Students who are making in some sciences, those coding with deep learning models or arts or journalism students exporting video may appreciate the extra kick of performance. For that, we like the Dell XPS 15, which is portable enough to carry around, but also goes up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti alongside 12th Gen Intel H-series CPUs. Some students may need a bit of GPU power.

If you can find a deal, great school is expensive enough. Others may just throw in a gift card or some free earbuds. It's also possible that your school will have a relationship with a vendor for deals on certain models. See if you can get a student discount: Some stores will offer you a discount with your proof of affiliation with a university or college.But some students still prefer to take notes by hand, and those people will want to consider a convertible or detachable 2-in-1 with a stylus. Consider how you take notes: A good keyboard is always important, especially when you're writing papers.Lightweight and long battery life can both save your back and leave more room for books. Weight and battery life matter: After all, you'll be carrying this laptop around all day in a backpack as you move from class to class.Of course, if you want your own copies of your work or would like to keep personal files as well as school files, budget for a bit of extra space. If they do, you may be able to get by with less internal storage. Learn if your work will live locally or in the cloud: Find out if your school or department uses cloud storage, such as Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive.

Your school or department may also have recommended specifications, so be sure to check those out. An engineering major working with computer-aided design software might want a notebook with a discrete graphics card, while students who primarily do research and write papers may be fine with a thin ultrabook. Consider your major or specialization: Science majors and liberal arts majors may have different needs.Also, be on the lookout for student discounts. Tech products are easier to find now than they were earlier this year, but there may be some items that are still hard to come by. Going into the Fall 2022 semester, the latest parts in laptops include Intel's 12th Gen CPUs, AMD's Ryzen 6000 processors (though these have been difficult to find) and GPUs, Apple's M2 chips and Nvidia's RTX 30-series GPUs. There are so many on the market, so we recommend focusing on portability, battery life and then performance based on the recommendations of your school or department.

Picking a college laptop can feel like homework in itself.

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