Student laptop buyers guide
A mixture of long-lasting, lightweight and affordable notebooks for university life..
Whether you're returning to studies or about to embark on a new adventure at university, you're going to need a good piece of kit to get you through next term and beyond.
We've picked a mixture of back-to-school devices of varying sizes, prices, and performance - all perfectly suited to student life.
These machines will offer everything you need for working on the go; be it scribbling notes during lectures, writing essays, doing a spot of graphic design, editing that video you just produced, or playing games on your downtime. And of course we've taken that all-important battery life into consideration too... so here are our recommendations.
Toshiba U920t
When folded flat the U920t is just 20mm thick and weighs 1.5Kg, so it’s easy to carry around in a backpack or briefcase and this makes it perfect for on-the-go student life. The 12.5-inch (32cm) screen is bright and clear, and coated with tough Gorilla Glass to keep it safe when you’re out and about.
You can buy the U920t with either an i3 or i5 processor, so it provides as much power as a conventional laptop for running Microsoft Office and other business apps. But when you want to relax a bit the screen can slide down over the keyboard to turn the unit into a large tablet that’s great for web browsing or streaming video.
HP Envy X2
The X2's touch-sensitive 11.6-inch (29cm) screen can be removed and used on its own just as a tablet, and provides excellent image quality for browsing the web or watching video. When you need to do some real work you can just slot it back into the keyboard and you’ve got a really neat little laptop that weighs just 1.4Kg.
The keyboard and screen both have their own separate batteries, which together provide a total battery life of around 14 hours, so it's perfect for those long days spent in lectures.
Dell XPS 12
The XPS 12 is a very neatly designed Ultrabook. It only weighs about 1.5Kg so it’s easy to carry around with you, and the 12.5-inch screen touch-sensitive screen provides excellent image quality with full HD resolution. The basic model comes armed with an i5 1.8GHz processor.
When you’re done working, you can just flip the screen over and fold it flat so that the entire unit turns into a big tablet. It is kind of heavy for a tablet, but it works well as an entertainment device when you’re ready to sit back and just watch some streaming video or play Angry Birds.
Acer Aspire S7
Acer’s S7 is so ridiculously thin and light that you can’t help wondering how on earth they managed to fit everything inside it. The S7 is equipped with a 13.3-inch (34cm) touch-sensitive screen that provides full high-def resolution (1920x1080), but it weighs just 1.3Kg and measures a wafer-thin 11.9mm.
The 1.7GHz i5 variant is more than powerful enough to cope with web browsing, email and running Microsoft Office, but if you crave more horsepower you can also shell out for a model with a top-of-the-range i7 processor.
Toshiba Satellite U940-11N
The 14-inch (36cm) screen means that it’s a little large for an Ultrabook, but it folds flat to a thickness of just 20.7mm and weighs about 1.7Kg, so it’s still light enough to carry around in a backpack without doing yourself a mischief. The screen is bright and clear.
We'd recommend the ‘11N’ as its more powerful i5 processor will last you a lot longer than the cheaper model.
Sony Vaio T Series 11
It’s not much to look at, but Sony’s T Series 11 is a very light and compact 11-inch (28cm) laptop at a competitive price. This is a sturdily built laptop yet only weighs 1.4Kg, so it’s certainly light enough to carry around with no trouble at all.
The bottom-of-the-range model comes with an i4 processor running at 1.9GHz, 4GB of memory and 320GB hard disk. However, you can upgrade to an i5 processor and 6GB of memory.
Lenovo G580
The G580 is perfect for students or business users who need an affordable workhorse machine. It's a well-designed laptop for the price – solidly built, with a smart brushed metal finish and a bright, attractive 15.6-inch (40cm) screen. The moulded keyboard is very comfortable so you can type up a storm if you need to – although the almost-invisible trackpad is a bit of an oddity.
There are two versions of the G580 available but we'd recommend paying extra to get the model with the more powerful i5 processor, 6GB of memory and 500GB hard disk.
Microsoft Surface RT
Now we know that the Surface Pro is the all-powerful older brother, but for sheer long-lasting productivity (we're talking battery life here people), we'd swing towards Microsoft's fledgling tablet for studenty pursuits. Plus, the RT edition comes pre-installed with Office Home and Student 2013 RT so it has all the tools you need straight out of the box. No messing.
HP Pavilion Sleekbook 15
The Pavilion Sleekbook 15 is similar in some ways to the Envy M6, with a bright, colourful 15.6-inch (40cm) screen and good, solid build. However, the Sleekbook ditches the DVD drive and slims itself down to just 21mm thick. It still weighs 2.1Kg, but that’s actually pretty good for a laptop of this size
The price is pretty good too, coming in at around R5,900 for a model with a dual-core AMD A6 processor that runs at 2.1GHz. That’s fast enough to cope with web browsing and other routine tasks, and the 6GB of memory and 1TB hard drive provide plenty of room for all your music, photos and videos.
Apple MacBook Air
Yes we know it's doesn't fall under the 'laptop' or heck even the 'Ultrabook' bracket, but we're not going to let a name ruin it for the students...
This 2013 iteration of the Apple MacBook Air incorporates the new Haswell processor, Apple has also used newer, faster types of memory and flash storage, which means that despite the modest 1.3GHz processor speed these new models are actually slightly faster than the 1.17GHz processor used in last year’s model.
But the real improvement is in the battery life. The 13.3-inch (34cm) model now lasts for a whopping 12 hours, while the smaller battery in the 11-inch (28cm) model still manages an impressive eight hours.
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