inch laptop like a 15” for a larger display suiting their needs, that’s okay. You can still find great 13” laptops that even with a smaller form factor can still provide the processing power and display you need for your schoolwork. Whether that be a Mac laptop or a Windows Laptop.
Connectivity
It also crucial to look at the connectivity options that the laptop you are using has the functionality and bluetooth ability to connect your peripherals like a stylus if you have a 2-1 in one laptop which can serve as a tablet like an iPad as well. Ensure that your laptop has the latest Wi-Fi 6 for fast connectivity and the ability to access the faster 6GHZ band. With a laptop supporting streaming apps like MAX or Amazon Prime, you will need to be able to connect to good, stable and fast Wi-Fi. We feel that Wi-Fi 6E would be somewhat overkill for a high school or college student, as typically the router you would be connecting to would not support Wi-Fi 6E or above. Remember school students often take their laptops everywhere they go, like a coffee shop. If you do and you are connecting to a public Wi-Fi, we highly recommend downloading a VPN app and using that for your internet connectivity. It will link you to a different server which should prevent hacks of your device. If you are an Android user and you decide on Chromebook, you will get deep integration from your device. Ensure that your new laptop has the latest USB-C port with power delivery, so you can fast charge devices or the PC from that port. Also, a Thunderbolt port would be tremendous. In addition, there should be an HDMI display port, plentiful USB-C and USB-A ports as well.
Some Final Items
Having great battery life is crucial. Students are usually running from class to class and needing the use of their laptop. Therefore, you want to ensure that the laptop you chose has a good amount of battery life, so you don’t end up in class not being able to complete your assignments. One option for this is to purchase a power bank. Get a laptop with a good camera system, you will most likely use this as a webcam for zoom get togethers or Facetime study sessions.
Enjoy your New Laptop
Remember to check out our guide for many of the things you should be looking for prior to purchasing your new laptop, whether it be a budget laptop or one of the best laptops on the market, these specs and features will help you improve your schoolwork as you progress from a high school student, to a college student and then, who knows even post grad!
Leave a Reply