The Best Laptops for School and College – Review 2022

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The Best Laptops for School and College

School and college are pretty close. We are in January 2022. If you are looking for a new laptop, which you can take with you to school or college but which will not let you down, we have chosen the best laptops available now.

In order for the guide and recommendations to be valid throughout 2022, we chose only new products from Perfect Tech News. The recommendations are divided into price thresholds and in some cases according to the main purpose: gaming or office.

Why gaming or office?

It’s not that a laptop with a stronger video card or a better processor can’t do office work. Maybe even very well. But sometimes, if we don’t need a very strong video card, we can choose to give it up in favor of things lick topper: better construction, better cooling, longer battery life, longer storage, etc.

How did I choose?

Depending on the price threshold, I tried to find the best offer. To receive as much as possible for the money you spend.

Do not forget! At the end of the article, you will find some graphics with the performance of each processor and video card present in the laptops in this article. These are intended to give you an idea of ​​how your laptop is performing compared to others. Once you have chosen a laptop that fits your needs and fits your budget, I recommend you look at them so you know how you look.

Also, beware of the ‘traps’ that you highlight in each price category. Sometimes we can be stolen because of the name of a component, let’s say it’s stronger. The generation / series of the component also matters, not just its name!

Cheap laptop up to $400

In this price category, we cannot have very high demands. I mean, we can’t ask for extreme gaming or anything. But to my surprise, I found a laptop that I think is the best buy at this price.

Lenovo Ideapad L340-15IWL laptop – around 1350 lei, I think it’s the best buy.

Here are its basic specifications:

Intel Pentium Gold 5405U processor, 2 cores, 4 threads;

4 GB RAM DDR4, with support up to 16GB – so if you have about 200-300 lei you will ever add another 4GB and you have a little beast;

SSD 256 GB;

Intel UHD 610 video card;

Ecran 15.6inch FullHD;

CAREFUL!! Yes, it’s a Pentium. Beware of the trap! There are i3 laptops in this money. Example: i3-6006u, i3-4010U. These i3s are weaker than the Pentium Gold 5405U. Both single-core and multi-core performance. Why? The Pentium on this Lenovo is a new generation, launched in 2019. And that makes a huge difference. At the same time, the integrated video card on this Pentium is also more powerful than the one on the mentioned i3s. Yes, you will not do extreme gaming, but guaranteed a League of Legends or a CS: GO on medium settings will work much better, even playable at> 60fps.

Why is he really good with this money? New generation processor, SSD so that you don’t have to bow to it to start or make a bad because you slammed it and now you can’t make that Power Point presentation for tomorrow’s seminar and a Full HD grandfather screen . Bonus: if you play windowed a CS: Go at 1366 × 768, you get ~ 100FPS on high with Global Shadow Quality on low (obviously without MSAA and FXAA) . You can also play a League of Legends on low / medium. So you can do your job and have fun with a good game or movie even if you don’t have a big budget.

The best cheap Laptop up to 500

Here the things become interesting. We have, after a long time, a favorite laptop with processor and video card from AMD. Yes! And it’s a better idea than Intel’s offer, especially for gamers.

So my recommendations are: Lenovo Ideapad L340-15API and ASUS X509FA .

As you can see in the graphics at the end of the article, the version with AMD Ryzen is significantly more powerful. There are no huge differences on the processor side, but on the Radeon Vega 8 video card side it handles much better than the UHD 620.

I have to admit that this Lenovo, L340-15AP I, is surprisingly powerful for a laptop that at promo (and usually at promo) is only 2000 lei. I find it very versatile in this money. We are talking about a video card almost 4 times better in some games vs UHD610 (from the recommendation at 1500 lei) . You can even play Photoshop with it. Enough to do a good job. Plus it has 8GB of RAM! At 2000 lei!

The only possible advantages I see with Asus above: it will probably heat up an idea less and weigh 300g less. But it’s not worth 2,000 lei, in my opinion. Half the RAM, processor and weaker video card – the trade is a bit awful. Let’s just say you have at least a 1TB HDD. But an SSD is not so sensitive to shocks and bumps, and it’s incomparably faster.

Good Laptop up to $800

Ehh, let’s just say I’ve seen better, but we’re really looking forward to it. Here we can already have certain pretensions and expectations from our laptop.

Here we already have clearly delimited Gaming and Office / ultraportable categories. So, here are my recommendations:

Gaming Laptop under $800

Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15IKB seems to me the perfect choice. We have: i7-8550U, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD (we want storage for Steam, we already allow ourselves to play more titles) , Nvidia MX150 4GB VRAM video card and a 15.6 inch FullHD screen.

It is a laptop that allows us to be more relaxed when it comes to graphics settings in light games or even to try games with higher requirements.

I recommend you to choose a coolerpad if you are determined to take such a laptop and do intense gaming. (It’s Saturday night at the dorm and you want to make a League of Legends all night long)

However, having in 3000 lei such specifications I have to warn you: the construction is not brilliant. So be kind to him, he doesn’t have the best plastics and finishes. But at a budget of 3,000 lei and with gaming pretensions, it seems to me a sincere good trade-off.

The good part: the model has (as far as I know, it has to be physically checked anyway) 4GB glued to the motherboard and a 4GB card. So you can replace the 4GB card with an 8 or 16 GB RAM. That way you can have 12 or 20GB of RAM. It’s worth the upgrade, especially if you’re a Photoshop fan or want some multi-tasking (you know, another CS: GO game, you’re writing something about that report…) .

Laptop office under in 700

Yes, and that Lenovo above can do everything this recommendation does. It’s just that, being an office laptop, not focused on the best performance, but still enough for work, we have some advantages to this HP ProBook 440 G6 :

Is the most business / professional series, ProBook;

Much superior construction and much better wear resistance;

Higher quality screen (and keyboard from what I heard) ;

Smaller and lighter – 14inch and only 1.6kg;

A more ‘premium’ look – for some it matters;

But don’t think he’s too weak. However, we are talking about a new generation i5, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD and Full HD IPS screen. So it’s a laptop that carries a lot, while it’s ultra-portable and a little more premium.

If you see it as a minus the fact that it is 14 inches, know that the image looks great due to the fact that it has a higher pixel density and… anyway you can connect it to an external TV / monitor with an HDMI cable so you can enjoy a movie as it should be. Did I mention it has a fingerprint reader?

If I wanted something of quality and portable, with minimal focus on gaming (school / work and a movie / series) … I would choose this HP ProBook . Plus it looks much more stylish. If you are a programmer, or aspire to become one, I think it is a very good choice due to its portability and quality keyboard.

Good laptop up to $1000

More than once I was asked by a laptop up to $1000 good. So this will be the last threshold of recommendation. I assume that if you are willing to spend over $1000, on a laptop, you are willing to do some research, look for reviews or maybe you already know what to look for.

At the same time, you have a lot of money to choose from. The recommendations below also take into account my preferences regarding the appearance / configuration and history of the manufacturer.

Gaming laptop for around $1000

My favorite Best Budget Gaming Laptop is the ASUS ROG G531GT . It seems to me a perfect mix between portability and performance in gaming and attachments.

Specifications at a glance:

Intel Core i7-9750H;

Placa video GeForce GTX 1650 4GB;

512GB SSD M.2;

8GB RAM;

Ecran IPS FullHD, 15.6inch si 120Hz;

Cooling a better idea versus previous generations ROG;

Cheap gaming laptop

Instead, probably the first thing I would do would be an upgrade to 16GB of RAM, so you can enjoy that processor properly – and possibly a cooler pad. With 16Gb ram you can even make video editing and more difficult tasks with it without problems. Obviously it won’t move like a workstation but believe me, you won’t make fun of yourself either. It’s a powerful laptop that handles surprisingly well in many games / programs.

Office laptop for around $1000

When gaming doesn’t really matter, we can focus on build quality.

From this point of view, AsusPro P3540FA-BQ0408R seems like a good choice for office laptop / programming / office tasks .

What are its advantages?

Good construction, premium appearance;

16 Gb ram, enough to get straight to work. (a programmer will appreciate that he has enough memory to run 1-2 virtual machines for tests or a local webserver)

Windows 10 Pro inclus;

Pretty good LED screen;

Wireless AC bun;

1.76 Kg, so quite light;

The laptop also has an Intel Core i7 like the Asus above, only it is the U version. A weaker idea with a lower power consumption. But that means it heats up less. If you type a lot or need more time on the battery, you will appreciate that the keyboard does not heat up so much and the battery lasts longer.

Ultraportable or smart laptop, around $1000

When you want something light, durable and look like you can afford an Apple but prefer Windows, this is probably one of the good options for this Lenovo ThinkBook .

Brief specifications:

laptop college and business ultraportable school

i5-8250U, quad-core;

Display 13.3 inch, FullHD, LED;

8Gb DDR4, supports 16Gb maximum;

SSD 512 GB;

aluminum body and illuminated keyboard;

1.32 Kg. Very easy;

comes with Windows 10 Pro;

good battery! is approaching 7 hours of use in net browsing, wireless. With the screen brightness at maximum;

If you’re not a Lenovo fan, HP also has a good ultra-portable alternative in this money – HP EliteBook 840 G5 is a very interesting laptop with a budget of ~ 1000 euros.

Conclusions

So yes, you can find a good, cheap laptop. Even the cheapest laptop in this article copes with normal tasks, often present in a student’s life: working in Word / Excel / PowerPoint, watching a movie – even on an external TV , with enough power to let you try a program like Adobe Photoshop – even if the 1500 lei version works harder, it works enough to learn the basics!

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