5 best laptops for college students 2025 | Mashable tested

The laptops we review get put to work as our primary computers. This includes trying any unique software or use cases they support. We also subject all of our testing units to a multi-app/tab stress test and Primate Labs' Geekbench 6. Gaming laptops get put through additional graphical benchmarking.

To gauge a laptop's stamina, we conduct a battery rundown test, playing an HD video at 50 percent brightness and 50 percent volume. Ideally, we hope to get at least 16.5 hours of battery life from MacBooks, nine hours from Windows laptops and Chromebooks, and one hour from gaming laptops. (They're notoriously power-hungry.)

As we're using a laptop, we zero in on certain components to evaluate its build quality. These include the display, keyboard, touchpad, webcam, speakers, and ports. We also assess its overall aesthetic and portability.

We determine the ultimate value of a laptop by comparing its performance, design/build quality, and battery life to other laptops with similar pricing, specs, release dates, and use cases. We consider any accessories it comes with, any upgrades from its predecessor(s), and its future-proofing.

Read Mashable's full review of the 15-inch Apple MacBook Air (M4).

Apple's MacBook Air has long been considered the default college laptop by most students, and the new 13-inch model makes a perfect case for that with its premium build, slim profile, and fair price. Plus, its M4 chip punches way above its weight if you decide to go into a field that requires some moderate horsepower. It's just so easy to recommend for a general-purpose user who needs a reliable machine for on-the-go productivity and entertainment. Sue me!

A few universities say their students can get away with an older MacBook from the M2 or M3 era, but the M4 version is such a good, future-proofed buy that I wouldn't bother with its predecessors. If you take advantage of the Apple Store's education pricing or encounter one of its frequent discounts from major retailers, the pricing difference is going to be negligible, anyway. At the time of writing, the 16GB RAM/512GB SSD model that fulfills most schools' hardware requirements is under $1,000 at Amazon and Best Buy.

Mashable's senior editor Stan Schroeder tried the 15-inch model, which has two extra speakers and a 10-core GPU. (The 13-incher starts with an 8-core GPU; the average person won't notice a difference.) He was most impressed by its silent power, registering a multi-core score of 14,992 for its silicon chip in Geekbench 6, our CPU benchmark. That makes it faster than 89 percent of the laptops in our testing database.

Schroeder also commended the M4 MacBook Air's all-day battery life, audio quality, and upgraded 12MP camera; if you ever take virtual classes or hop on video calls with family back home, you'll be in good shape. "Compared to the old, 1080p webcam on my MacBook Pro, the image is sharper, a bit brighter, and more detailed," Schroeder wrote.

The M4 MacBook Air makes a few concessions of note. One, its beautiful display maxes out at a refresh rate of 60Hz, so text is crisp, but moving images look a bit blurry. Two, it can get pretty hot if you use it to run games or heavy software. And three, it has very few ports — just two adjacent USB-C ports and a headphone jack (though it does support two external monitors with its lid open). If you want to rectify those issues and can afford to spend a bit more, buy a MacBook Pro instead.

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Read Mashable's full review of the 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro (M4 Pro).

If you're an Apple-inclined student who's majoring in computer science, engineering, graphic design, animation, architecture, or another field that involves demanding specialty software, splurge on the M4 Pro-powered MacBook Pro. It's also great for creators and future movie makers, as it's one of our favorite laptops for video editing. It has an god-tier display, unrivaled oomph, and a better mix of ports for peripherals compared to the M4 MacBook Air.

I just hope you still have some of your high school graduation money stockpiled.

I won't lie to you and pretend like Apple's M4 Pro MacBook Pro is affordable. I tested an upgraded configuration of the 16-inch version that came in at an eye-watering $3,649; the 14-inch version with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, specs many schools recommend for power users, costs $2,399. (If you have an external hard drive, you can go down to the 512GB version that's under $2,000.) But this is an investment that's going to be able to keep up with your intense workload without making any compromises, likely well past graduation.

For starters, the M4 Pro MacBook Pro is the fastest laptop we've ever tested, notching a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 22,758 — this trounces the next fastest laptop on the list, a $4,485 Lenovo gaming laptop from 2023 with a score of 17,711.

The M4 Pro MacBook Pro is a powerhouse, and one that doesn't require constant access to an outlet: It lasted just over 16 and a half hours in our battery life test. Its display is ideal for creatives, boasting a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak SDR brightness of 1000 nits (or 1600 nits in HDR). You can also upgrade it with a nano-texture finish that reduces glare. It has a bountiful port setup featuring an SDXC card slot, an HDMI port, and three Thunderbolt 5 ports. Finally, a 12MP webcam with a unique top-down "Desk View" feature rounds out its impressive spec sheet. To quote former tech editor Kimberly Gedeon, who tested the 16-inch M4 Pro model: "If you’re a video editor, a 3D designer, or someone who needs serious firepower, this MacBook is as good as it gets."

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Read Mashable's full review of the Acer Swift X 14 (2024).

Sturdy, speedy, and plentiful with ports, last year's Acer Swift X 14 is my top choice for students who need a Windows laptop — even over its AI-powered successor. It's ideal if you prefer Windows to Mac, or if you can't use MacBooks for compatibility reasons.

Notably, it has the dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card that some engineering programs mandate. That also makes it much better for PC gaming than a MacBook (though if you play often enough to warrant an actual gaming laptop, I have a separate recommendation for that later on).

While this 14.5-inch creator laptop isn't the newest or swankiest PC on the market, it's certainly one of the most practical — and it doesn't demand an uncapped budget. Its Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor from last year got a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 13,386, outpacing all of the current-gen Intel laptops we've tried except for a $2,119 Lenovo model. It does tend to run a little loud, but that feels like a fair trade-off considering it's zippier than 81% of the models in our current database.

That CPU is accompanied by a Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series GPU that makes the Swift X 14 capable of running specialized software and games. We got eight hours and 32 minutes of usage out of our RTX 4070 testing unit, which is below our median battery life for all Windows laptops but good for one with discrete graphics. That exact model was out of stock at the time of writing, but RTX 4050 and 4060 variants are readily available for $1,299.99 and $1,499.99, respectively. The 4050 base configuration has 512GB of storage, which is perfectly adequate for most students; if you're more of a power user, go for the 4060, which has a full terabyte.

The Swift X 14 might be a little too practical in the looks department for some people — it's a very plain gray device — but its build quality is "excellent," said Mashable's Gedeon. It's equipped with a decently springy keyboard, a large, soft touchpad, and a 120Hz OLED display that's vibrant and buttery smooth. Gedeon called the latter "a visual treat" in her review. Connectivity-wise, you get a nice blend of modern and legacy ports to work with, including an HDMI port and a microSD card slot.

Acer sells a newer, slightly cheaper version of the Swift X 14, the Swift 14 AI, but it's powered by ARM processors that college students should avoid. It doesn't have a dedicated GPU, either.

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Read Mashable's full review of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024).

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is 14 inches, with a lightweight, low-key design that sets it apart from most other gaming laptops, which can generally be described as "obnoxious clunkers." Its dedicated GPU makes it another good pick for engineering students, but unlike the Acer Swift X 14, its battery life is pretty abysmal. That's pretty standard for a gaming laptop, but I want to make sure you go in forewarned: Anyone who buys it should have easy access to a power source at all times.

The ROG Zephyrus G14 is a compact gaming laptop with an aluminum chassis that makes it seem like it's cosplaying a MacBook. It certainly won't look out of place in a lecture hall or library, and you won't have any trouble hauling it around. (At 3.3 pounds, it actually weighs slightly less than a 14-inch MacBook Pro.) It even has speakers on the sides of its keyboard à la MacBooks, which translates to above-average audio quality.

Like the aforementioned Swift X 14, the ROG Zephyrus G14 has a good variety of ports, a gorgeous OLED display, and a springy keyboard (but with added RGB backlighting, which you can turn off if desired) — all nice-to-haves for schoolwork. Under its hood, our review unit packed an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor and RTX 4060 graphics card. It wound up securing a Geekbench 6 CPU multi-core score of 12,170 (or about the same as a 15-inch M3 MacBook Air), so it's not an overachiever in the power department, but it easily ran Cyberpunk 2077, a graphically intense triple-A title. It does get a bit hot underneath, though it's very quiet.

Earlier this year, Asus released a newer version of the ROG Zephyrus G14 with a new thermal system, newer internals (including RTX 50 series graphics), and a higher price tag ($1,799.99). I think the 2024 version is totally fine for most students, but I fully endorse buying the newer one if you have cash to spare or find it on sale.

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Chromebooks may not be compatible with certain student software, and their power pales in comparison to that of regular laptops. However, the Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus is worth buying if you'd like a spare device for writing essays, taking notes, and other basic tasks. It's also a smart pickup if you need a college laptop under $500, as it's currently on sale for back-to-school shoppers.

This 14-inch convertible is the best Chromebook we've tried to date. It has a versatile form factor that you can flip between laptop and tablet modes, a sturdy design with a fancy-looking aluminum lid, a responsive touchscreen display, and a surprisingly good assortment of ports. Also unexpected: It lasted just over 12 hours in our battery life benchmark, which is about 30% longer than the current median for Chromebooks in our database.

With a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 7,024, the Flex 5i Chromebook Plus is the second-fastest ChromeOS laptop we've ever tested (No. 1 being the

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