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The best student laptops to suit all ages and budgets

Our top picks of portable and powerful student laptops are class acts

Steve Hogarty
Tech critic
Tuesday 04 February 2025 04:49 EST
Depending on your workload, you can spend as little as £250 on a great laptop for studying
Depending on your workload, you can spend as little as £250 on a great laptop for studying (The Independent)
Our Top Picks

Whether you’re just starting school or studying for your master’s degree, having the right laptop can help you stay on top of your workload. The best student laptops are fast enough to handle academic work, easy to carry between lecture halls and home, and affordable enough to be gentle on the bank balances of skint university students.

With so many student laptops to consider, it can be hard to know where to begin. If you have a preference for MacBooks, your decision is straightforward enough – the newest MacBook Air walks the line between price and performance, and refurbished models aren’t as expensive as they once were. Look beyond Apple and you’ll find a much wider variety of excellent and affordable Windows laptops and Chromebooks, all built to suit different needs.

Depending on your work, you can save money by choosing a less powerful student laptop. For everyday jobs such as web browsing, emails and penning essays, a cheap and cheerful Chromebook with a display that’s comfortable to look at during long writing sessions could be perfect for you.

Meanwhile, if your coursework involves specialist jobs such as complex coding and simulation, or processing large files when video editing and sound engineering, you’ll want to invest in a laptop with a decent CPU (or even a discrete GPU) and at least 16GB of RAM that won’t buckle under the strain.

Keep reading for our full review of the best student laptops for all needs and budgets in 2024.

How we tested the best student laptops

We spent weeks testing all of these laptops, considering their suitability for a range of different types of users. Value for money was our primary consideration for most students, but we also took into account each laptop’s potential for watching entertainment, handling specialist tasks such as coding and graphic design, as well as light gaming, because we all need some downtime.

Why you can trust IndyBest

Steve Hogarty is a tech writer with more than a decade’s experience in the technology industry. His round-up of the best student laptops is the result of hundreds of hours of reviewing laptops for IndyBest – his opinions are unbiased, honest and based on real world testing, so you can trust his verdict.

The best laptops for students in 2025 are:

  • Best overall – Asus Vivobook S15: £599, Currys.co.uk
  • Best budget buy – Asus Chromebook Plus CX34: £249.99, Amazon.co.uk
  • Best for performance – Dell XPS 13: £1,199, Amazon.co.uk
  • Best MacBook – MacBook Air (M3, 2024): £849, Argos.co.uk
  • Best ultrabook – Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: £599.99, Amazon.co.uk

Asus Vivobook S15

Asus Vivobook S15
  • Best: Overall
  • Display: 15in, 3K OLED, 120Hz
  • CPU: Snapdragon X Plus
  • RAM: 16GB
  • Storage: 512GB
  • Why we love it
    • Great value
    • Superb OLED display
    • Premium design
  • Take note
    • Snapdragon chip has some compatibility issues

The Asus Vivobook S15 is one of the best laptops around today, and is perfect for students in need of a laptop that doubles as an all-in-one entertainment device. The speedy Snapdragon processor – similar to the fast and power-efficient chip found in the MacBook Air – coupled with a generous 16GB of RAM gives the Vivobook S15 excellent all-round performance and an impressive all-day battery life.

But it’s the 3K OLED display that sets the Vivobook S15 apart from other laptops in this price range. The 15in screen is outstanding, delivering rich contrast and vibrant colours thanks to the OLED panel tech, while the pin-sharp resolution makes it a joy to work on for long hours, giving you plenty of on-screen real estate for multi-tasking without eye strain. Even the speakers sound decent, a rarity for laptops.

Round that off with a premium-feeling and lightweight metal chassis, discreet branding throughout and a full-size keyboard with number pad, and the Vivobook S15 makes the ideal laptop for students – or anyone looking for an excellent general use laptop.

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Asus Chromebook Plus CX34

Asus Chromebook Plus CX34
  • Best: Budget buy
  • Display: 14in, Full HD, 60Hz
  • CPU: Intel Core i3
  • RAM: 8GB
  • Storage: 128GB
  • Why we love it
    • Durable design
    • Comfortable keyboard
    • Affordable
  • Take note
    • Chrome OS software can be limiting

If you’re a student in search of a cheap laptop for writing and taking notes, you should consider a Chromebook over a traditional Windows or MacBook laptop.

The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 is the best Chromebook we’ve tested and, like all Chromebooks, it runs on Google’s Chrome OS operating system. That means it can’t run traditional Windows software, but instead uses browser-based apps and Android apps. If your work mostly happens inside a browser tab – like research, emails, video streaming, editing docs and spreadsheets – it will do everything you need it to. Chrome OS is simple to use, starts up almost instantly, keeps itself up to date and is highly secure, so expect zero fuss and maintenance in exchange for a more limited software selection.

The CX34 pairs a sleek design, spacious trackpad and comfortable keyboard with decent specifications and excellent battery life. You also get 12 months of Google One AI Premium included, which includes the most advanced version of the Gemini large language model.

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Dell XPS 13

Dell XPS 13
  • Best: For performance
  • Display: 13.4in, FullHD+, 120Hz
  • CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5
  • RAM: 16GB
  • Storage: 512GB
  • Why we love it
    • Great value
    • Superb OLED display
    • Premium design
  • Take note
    • Snapdragon chip has some compatibility issues

The Dell XPS 13 is the best Windows laptop you can buy right now. While it’s certainly not cheap, it’s an excellent high-performance laptop that will last you well beyond your studies.

In our review of the best laptops, we called the Dell XPS “one of the best Windows ultrabooks you’ll find for productivity”. The entry-level model runs on the Intel Core Ultra 5 processor with 16GB of RAM and gets a great-looking display, a sleek aluminium chassis and a neatly designed full-width keyboard deck that’s comfortable to work with.

Port selection is limited to just a pair of USB-C ports, but Thunderbolt 4 enables power delivery and external monitor connections should you need to expand your workspace or plug into a hybrid desk setup.

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MacBook Air

MacBook Air M3
  • Best: MacBook
  • Display: 13.6in, 2560 x 1664, 60Hz
  • CPU: Apple M3
  • RAM: 16GB
  • Storage: 256GB
  • Why we love it
    • Fast, quiet performance
    • Seamlessly integrates with Apple ecosystem
    • Slim and lightweight
  • Take note
    • Newer MacBook Air is due soon

A design icon that launched a thousand imitators, the MacBook Air is the thinnest and lightest laptop Apple offers. Despite an average price that would have most students eating beans on toast for months, the MacBook Air remains the default choice for many – and it helps that in recent years Apple’s sleek little laptop has become more affordable versus the competition.

In our review of the MacBook Air, we called it “the best general-use laptop you can buy, with gorgeous looks, weight and thickness that are the ultimate in portability, and deeply impressive performance.”

The M3 edition launched in early 2024 and delivered a significant step up in performance over the older Intel-based MacBook Air, enabling even the most processor-intensive work to be done on the go. The in-house Apple silicon offers much better thermal management, meaning the fanless MacBook Air can work harder for longer with less slowdown.

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Asus Zenbook 14 OLED

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED
  • Best: Ultrabook
  • Display: 14in, 2.8K OLED, 90Hz
  • CPU: Intel Core i5
  • RAM: 16GB
  • Storage: 512GB
  • Why we love it
    • Rich and vibrant display
    • Premium look and feel
    • Excellent performance
    • Decent port selection
  • Take note
    • Expensive at full price

The Zenbook 14 OLED falls into the same category as the Asus Vivobook S14 featured elsewhere in our list: a slim and lightweight ultraportable Windows laptop with an exceptionally good OLED display. Both are regularly discounted, and I’d recommend either for students who want an affordable but powerful laptop.

The Zenbook 14 uses the more popular Intel chipset rather than the ARM-based Snapdragon used in the Vivobook, giving it better compatibility with older or less commonly used Windows apps. This can be important if your coursework requires the use of specialist software that might only work with mainstream Intel and AMD processors. On the flipside, the Vivobook’s chip gives it better battery life, but the Zenbook 14 is no slouch either, happily lasting a full working day with moderate use.

Easily one of the best looking laptops in any category, the Zenbook 14 sports a thin and compact design and a minimalist finish. The matte lid is crossed with glossy interlocking lines – it’s a muted design, but refreshingly stylised in the world of plain MacBook lookalikes.

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Student laptop FAQs

Can students get discounts on laptops?

Yes. Most of the big laptop brands offer discounts to current and newly accepted university students, as well as teachers and staff, so it’s always worth checking if the laptop you’re buying can be made cheaper with your student ID.

Apple’s discount is the best known and can be accessed through the Apple Education Store, where you can save up to 10 per cent on most Apple products. Other companies have also followed suit: Asus offers student discounts on some laptops; Dell offers students 10 per cent off electronics; and HP offers up to 40 per cent off a selection of its products.

The verdict: Laptops for students

Our pick of the best laptops for students is the Asus Vivobook S15, particularly if you can find it at a discount. Fast, reliable and with an amazing battery life, it’s a smart all-rounder with a luscious and premium-looking OLED display perfect for watching entertainment in your downtime.

Want something cheap and simple? We’d recommend the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34. If you don’t need to install Windows software and do most of your work in a browser window, the Chrome OS powered laptop ticks all the boxes: it’s fast to boot up, secure, and has a decently sized screen for powering through workloads.

Want even more choice? Check out our round-up of the best laptops in 2025

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