If you’re a film or photography student and you need a laptop for photo and video editing, or if you want a laptop that can also play games, we have picks for you, too. Most schools expect students to have at least a basic computer that can access the internet, so many incoming college and university students often purchase a new system. To achieve their more-affordable price tags, these cheaper options all make serious trade-offs-in shorter battery life, bulkier size, or more-limited functionality-and they’re not likely to last as long as our picks.
#Best mac to buy for college student portable#
We also have more portable picks if you’re able to spend more, and for anyone on a tighter budget, we have less expensive options that are also well suited for younger kids who are learning remotely.
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Our top pick offers the best balance of all those factors for most high school and college students, whether they’re attending classes remotely or schlepping it to a physical classroom. A laptop’s price-to-performance ratio is the most important factor, followed by battery life, size and weight, keyboard and trackpad, and good-enough performance. The MacBook Air ( 9/10, WIRED Recommends) with the M1 chip from 2020 is one of the most powerful laptops you can get for the price, surpassing benchmark scores with top-end Intel-powered models. We test dozens of laptops every year, and for this guide we’ve rounded up the picks from our other guides that are the best for students. But choosing the right laptop can be more challenging than writing a thousand words on Proust. We have all the latest technology and supplies, with special discounts just for students so you’re ready for the whole school year from orientation to final exams.
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We think a lot of college students can get by and.
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But if you’re going to college, you might not even need a laptop anymore. College is expensive-including tuition, housing, and textbooks, not to mention food and other miscellaneous costs-so students need a reliable laptop that’ll last for years of taking notes, writing papers at 3 in the morning, and editing slides for a group project. From grade school through trade school or college, Best Buy can help you prepare for the year ahead. For most people, the MacBook Air is the best laptop on the market.