What is the best laptop for a student?
This answer is for students who would be joining various Engineering colleges this year.
Having a laptop is almost a must have for every student. I’ll be mentioning the type of laptop everyone should have, because at some point or the other, every student in college must learn to code. And that is impossible without a laptop. And at least in IITs, everyone must have a laptop because everything, from assignments to lecture slides, is distributed online.
Look for the following- 8GB RAM, i3 or above processor with as many cores as possible(quad-core is good), 1 TB hard drive, backlit keyboard(for coding at night, but optional), good battery life (4+ hours). If you are into gaming, get a good graphic card(Nvidia GTX 1050 or above). Such a laptop is usually expensive.
If you are low in budget, you can compromise on storage, backlit keyboard and brand. i3 or above processor and 4–8 GB RAM are a must(some softwares like Android studio cost a lot of RAM).
I own an Asus FX553VD-DM483 15.6-Inch Full HD Laptop (Core i7-7700HQ/8 GB RAM/1 TB HDD/2 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050/Endlesss OS. It is an awesome laptop with the best possible features at the price. It is a great laptop if you are into gaming. It has a 2.8GHz processor and all the above features too.
If you are low at budget, you can go for either HP 15-AB032TX 15.6-inch Laptop (Core i5-5200U/8GB/1TB/Win 8.1/2GB Graphics), Natural Silver or,
HP 15-BS658tx 2017 15.6-inch Laptop (6th Gen Core i3-6006U/8GB/1TB/DOS/2GB GRAPHICS), Black. Both these laptops have enough speed and RAM to easily passout without having to change the laptop (as I predict :p).
But, nothing, and I mean NOTHING can beat this beautiful piece of art called MacBook. I regret not buying one when I could have, but went for a regular Asus laptop. If you have the bucks, please buy a Mac. It is beautiful, light, and superfast. The only thing which could stop you is gaming(and trust me, even I thought that I would start gaming, but there are many more interesting things to do than gaming). Otherwise do go for a Mac. You would never regret it. You could go for either of these-
Apple MacBook Air MQD32HN/A 13.3-inch Laptop 2017 (Core i5/8GB/128GB/MacOS Sierra/Integrated Graphics)
or
Apple MPXT2HN/A Laptop (Core i5/8GB/256GB/Mac OS Sierra/Integrated Graphics), Space Grey.
Your laptop would be your best friend(because you’ll be reading most books on your laptop). Do choose it with care and more importantly, use it well. Most coding softwares don’t need a very high end laptop, and you will be provided help by institute when needed. But still it’s always good to have a good laptop so that it doesn’t get outdated in 2–3 years.
Many of you might be thinking of buying laptops later when in college, but I recommend buying it now if you don’t have, so that you can have a hands-on experience, and get accustomed to it. You don’t wanna waste time in college installing stuff when you could be doing so much more. For now, you can watch some movies or learn something new using YouTube. I watched the Big Bang Theory and learnt guitar in this time. You can learn coding, cooking, or whatever you like.
All the best.
EDIT: Many people have been saying that Macs are bad. Trust me they aren’t. If you can afford one, go for it without thinking(but don’t buy a low end Mac if you can buy a better one). Also, all the above laptops can easily use all softwares used in engineering(AUTO CAD, MATLAB, Android studio(mostly, 8GB laptop recommended), etc.
