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Hey, how's it going. Dave2D here.
So if your looking for a laptop for school or college
There's a lot of really good, inexpensive options and I'll probably do a video on those shortly,
But if you have a larger budget, like twelve, thirteen hundred dollars
You can get something that's really, really premium that'll last you many years
and with the new Surface products out right now, I thought I would do a video talking about
what I think are the best laptops for students.
So we have the Surface Laptop, the fifth generation Surface Pro, the thirteen inch MacBook Pro,
The twelve inch MacBook, the XPS 13, and I'll throw in the Razer Blade Stealth
Now this isn't an exhaustive list, but in terms of popularity, general availability, and pricing,
Those are my picks.
Now when you chose a laptop for school,
There's a few things that kind of come to my mind, as being really important.
And in just no particular order: build quality and portability are some of the more important things
You want your laptop to be light, but also last a long time and these all have excellent build quality
They're durable enough to toss in and out of your bag without too much worry,
And you can get some inexpensive skins to cover them up, so you don't scratch the surface.
These are from dbrand.
Another important thing is the keyboard. You want something that you actually enjoy using,
and you feel comfortable typing on.
Now, all of these have great keyboards. It's more about preference.
Some people will and some people won't like the MacBook butterfly switches
But in general, you'll get comfortable on any of these keyboards.
The Surface Pro is a 2 in 1 device with a removable keyboard
So, if you're in a classroom that doesn't have a lot of table space,
and you're often typing on your lap, I'd probably skip this one and just get a regular clamshell laptop.
The other thing, is that most of these don't have dedicated page up or page down keys.
You can do the same kinda thing with function up and down,
But if you deal with a lot of code or large documents and you want dedicated keys,
the Surface products have them.
Another thing that I think is important for a college student is, battery life.
Your laptop just has to have good battery life.
At least for a lot of students because,
There is a lot of really good devices out there that have great performance and good value,
but they just don't have good battery life and for those devices, I didn't include them in the list because,
I don't feel comfortable recommending a device with a 5 hour battery life.
The ones here all have full day batteries, so you don't need to bring the chargers with you.
Some of these laptops use USB-C to charge, so you can share some chargers,
and there's even battery packs that can charge laptops over USB-C now.
I'm not going to talk about performance to much because truthfully, you're not buying these laptops
for like blistering gaming performance.
They do all feel pretty similar in terms of how quick the overall system is
and gaming performance is also going to be pretty mediocre
But anything with a Thunderbolt 3 port, like the Razer Blade Stealth, can connect to an external GPU
for playing games.
In terms of pen input, depending on the person you are and the type of courses you're taking,
you may or may not find these useful.
Personally, I think they're amazing. You can use it for note taking, annotating course materials,
drawing, whatever you want.
iPad Pro's also have the Apple Pencil, but like I've mentioned in an earlier video,
the overall usability of an iPad Pro as your one and only computer, isn't great even in iOS 11.
So I don't recommend it as your only device.
Without a doubt, the Surface Pro is the king for pen input. The Surface Laptop can do it as well but,
it's not as good because it's got a wobbly screen. You kinda have to hold the screen while you write.
I mean, it's usable but the Surface Pro was kinda built around the whole idea of pen input.
Now I've done individual reviews for all of these, and I'll link them below if you want some more information,
but just some quick notes about them.
First, the two MacBook's. They're both expensive. Both have awesome screens with great speakers.
My only real issues with them, are the USB-C ports.
Now, my stance on USB-C has always been pretty positive, especially in 2017.
I don't mind Apple being aggressive as they have been, in terms of pushing the whole USB-C thing,
But, I don't think its the right choice for students because all it takes is just one time.
One time when you need a USB-A port on your device and you just, don't have an adapter.
That's gonna suck.
But if you can afford a MacBook, and you think can handle the dongle student life, then go for it
The new Razer Blade Stealth, with the thirteen inch screen,
is actually one of my favorite ultrabooks on the market right now.
It's really expensive though, at fourteen hundred dollars.
The older model, with the twelve and a half inch screen is nine hundred dollars,
so you're definitely getting better value there.
But overall, it's a really good device
and there's actually nothing I really dislike about the Razer Blade Stealth.
Really thick bezels, and the trackpad isn't great on the twelve and a half inch version
but it's a solid device.
The Dell XPS 13 is also really good.
The design has been around for a few years now, so it's a little stale to me,
but that's about it.
I mean I wish it had pen input.
There's an XPS 13 2 in 1 that does have pen input, but I don't really like that device.
The regular XPS 13 is boss.
And if you're on a tighter budget, you can always get the older versions, like the 9350,
for a pretty steep discount, and those still kick ass.
Alright, the Surface Laptop was supposed to be built for students
and visually, it's appealing with the cool colors and stuff.
I do like the keyboard. I like the fantastic screen.
I don't like that the screen wobbles when you're using the pen.
The other thing I don't like, is the alcantara material.
For students, you're often eating and drinking while using your computer, so, it' gonna get gross.
And lastly, we have the Surface Pro and I still think that this is the best all around device for students.
It's expensive. Especially once you add all like the pens and keyboards and stuff like that,
and it's not the prettiest device. It looks okay but its not like super gorgeous, like the Surface Laptop,
but it's very versatile. And a lot of the feature set is geared towards students and productivity.
Now, I wish it was cheaper. There's always the option of getting the Surface Pro 4,
the previous generation, that's a little bit cheaper than this, with
really similar qualities.
But yeah, I mean, any one of these devices are good. This is still my favorite.
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