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What seems to be the best laptop for incoming students on a fixed budget? ?

I’m a High School senior that will be graduating this May. I’m already enrolled in my community college and looking at laptops. I come from a single income Family, so I need to make sure that it’s something within my budget but also one that would work well. I plan to become an X-Ray tech and know I’ll need a laptop that can handle lots of stuff thrown at it.

Thanks for your help!

medicine technology healthcare science spring26 radiology radiologytech
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Mario’s Answer

Hey Rileigh!

Thanks for the question!

I’d say that considering the needs like office suite, replying to emails, storing images, etc., I totally recommend the new Mac Neo. Plus, there’s a student discount! Check it the specs out here: https://www.apple.com/macbook-neo/specs/

You can connect an external display if you need to, and you’ll be able to extend displays via USB 3 (USB-C)for bigger images!
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Joseph’s Answer

Hmm, I'm not sure a careers website is the best place to look for laptop recommendations - you'd perhaps be better off asking someone in store (but then probably going online to get the best deals rather than buying in store). I can give a few pointers though. Firstly, it depends on exactly how far your budget will or won't stretch. You can find a workable machine for a couple hundred dollars, but if you can stretch to a few hundred more, you put yourself into a range of much more capable machines that will last you longer.

One of your first decisions needs to be around operating system platform. These days, we all do pretty much everything from within a browser, so you could probably do most things with a cheap Chromebook - that might be one of the best budget options. However, you might find the features of the online versions of software, particularly the MS Office suite, to be a bit too limited - especially if you're going to be using some of the slightly less standard features for your college work - things like managing references in your essays, putting in formulae with the equation editor etc. I'd therefore probably suggest you want a Windows laptop with the full desktop Office suite. You might also encounter niche software for viewing xrays etc that might force your hands to Windows anyway.
Screen size is one of the next decision points - do you need a lot of screen real estate to get things done, or is a smaller screen better to be lighter and more portable to lug into lectures?

A lot of other decisions will depend on what you want to also do with the laptop outside of your studies. Are you going to be gaming / streaming / downloading etc, or is it largely a gateway to the internet for learning and casual browsing? What are your browsing habits like? Do you open up research in 50 different tabs, or do you manage things offline with links and bookmarks? The more you have open at once, the more you need to focus on having a larger amount of RAM. If you're anything like me, 8GB has long been insufficient and you should focus on getting at least 16GB RAM - although if you're on a tight budget and are more disciplined, that's a requirement you might drop. An SSD for quick storage is largely standard with new machines these days, although the size you get is variable. A lot of people these days keep a lot of things in the cloud and don't need masses of disk space on a laptop, so you might get away with a small (128GB/256GB) SSD - but if you want to be gaming or video editing, you'll want more storage. Unless you're gaming, I don't think you need to be overly concerned about CPU specs - most will do everything you need.
Something you might want to think about if your budget is somewhat limited but not tied to the absolute minimum is whether you want to stretch to a touchscreen and support for a precision stylus - there's quite a lot of mid-market 2-in-ones and tablet convertibles that you can get a precision stylus for, which can be extremely handy for notetaking the sorts of sketches and diagrams you might need in medicine and radiology. You might be priced out of that market, or might prefer pen-on-paper notetaking anyway, but I personally found it invaluable to notetake equations on screen and manage all my notes digitally, so worth considering if it's possible.
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Leslie A.’s Answer

While cost is definitively a consideration, platform, storage, and what your intended us is matters as well. Are your plans to use the computer for writing papers and web searching? Then maybe consider a Lenovo. If you are doing gaming or code writing, consider Mac, HP or Samsung. What mobile device do you have? You may want to get a computer compatible with your device. You want to make sure you have a computer with sufficient RAM (suggest 16GM minimum, fast processor, and good battery life.
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Nicole’s Answer

I think Apple offers great discounts for students.
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Vanessa’s Answer

Storage, weight, battery life, web cam, windows vs MAC. I use Lenovo for work and personal use. I chose Lenovo as personal as the Lenovo I use for works well, and has important features. I prefer Windows and I did install Office. Some people like Google drive as a way of keeping files in one place.
In choosing you can consider at least 16GB RAM, 512GB+ SSD storage, an Intel Core i5/i7 (13th+ gen) or AMD Ryzen 5/7 processor, and 8-12+ hours of battery life. Prioritize a 13-15 inch, lightweight (under 4 lbs) design for portability. Essential features include robust build quality, a fast-charging battery, a decent webcam, and versatile ports (USB-C/HDMI).

Vanessa recommends the following next steps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV6HsBln6jI
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