Best laptops for students

Top pick: Dell XPS 13 — the safest all-rounder for college. It's light enough to carry all day, the screen is sharp enough for long reading and writing sessions, and it's built to last four years of lectures, essays and video calls. The trade-off is that it's the priciest sensible choice here.

Who the others suit:

• Dell 14S — a slightly bigger, touch-friendly screen for note-taking and split-screen work, for a bit less.
• Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 — the budget route if you mostly live in a browser and Google Docs; Chrome OS means no heavy Windows apps.
• HP 15.6" and HP 14" Windows laptops — fine for a second machine or a tight budget, but 4GB of RAM gets slow with many tabs open.
• ASUS Chromebook CX15 and Acer Chromebook 315 — light, cheap and great battery for pure web and cloud work; skip if your course needs Windows software.

Whatever you pick, aim for 8GB of RAM or more and a 1080p-or-better screen — that matters more than the badge on the lid.