You may be wondering exactly what kind of laptop you need for your college work as you prepare to go back to school in 3. It's not as simple a resolution as you might think. A good student laptop has different requirements than a high-end machine for a professional or gamer. You might be tempted to buy a Max MacBook Pro for example, but considering the cost, this might not be the most ideal solution. A powerful laptop may be required for academic work based on your major. Engineering students will need a powerful graphics processor and processor to run their projects, just like anyone who edits videos or designs in XNUMXD. However, a Chromebook with just XNUMX GB of RAM should be more than enough for any student whose most essential projects consist of work sessions. To help you determine what kind of laptop you need for working in college (and probably gaming on the side), we've put together some tips to guide your research. This way, you can find the right notebook for your specific needs, especially since what works for one student may not work for another. In fact, you could end up saving money by buying a laptop that is more convenient for your specific studies.
You don't need a powerful laptop to compose
At TechRadar, we do a lot of typing, so you can believe it: you don't need an absolute laptop to write. As long as you have eight GB of RAM, even four GB if you're strapped for cash, you should be fine most of the time. This is especially true if you're only working on one or two projects at a time, since the individual tabs in Google Docs really won't consume too many system resources. However, we recognize that there are some people who like to have thirty little browser tabs open while listening to Apple Music (clearly we are to blame). If that's a luxury you can't live without, the 2GB increase in RAM is worth the cost of admission. Now, let's talk about your processor. If you've been looking for a laptop for a while, you've probably seen a lot of them that advertise an Intel Core i7 or Core i9 processor, most likely with a 4-figure price tag. You don't need it either. For most people, an Intel Core i5 processor will be more than enough to get the job done, especially if you get an 4th-gen Intel Kaby Lake Refresh or Whiskey Lake Ultrabook chip. You'll get XNUMX cores and high enough clock speeds to run whatever you need to do. Case in point: The Microsoft Surface Go is one of our go-to laptops for college students, especially those majoring in the liberal arts. It's not extraordinarily powerful, but it still has enough power to fill your general school work. It's not surprising that the Windows tablet is essentially designed to work seamlessly with Windows, as it was developed by Microsoft, but it still serves as proof that a less powerful laptop is more than enough. And don't feel stuck in macOS Catalina or Windows XNUMX, either. The best Chromebooks make great student laptops because they only pack what is needed. If everything you do for school is in a browser, you really don't just need a Chromebook. In addition to this, there are many these days that have gorgeous screens that are perfect for watching Netflix during your downtime.
Microsoft Surface Go, with a Type Cover keyboard to go with it, would be your best companion in liberal arts study areas and perhaps even design, thanks to its touchscreen and surprisingly large storage for its size.
Blinded by science
However, there are many scenarios where you may need more horsepower. Everyone's workload at the university does not start and end with writing an article. Heavy computational workloads, such as those that engineering and computer science students will encounter, will require heavier computations. For these students, it is essential to choose a laptop with a powerful processor and even a powerful graphics processor. While this means engineering students have an excuse to use one of the latest gaming laptops, there are plenty of laptops designed for heavy computing workloads. Laptops like the Lenovo ThinkPad P73 mobile workstation come equipped with Nvidia Quadro graphics cards and Intel Xeon processors to better facilitate heavy computing workloads. They are quite expensive and not the most attractive devices out there, but a mobile workstation can be ideal for engineering students. The same goes for any student who also needs to push themselves through creative workloads. If you edit a lot of video or work in 3D, a thin and light Ultrabook just isn't going to cut it. You will also need a workstation-class device in this situation. However, we understand that students don't have the money to buy a professional-grade device, so something like the Dell XPS XNUMX or a XNUMX-inch MacBook Pro should also do the job.
The XNUMX-inch XNUMX-inch MacBook Pro comes with XNUMXth-generation Intel Core processors and AMD Radeon Pro GPUs to handle intense workloads for all kinds of fields of study. In addition to this, the Retina display is easy on the eyes and you can safeguard your device with Touch ID.
Have fun anyway
College isn't just about doing schoolwork, though, we know that. If all you did was put your head down and get the job done, you'd burn out pretty quickly and no one should have to go from there. Therefore, you should also take fun into consideration. If you need to sit down and watch Netflix to give your brain a break, there's no shame in that. Thank goodness most laptops these days are capable of powering Netflix, so the trick will be to find one with a screen that meets your standards. If you're a resolution snob like yourself, there are plenty of laptops with 4K displays so you can watch your favorite shows in all their glory. Even if the laptop you choose doesn't have a built-in 4K display, just about any laptop on the market will let you connect to your bedroom TV and accept 4K via HDMI or USB, vs. But what about the game? If computer gaming is more your speed, one thing you should keep in mind from the start is that getting a laptop with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 1080 is going to be very expensive. However, if you just want to play Overwatch in XNUMXp between lessons, you can choose a laptop with either a GTX XNUMX Ti or a GTX XNUMX, and that's more than enough. If you have money to spend, we won't judge you for picking the best gaming laptops, so you can play computer games like Cyberpunk XNUMX with ray tracing enabled. You don't have to buy the most powerful laptop to get the job done, but there's no shame in accepting that you want the most powerful laptop. Life is more than a job, so have fun.
The Razer Blade Fifteen is going to be cool and serious in the campus library, and it's going to be ready to roar when it's time to jump into Fortnite. You can thank the 144Hz display, the two thousand sixty RTX GPU and the 7th Gen Intel Core iXNUMX processor hence that.
