The Best Laptops for Students of 2026

• Processor: Intel Core i7-12700H
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated)
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5
• Storage: 1TB SSD
• Display: 14-inch, 2880 x 1800, 16:10 OLED
• Battery: 5.5+ hours

The Acer Swift 3 OLED has a beautiful display that any student would appreciate. Other laptops are more aesthetically pleasing, have a better key feel, and are thinner and lighter than the Swift 3 OLED, but they usually don’t come with an OLED display.

During testing, we measured a max brightness of 421 nits, more than what most people need from a laptop. The Swift 3’s OLED display covers 99.1% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, as well as 100% of the sRGB gamut and 97.4% of the Adobe RGB gamut.

The Swift 3 OLED also features an H-series Intel processor, which is more commonly found in gaming laptops, while most other mid-tier laptops use one of Intel’s slower P-series processors. While it’s not as fast as Apple’s M3 chips or the latest-gen Intel and AMD chips, it keeps up with newer processors like the Intel Core i7-1360P.

Read our full Acer Swift 3 OLED review.

• Processor: Apple M2 Pro (10-core)
• Graphics: Integrated (16-core)
• Memory: 8GB to 96GB
• Storage: 256GB to 8TB SSD
• Display: 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR (3024 x 1964)
• Battery: 24+ hours

Apple’s MacBook Pro 14 M2 Pro is a master of all trades. It’s fast, extremely portable, packs an awesome display in a slim profile—and can reach an incredible 24 hours of battery life, the longest of any laptop we’ve tested.

Its performance keeps up with Intel and AMD’s current-gen midrange processors like the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H. The screen reaches 1,000 nits of brightness in HDR content thanks to Apple’s mini-LED, Liquid Retina XDR display, and even offers more hardware upgrades than most Windows laptops of similar size.

Windows alternatives like the Dell XPS 13 and HP Spectre x360 are compelling alternatives, but they can’t beat Apple in battery life.

Read our full MacBook Pro 14 M2 Pro review.

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 8GB (Discrete); AMD Radeon 780M (integrated)
• Memory: 32GB LPDDR5X 6400MHz
• Storage: 512GB PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD; 1 empty M.2 2280 slot
• Display: 14.5-inch, 2880 x 1800, 120Hz OLED, glossy
• Battery life: 8+ hours

If you want a powerhouse but you don’t want to pony up for the ROG Zephyrus G14, the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 is awesome. It’s a slim, lightweight 14.5-inch gaming laptop with over 8 hours of battery life that’s easy to sling in your bag and take to the lecture hall without worrying whether you’re seated next to a power outlet.

This laptop regularly comes in at about $1,000 on sale, and it has a lovely 2K OLED panel that feels like it belongs on a much pricier machine. Content creation and gaming are both a feast for the eyes on this display. The Legion Slim 5’s processor and discrete graphics are no different—this is a fast, powerful machine for just about any task.

Read our full review of the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14APH8.

• Processor: Apple M1
• Graphics: Integrated
• Memory: 16GB
• Storage: 256GB
• Display: 13-inch 2560 x 1440p Liquid Retina
• Battery: 11.5+ hours

Even though the Apple MacBook Air M1 is two generations old, this popular laptop still performs well enough to handle most productivity tasks with ease. For just $700, you get a laptop that has a bright, vibrant display, a sleek aluminum chassis, and almost 12 hours of battery life. Because you can't upgrade the M1 MacBooks after purchase, we recommend splurging on a model with at least 512GB of storage.

Compared to other laptops in its price range like the Dell XPS 13 9315, it’s significantly faster. The keyboard’s a pleasure to type on for hours at a time, and the trackpad is so smooth that your fingers will glide across it. Since it’s technically a premium laptop, you can also expect some of the best audio you can get from laptop speakers. Unless you need Windows 11 specifically, the MacBook Air is a fabulous laptop for pulling all-nighters, writing essays, and streaming high-resolution video.

Read our full MacBook Air M1 review.

• Processor: Intel Core i5-1240P
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
• Memory: 8GB LPDDR4X
• Storage: 256GB SSD
• Display: 16-inch, 2560 x 1600, 120Hz LED
• Battery life: 7+ hours

Students who need a Chromebook will appreciate the versatility of the Acer Chromebook 516 GE. It’s one of the fastest, well designed Chromebooks on the market. The 2K display and strong performance will still feel snappy in five years.

ChromeOS isn’t as versatile as Windows 11 or MacOS, but the Chromebook 516 GE’s 120Hz display and midrange processor are great for remote streaming from either a desktop PC or a cloud gaming service. Native ChromeOS apps run quickly and efficiently, and the 8GB of included memory give enough bandwidth to multitask without lag. In addition to being one of the fastest Chromebooks we’ve ever tested, it boasts Wi-Fi 6E and an Ethernet port for rock-solid Internet connectivity.

The build quality on the Chromebook 516 GE is impressive. Tossing it in a backpack won’t leave a dent, and the sturdy chassis and anti-ghosting RGB keyboard share more in common with a good gaming laptop than with a typical Chromebook. But unlike most gaming laptops, the Chromebook 516 GE’s price regularly hovers around $500 on sale.

Read our full Acer Chromebook 516 GE review.

• Processor: Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 16 cores, 22 threads, boost clock up to 4.8GHz
• Graphics: Intel Arc integrated graphics
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5X 7467 MHz
• Storage: 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 solid state drive
• Display: Dual displays, 2x 14-inch 1,920 x 1,200 OLED 60Hz, both support touch
• Battery life: 14.5 hours

If you’re off at college, you might not have the luxury of sparing some desk space for a second monitor. That’s where the Asus Zenbook Duo comes in. This laptop has two 14-inch displays that can be used together for 28 inches of screen real estate. You can hold it horizontally like a book, stack it vertically, or hide a display under the included standalone keyboard for a traditional laptop setup. The Zenbook Duo also comes with a stylus, so you don’t have to haggle with touch inputs when you need a stylus’s precision for art assignments.

When it’s time to write an essay, don’t worry. When you plop the keyboard onto the bottom display, the Zenbook Duo works like a regular clamshell laptop. And despite all the twinkling OLED lights on double the displays, you can count on the laptop to last over 14 hours before needing a recharge.

The Zenbook Duo may be cheaper than the comparable Lenovo Yoga Book 9i, but it is more expensive than many other laptops on this list. Its Intel Core 7 Ultra processor is powerful enough for casual video editing, and the integrated graphics are good enough to play esports at 60fps. However, you can get more powerful laptops for less money.

Read our full Asus Zenbook Duo review.

• Processor: Intel Core i7-13700H
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, Intel Iris Xe (integrated)
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5 6400MHz
• Storage: 1TB SSD
• Display: 14.5-inch, 2880 x 1800, 120Hz OLED
• Battery life: ~7.5 hours

The Acer Swift X 14’s discrete graphics and high end processor offer impressive performance that can handle any content creation task you throw at it. Add in almost 8 hours of battery life and a 2K OLED display, and the Swift X 14 is a fantastic laptop for students and teachers alike.

You can often find the Acer Swift X 14 for less money than the ROG Zephyrus G14 or Lenovo Legion Slim 5, but it isn’t quite as powerful. The graphics performance is enough to comfortably play multiplayer games or edit cumbersome Premiere video projects, but don’t expect it to blast through rendering intricate 3D scenes in Blender (modeling them is fine). The touchpad isn’t as refined as what you’ll find on the MacBook Air 13 M3, either.

Despite the shortcomings, the Swift X 14 is still a very good laptop. Besides, it’s one of the rare laptops with several types of ports if you need to give presentations on the projector.

Read our full Acer Swift X 14 review.

• Processor: Intel Core i7-13700H
• Graphics: Iris Xe Graphics
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5 6400MHz
• Storage: 1TB SSD
• Display: 16-inch, 3200 × 2000, 120Hz OLED
• Battery: ~7.4 hours

The Acer Swift Go 16 is faster than our top pick in almost every way—but it’s usually the more expensive of the two, and its graphics power can’t match the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, making it a less versatile machine. But if one of your must-haves is an Intel 13th-gen processor and an OLED screen, take a look at the Swift Go 16.

It chews through large Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas and data, its processor keeps pace with Apple’s MacBook Pro 14 M2 Pro (or beats it, depending on the test), and its integrated graphics performance is sufficient for “light” gaming if you catch yourself focusing on too much work and not enough playtime.

Read our full Acer Swift Go 16 review.

• Processor: Intel Core i7-1360P
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
• Memory: 16GB DDR5 4800MHz
• Storage: 1TB SSD
• Display: 14-inch, 3840 x 2400, OLED
• Battery life: 8.5+ hours

Artists and note takers should check out the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 8, a fantastic 2-in-1 laptop with a 4K OLED touch display and a pressure sensitive stylus out of the box. With almost 9 hours of battery life, it’s a great companion for long library sessions or afternoons on the quad.

The laptop’s Intel Core i7-1360P processor is not as powerful as other processors on this list, but productivity tasks and some heavy work in Photoshop won’t pose any problems. If you’re not pushing your PC to the limit every time you tackle a homework assignment, you’ll be fine.

In exchange, the Lenovo Yoga 9i provides a top-grade user experience. This laptop has some of the best speakers of any laptop we’ve tested, the trackpad works flawlessly, it has one of our favorite laptop keyboards to date, and it’s a beautiful, sturdy machine. Even with daily use and heavy commutes to and from school, the 2-in-1’s hinge feels like it could survive for years.

It’s the perfect travel buddy for students to keep their digital notes in order and read them later at night in tablet form before popping open YouTube to go to sleep. The laptop used to be $1,400, but these days it’s often on sale for under $1,000.

Read our full Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 8 review.

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050
• Memory: 16GB DDR5 6400MHz
• Storage: 512GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe
• Display: 14.5-inch, 2560 x 1600, 90Hz, IPS touchscreen
• Battery: 9.5+ hours

If you need something with enough power for light video or audio work, with a battery that lasts longer than you do through an entire day of classes, then the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is another great laptop to look into.

The Silm Pro 7's AMD processor is much faster than the last-generation AMD Ryzen chip in our Best 2-in-1 pick, the HP Envy x360. The entire laptop is configured to offer the most performance possible in such a slim profile for $1,200, but that of course raises the price.

That puts this mid-range laptop on the same shelf as the MSI Prestige 13 Evo, Acer Swift Go 16, and even the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus—but its processor isn’t nearly as fast. The battery life is nothing to ignore, though, so if you happen to find the Silm Pro for under $1,000, then you’ll be getting a great deal.

Read our full Lenovo Slim Pro 14 review.

• Processor: Intel Core i7-13700H
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated)
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5 6400MHz
• Storage: 512GB SSD
• Display: 14-inch, 2880 x 1800, 120Hz, OLED
• Battery life: 7.5+ hours

Don’t be fooled by the Asus Zenbook 14X OLED’s tiny footprint. It isn’t especially fancy, but nails the basics and then some. Film students will especially appreciate the lovely 2K display and the surprisingly rich audio in this tiny laptop.

The Zenbook 14X doesn’t have a discrete graphics card, but its Intel Core i7-13700H processor is mighty powerful on its own. CPU-heavy tasks will be a breeze on the Zenbook 14X, and you won’t have to worry about Chrome crashing when you open the 200th tab.

While you would expect a 14-inch laptop to include at most 2 USB-C ports and a headphone jack, the Zenbook 14X squeezes some USB-A ports and an HDMI port in its sides, too. The stylish metal chassis is also sturdy enough to handle getting trotted from classroom to classroom. Battery life is a bit short at 7.5 hours, but the great processor and refined body are worth the tradeoff.

Read our full review of the Asus Zenbook 14X OLED.