good laptop for computer science
There are so many laptops in the market, and it is overwhelming when anyone goes to buy a new laptop. You can buy any laptop you like, but that might not be the best for you. So you have to know which one is good for you. For a computer science student, that laptop needs to be powerful enough to work all day. Besides, that laptop has to be lightweight so you can carry it to college or any other place.
However, it is complicated and time-consuming when we search for the best laptops for Computer Science students. As we have said earlier, you will get confused very quickly. So buying a laptop is not as easy as you might have thought. That is why we have done all the essential research and compiled a list of the top 10 laptops for Computer Science students. Without any further ado, let's get started!
Here is our list of top 10 laptops that will work best for a computer science student in 2021 or beyond:
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Apple MacBook Air M1 (Overall Best Laptop for CS Students) MacBook's are one of the most popular laptops among computer science students because of their developer-friendly workspace. However, in 2020, Apple released their new MacBook is powered by the M1 chipset. It is an Apple-made chipset and comes with eight cores based on TSMC's 5nm processing node. As a result, you will most likely get up to 3.2GHz of clock speed. Meanwhile, this laptop comes with a 16 core neural engine which will give higher AI performance. Discount: $149.01 Apple Macbook Air M1 Moreover, the Apple MacBook Air has 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD storage drive installed, and all of them are unified on the motherboard. So you wouldn't be able to upgrade them in the future. At the front portion, there is an excellent display that is 13.3-inch large with a 3:2 aspect ratio. It is a Retina display based on IPS LED technology. Besides that, this display offers 2560 x 1600 total resolution and 227 pixels per inch, producing sharp visuals. Furthermore, this display has P3 wide color gamut support for 25% more color than an sRGB display. An HD Webcam is further integrated to help you with online classes, video conferencing, streaming videos, and working from home if you are also doing a part-time job. Seeing the beautiful panel, some students would be thinking of using it for entertainment. This is a perfect machine to do so, whether watching movies, Netflix, Youtube or listening to music. Its dual front-firing setup produces adequately loud audio output. As we know, MacBooks had never been so good in the I/O department, and there is no exception with the latest Macbook Air. The laptop includes only two Thunderbolt 4 capable USB Type C ports with DisplayPort and charging support. Additionally, it gets a headphone jack. So you will have to use a dongle to get more functions, especially if you tend to use external devices more often. Apart from that, this laptop has Wi-Fi 6 technology along with Bluetooth 5 support. The laptop is framed with solid Aluminium construction regarding the build quality, weighing less than 3 pounds. Speaking of the overall design, this is outstanding with great portability. Overall, this is a multipurpose device best suited for Computer Science students by just costing under $1000. Pros Cons 
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Dell Inspiron 15 5510 (Exceptional Performance) If you want something powerful from Dell with a dedicated GPU, Dell Inspiron 15 5510 is an ideal option for you. This laptop uses the latest 11th Gen Intel i7-11370H high-performance series processor. Therefore, it gets four cores along with eight threads. Additionally, this processor is designed on the 10nm SuperFin process for better performance. Speaking of its implementation, you will get a 3.3Ghz base clock speed. While on turbo boost mode, it can reach to 4.8GHz of max clock speed. Moreover, this laptop comes with an Nvidia GeForce MX450 graphics card with a 2GB VRAM. Dell Inspiron 15 5510 Speaking of the display, Dell Inspiron 15 features a 15.6-inch large IPS LED display that offers Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. A standard 16:9 aspect ratio is great for computer science students because you will get a more vertical area for work. The laptop further adds 100% sRGB color coverage and 300 nits of max brightness for outdoor usage. To take advantage of the powerful hardware of color-accurate display, you can utilize it for productivity tasks, such as photo editing, video editing, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, AutoCAD, etc. In the meantime, it also offers an immersive experience due to its minimal bezels. You will multitask seamlessly on this laptop because it comes with 16GB DDR4 RAM coupled with a 512GB NVMe SSD drive for faster performance. Besides, you will get a backlighting keyboard with a perfect key travel distance. Other than that, this laptop also comes with two Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports and a full-sized USB A port. This laptop has an HDMI 2.0 port that supports dual 4K output to connect to an external monitor. At last, it is a well-designed laptop for students and weighs only 3.60 pounds, and everything comes around 1000 dollars. You can spend long hours sitting in front of its screen because it offers decent battery life. Collectively, this is our primary choice for someone looking for a budget Windows laptop with excellent processing power and a fantastic display combination. The Dell Inspiron 15 5510 helps you smoothly execute the most needed applications as a Computer Science student. Pros Cons 
3
Acer Swift 3 (All-in-One Package for CS Students) Acer is a well-renowned brand and best-known for its affordable budget laptops. The Acer Swift 3 is also a budget laptop that costs less than $800. At this price, you will get a lot of value and performance. At first, this laptop features a 14-inch FHD display which is based on the IPS LED technology. It offers 1920 x 1080 screen resolution with 100%sRGB color coverage. Although color accuracy is not that important for a computer science student. Meanwhile, it gets 300 nits of max brightness, which is necessary for a computer science student. Discount: $120.00 Acer Swift 3 Inside, this laptop uses the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor. For a budget and low-cost notebook, this is a mighty processor. Speaking of that, it is a 7mn designed latest 5000 series processor. There are eight Zen 2 microarchitecture-based cores, all of which can offer 4.3GHz of max clock speed. Other than that, this laptop is powered by the AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics card. It is integrated onto the motherboard, but it offers impressive performance. Moreover, the laptop packs 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and a 512GB SSD drive. So it has enough memory to do a lot of things. Besides that, this laptop supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 at the same time. Apart from that, you will also get a fingerprint scanner for security. There are multiple ports to connect to other external things. Overall, Acer Swift 3 is a very well-built computer with strong metallic frames. So if you want a powerful budget laptop, go with this one as it will give better performance than most other laptops in this category. This is a complete package for everything, whether you are a student, business owner, or want to use it for just personal usage. Pros Cons 
4
Acer Predator Helios 300 (Gaming + Study) Acer is a prominent laptop manufacturer and offers a lot of laptops at different prices. You will see their laptops at every cost. For that reason, we have included the Acer Predator Helios 300 in this article. It is a gaming laptop featuring a traditional 15.6-inch FHD IPS LED display. This display comes with 1920 × 1080 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Along with that, this is a high refresh rate display as it offers a 144Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. So you will get a smooth and lag-free experience. Acer Predator Helio 300 The laptop is powered by the Intel Core i7-11800H processor. As you know, it belongs to the Tiger Lake 11th Gen series. There are eight cores combined with sixteen threads in this processor. That means you will get up to 4.6GHz of clock speed. Meanwhile, this laptop comes with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card. It belongs to the newly-launched RTX 30 series (RTX 3050, RTX 3060, RTX 3070, RTX 3080) with 6GB GDDR6 VRAM. Besides, this GPU has all the features, including Tensor cores, Ray Tracing, DirectX 12 Ultimate support. Not only gaming, but you can also utilize this workstation for other productivity tasks, such as Solidworks, AutoCAD & other CAD-based applications, game development, 4K video editing, Photoshop, and so on. In the meantime, this laptop has 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB super-fast NVMe Solid State drive. So you will see more performance boosts. Apart from that, this laptop comes with all kinds of essential ports as you will get Thunderbolt 4 with its USB Type-C port. In terms of connectivity, it supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 wireless connectivity features. Therefore, it ensures that it will give you high connectivity speed. So if you are a computer science student looking for an under $1300 laptop, the Acer Predator Helios 300 might be the best performing laptop. This laptop will allow you decent gaming along with your Computer Science study. So, you will never get bored after spending long hours studying. Pros Cons 
5
HP Pavilion x360 (Convertible touchscreen) HP Pavilion x360 is a convertible laptop, as you can understand from the name of it. This laptop can be used as a tablet computer. Besides, it offers excellent performance despite having a very minimal design. Under the hood, this laptop is powered by the 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, which was released a few months back in 2021. So it is based on the Tiger Lake architecture. Moreover, this processor is designed on the 10nm SuperFin technology. With its four cores, it can go up to 4.2GHz of the frequency with the help of turbo boost technology. Discount: $118.11 HP Pavilion X360 This laptop also has the Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 GPU, which is integrated with the cores. On the front side, this laptop features a 14-inch display with 1920 × 1080 resolution based on the IPS LED technology. Besides that, it gets touch support for both digital pen as well as finger input. Alongside, it offers an accurate and vibrant color coverage with its 300 nits of peak brightness panel. There are very narrow bezels that provide an impressive experience. In terms of ports, HP Pavilion x360 has a wide range of ports, including a USB Type-C, two USB Type-A, and an HDMI port. Moreover, it comes with a full-sized SD card reader and a headphone jack. Inside, it features Wi-Fi 6 along with Bluetooth 5 for a better and fast wireless connection. Other than that, this laptop comes with 8GB DDR4 memory and a 256GB SSD drive onboard, which you can easily upgrade later. At last, the HP Pavilion x360 is a perfect laptop for those who want a convertible touchscreen laptop. Pros Cons 
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HP Pavilion 15 (Premium Design) Computer science students often prefer lightweight and powerful laptops. That is why HP Pavilion 15 is here and comes under $1000. It is powered by the 11th gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor. This is the latest Tiger Lake microarchitecture-based quad-core processor. These cores are designed on the 10nm process and will give 4.7GHz of max clock speed. Meanwhile, this laptop has the Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 integrated GPU. Overall, you will get good performance while coding or doing other work. HP Pavilion 15 In the meantime, you will get 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe Solid State drive pre-installed on this laptop. Therefore, you will be able to multitask seamlessly without slowing down. The laptop sports a standard 15.6-inch large IPS LED display with 1920 × 1080 resolution on the outside. It is a 16:9 aspect ratio panel with very narrow bezels around the display. So you can say it is suitable for both coding and entertainment. Besides, this display offers accurate colors and up to 300 nits of brightness. It comes with an anti-glare coating to reduce light reflections and an HD camera on the top for video calling and attending online classes. In the connectivity department, it supports the latest Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 options. Besides, it has all kinds of ports you will need in your daily life, including a USB Type-C port with Thunderbolt 4 support. The battery life is also acceptable, and it also supports fast charging, which can charge this laptop's battery 50% within 45 minutes. Overall, HP Pavilion 15 can be used for different things as it supports all the features and offers robust performance at the same time. After all, it costs less than $1200 and gives a premium design and build quality. So, we recommend this device for multipurpose usage, including your Computer Science classes. Pros Cons 
7
Lenovo IdeaPad 5 (Accessible Touchscreen for CS Students) Lenovo makes a lot of good laptops, and we all know that as they are one of the biggest laptop manufacturers in the world. So we have added the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 in this article for computer science students. It is a well-built lightweight laptop. Inside, it has the Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor. This is an 11th Gen processor made by Intel for the latest Gen ultrabooks. Besides, this is a quad-core chipset designed on the 10nm platform. With its four cores, you will be getting around 4.7Ghz of max clock speed. Discount: $46.00 Lenovo Ideapad 5 Moreover, the laptop relies on Intel Xe Graphics G7 integrated GPU to handle graphics performance. Speaking of its display, Lenovo IdeaPad 5 features a 15.6-inch FHD display with 1920 × 1080. The good thing about this display is that it supports touch input for easy accessibility. This means you will be able to use any digital pen to take notes, drawing and do other artistic work. Apart from that, this display offers a very accurate color and bright picture quality. To improve your experience further, this display is surrounded by skinny bezels and a top-mounted front-facing camera. Subsequently, it has 12GB DDR4 RAM and a 512GB SSD drive onboard for multitasking. This laptop comes with two USB Type-A, one USB Type C, and an HDMI port in terms of ports. Additionally, there is a micro SD card reader and an audio jack. For security, it has a fingerprint scanner as well. It further adds Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 for an improved connectivity experience. Therefore, Lenovo IdeaPad 5 is an excellent choice under the $800 price tag as long as you need a touchscreen and compelling hardware. Pros Cons 
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Asus Zenbook 14 (Ultra-Portable Design) Asus Zenbook 14 is the latest offering from Asus. As we know, there are several good laptops from Asus ranging from high-end gaming to low-cost budget laptops. Whereas this Asus Zenbook 14 is a mid-range laptop powered by the Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor underneath. It is an 11th generation processor fueled with a quad-core CPU and 8 processing threads. The CPU generates 4.20GHz of maximum clock speed with these powerful cores, while the base clock speed is 2.40GHz. Moreover, this processor is paired with the Intel Iris XE GPU, which is an integrated graphics card for graphics. Discount: $80.00 Asus Zenbook 14 On the outside, you will be getting a 14-inch display. This is an IPS LED display consisting of a total of 1920 × 1080 resolution. Spontaneously, it offers 400 nits of max brightness and 100% sRGB color coverage. So you will undoubtedly get a color-accurate and bright viewing experience. Asus Zenbook 14 is an ultra-thin laptop having only 14.3mm thickness and 2.69 pounds weight. Meanwhile, there is a second display, the trackpad, because you will be able to use its trackpad as a Numpad. Apart from that, this laptop comes with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 512GB Solid State drive pre-installed. However, they are upgradable for better multitasking. Other than that, it has an IR camera and a fingerprint scanner for exceptional security features. It also comes with all the essential ports like USB Type C, an HDMI 2.0 port to connect external monitors. Besides all of that, Asus Zenbook 14 offers a great display with a combination of powerful specifications and a beautiful design. Pros Cons 
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Surface Laptop 4 (Long-Lasting Battery) The Surface Laptop 4 is the latest laptop from Microsoft under the "Surface" series. This lineup is popular because of the lightweight and well-built laptops, and the Surface Laptop 4 also follows the same footprints. On the front, this laptop features a 13.5-inch display which is based on IPS LCD technology. It comes with a 1920 × 1080 resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio for better productivity. Moreover, it offers 99% DCI-P3 color gamut support, which will produce beautiful and accurate colors. Additionally, this display has nearly no bezels. Surface Laptop 4 Under the hood, the Surface Laptop 4 comes with the Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor. We have seen this chipset on many other laptops because it is one of the most powerful chipsets for ultrabooks. Therefore, this laptop has four cores and eight threads. These cores are based on the Tiger Lake architecture and use Intel's 10nm design process. In addition to that, you will be getting the Intel Xe Graphics G7 integrated GPU on this laptop. Speaking about multitasking, this laptop comes with 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe Solid State drive. You wouldn't be able to upgrade any of them as they are soldered onto the motherboard. Aside from that, it has a 1x USB Type-A port, 1x USB Type-C, 1x Surface Connect port, an SD card reader alongside an HDMI port, and a headphone jack. It further offers Wi-Fi 6 for a faster and reliable internet connection. Being a Windows laptop, the laptop runs on Windows 10 OS with the promise of a free Windows 11 upgrade. At the same time, it also supports fast-changing technology and offers a long-lasting battery. However, the Surface Laptop 4 is comparatively expensive, but it offers a very lightweight design and comes with a beautiful display. The main selling point of this laptop is its ultra-portable design, long-lasting battery, and clean user interface. Hence, it becomes a viable option for Computer Science students. Pros Cons 
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Acer Aspire 5 (Cheapest Option) Acer Aspire 5 is a low-cost laptop specially made for those who do not want to buy expensive laptops. Therefore, this laptop costs less than $500. However, it comes with great specifications if you consider its price. Under the hood, it is powered by the AMD Ryzen 3 3350U processor. Speaking of that, Ryzen 3 3350U is a quad-core chipset that has four threads. These cores use 12nm design technology and are based on the Zen+ microarchitecture. Despite being an old processor, it can give up to 3.5GHz of max clock speed. Discount: $35.73 Acer Aspire 5 You can't expect a dedicated GPU-powered laptop at this price, so it has the AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 integrated GPU, which will give a lot of performance boost. This GPU is there to offer a lag-free viewing experience. On the front, you will see a 15.6-inch FHD panel on this laptop. This display provides 1920 x 1080 resolution and a total of 82.5% screen-to-body ratio. Additionally, it has Acer Color Intelligence and Acer BlueLightShield feature to reduce blue light. Furthermore, Acer Aspire 5 gets 4GB DDR4 RAM and a 128GB fast SSD drive. But the good thing is that there are extra slots to upgrade both RAM and SSD drives. Moreover, you will have Wi-Fi 6 technology for a fast and stable internet connection. In terms of I/O ports, it has three USB Type-A ports and a Type C port. Alongside, there is an HDMI, ethernet, and an audio jack. For security, this laptop has a fingerprint scanner too. Despite being an entry-level laptop, there is a backlit keyboard, which is very uncommon at this price. All in all, Acer Aspire 5 is a powerful and well-built laptop and made for those who don't have a big budget. Pros Cons Before we move further, we need to know some key aspects you should keep in mind while buying a suitable laptop being a Computer Science student: We all know processors are the main component on any computer, whether a desktop or a laptop. You won't get a smooth experience if you don't have a powerful processor. On a desktop PC, you can upgrade or change the processor pretty quickly. But you wouldn't be able to do that on a laptop. So you have to decide on a laptop based on the processor for computer science students. Speaking of that, Intel has released their 11th generation lineup very recently, and we have many laptops based on these processors. They are compelling and power-efficient. In contrast, you will see AMD Ryzen 5000 series-powered laptops as well. They are excellent, especially in terms of multi-core performance. On the other side, Apple has its mighty M1-powered MacBooks. Graphics cards are not as important as the processor for computer science students. The latest integrated GPUs from Intel and AMD will do the job for you most of the time unless you are engaged in other activities, such as gaming or productivity tasks. If you are creating content, you need a more powerful GPU. Speaking of powerful GPUs, Nvidia is the market leader and offers their RTX 30 series (RTX 3050, RTX 3060, RTX 3070, RTX 3080) graphics card on laptops. You can easily get these laptops with extraordinary graphics performance, After the processor and GPU, RAM and storage are the essential things to have on a computer. If you have a powerful processor but don't have enough RAM, you will not get the performance you were looking for. In terms of RAM requirements, you will require at least 8GB RAM. However, it is recommended to have 16GB RAM for computer science students. Moreover, the storage drive plays an important role. Without a fast drive, you will face lags and slowdowns. Speaking of that, NVMe SSD drives are the fastest storage drives for laptops. In terms of capacity, your laptop should have at least 512GB of free space. Otherwise, you will end up consuming all the space very quickly. Computer science students are going to use their laptops most of the day. So having a bright and colorful display will make considerable differences in day-to-day life. Ideally, a 14-inch laptop display should be enough. But if you want a bigger display, go with the 15.6-inch display laptop, but going beyond wouldn't be a wise choice, because you also need a portable machine which you can carry in your classroom. Subsequently, it is always better to consider color accuracy and brightness if you have a decent budget. It will prevent unnecessary eye strain while working long hours in front of sitting your computer screen. If you want the best-performing laptop, a gaming laptop will make it possible for you. However, you don't always need a gaming laptop for Computer Science classes unless you also want to perform other graphics-intensive tasks. Your priority should be the processor because it is going to do all the processing tasks for you. Moreover, your laptop should be lightweight so that you can carry it in your backpack. Every computer science student needs a computer to work on. It will be straightforward and efficient if you have a fast and powerful laptop. Many of us prefer laptops over desktops because we get portability advantages. Besides, you have to choose the perfect notebook according to your needs. If your budget is around $1000, you will get a lot of options. As per our observation, Macbook Air 13 is the perfect choice at this price range. It is a multipurpose device with a powerful M1 chip, and you will never feel regret after getting a laptop. Its flawless performance and ultra-portable design make it perfect for a Computer Science student. Apart from that, if we go down under 1000 dollars, you will also get many options, but these are considered budget laptops. Therefore, you might not see the excellent build quality and so on. Speaking of laptops, we have the HP Pavilion x360, Acer Swift 3, and Asus ZenBook 14 are very well placed in different segments. Speaking of a gaming laptop, Acer Predator Helios 300 is there to serve you with a dedicated RTX 3060 GPU. Last but not least, if you have a restricted budget, Acer Aspire 5 will work fine under a limited budget of $400. That is it! Now you have all the options. If you have anything else to ask, you can use the below comment section!
Buying Guide – How to choose the best laptop for Computer Science Students?
Processor
Graphics card
RAM and Storage
Display
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
As a computer science student, Should I buy gaming laptops?
How should I choose the perfect laptop as a computer science student?
Final Thoughts
good laptop for computer science
Source: https://www.internetoutsider.com/best-laptops-for-computer-science-students/
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