College students need a laptop that can make them accomplish various academic tasks and assist them with their busy routines. The laptop should be reliable enough that it will last years of writing papers and taking notes in class as well as binge-watching Netflix, YouTube and the like.
There are many brands of laptops that are designed especially according to students’ needs, but we’ll review the HP ones in this post.
HP is one of the largest and leading PC manufacturers in the world. The HP gadgets feature a unique style, and their quality and reliability is matchless.
So, whether you need a laptop for completing your random day to day tasks or need to go through graphic designing or engineering courses, in this post we have got you covered.
Here are the Best HP Laptops for College Students:
After hundreds of hours of testing time with the best HP laptops, here’s our list of the greatest you can buy.
1. HP Spectre x360-13t
Best College Laptop Overall
Specifications
- Display size: 13.3 inches
- Resolution: 1920 X 1080
- Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620
- CPU: 1.8 GHz, 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8550U
- RAM: 16 GB DDR4
- Storage: 512 GB SSD (PCle, NVMe, M.2)
- Avg. Battery Life: 16.75 hours
The HP Spectre x360 has an elegant design with powerful hardware and great performance. It is a sleek and slim laptop with top-notch features and that too with a reasonable price tag.
The Spectre x360 is lightweight and portable and has surprisingly thin bezels. In fact, the best thing about this laptop is its screen and the dazzling exterior.
This HP laptop is available in two variants; the 15.6 inches and 13 inches. The HP Spectre is convertible; you can turn it to a full-fledged tablet and back to a notebook. The laptop is perfect for college students who don’t have a lot to spend but still demand a well built, feature-complete machine.
2. HP Pavilion 14″ HD Notebook
Best Budget HP Laptop
Specifications
- Screen: 14 inches
- Resolution: 1920 X 1080
- CPU: 7th generation Intel Core i5-7200U
- Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620
- RAM: 8 GB DDR4
- Storage: 256 GB SSD
- Avg. Battery Life: 7.75 hours
HP Pavilion 14 is though not as stylish as other HP laptops, it is the most affordable one which delivers excellent value for money.
It is equipped with the 7th generation Intel Core i5 which is powerful enough to run majority of programs on the machine. It has a 14-inch crisp display coupled with 8 GB of RAM and an ample amount of storage.
The laptop features bicolored plastic case and the bottom is silver colored. The rig packs 3 Type-A USB ports and two video outputs. The keyboard of this laptop features perceptible resistance that is pleasing.
Overall, its performance is good as it has enough computing power for various functions. If you’re a student who needs an affordable option, choose HP Pavilion 14 as your companion on the go.
3. HP OMEN 15-dc1054nr
Best Gaming and College Laptop
Specifications
- Screen: 15.6 inches
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB GDDR5
- CPU: Intel Core i7 9750H Processor 2.6 GHz
- Resolution: 1920 X 1080 Full HD
- Storage: 1 TB HDD + 256 GB SSD
- RAM: 16 GB DDR4
- Operating system: Windows 10 Home
- Avg. Battery Life: 3.8 hours
This high-end HP laptop is for those college students who have a good budget and want a machine that could fulfill their gaming needs. This is a portable and advanced laptop and is designed especially for serious gamers who want to take the machine with them on the go.
The laptop features full HD or 4k display, NVIDIA GeForce graphics card, Intel Core i7 processor, VR capabilities, and advanced cooling systems. It also features hyper-threading technology and Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0.
The Omen 15 is a mid-tier laptop for students and gamers. Not only you’ll be able to play the AAA titles, but perform other functions such as editing and documentation with ease too. It delivers massive amount of power and is good for gaming and day to day tasks.
4. HP ENVY x360 Touch-Screen Laptop
Best 2-in-1 Convertible
Specifications
- Screen: 15.6 inches FHD IPS LED
- CPU: Intel Core i7 8550U Processor
- Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620
- Resolution: 1920 X 1080
- RAM: 12 GB DDR4 SDRAM
- Storage: 256 GB SSD
- Operating system: Windows 10 Home
- Avg. Battery Life: 14 hours
If you can spend a little more than the HP Pavilion costs, then you must try the HP ENVY x360 laptop. It is equipped with an Intel Core i7 processor with UHD Graphics 620, which can handle almost everything except heavy duty video editing and gaming.
The laptop is perfect for a college students who need to do extensive research, browsing, write essays, or compile budget worksheets.
The ENVY x360 has a smart and sleek look with a convertible design. The laptop is durable and offers amazing speed for multi-tasking. It features 256GB Solid State Drive which improves the productivity and enhances the speed of the overall system.
The HP Envy has a wide screen and is a good option for those who are looking forward to solid audio and clear images.
5. HP Envy 13-aq0044nr
Best Ultrabook for College
Specifications
- Screen: 13.3 inches
- CPU: Intel Core i7-8565U
- Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce MX250
- Storage: 512GB SSD
- Resolution: 3840 X 2160
- RAM: 16 GB
- Operating system: Windows 10 Home
- Avg. Battery Life: 12.75 hours
The HP Envy 13 offers a perfect balance between power, design, and budget. It’s a slim, sleek Ultrabook featuring an 8th-generation Intel processor, a discrete Nvidia GPU, 16GB of RAM and respectable battery life, all at a very reasonable price.
The laptop boasts a silver metal frame with a stylish chrome HP logo centered on the lid. It also offers some decent security features including a fingerprint scanner and a physical webcam kill switch on the side of the machine. It has thin display bezels, though they are not as thin as those of rival Asus and Dell laptops.
Overall, the Envy 13 is a capable device with compact design, bright 4K display, comfy keypad and impressive performance, making it a great choice for college students.
6. HP Notebook 4ND16UA
The Cheap HP Laptop for College
Specifications
- Screen: 15.6 inches
- CPU: Quad Core Intel Pentium Silver N5000
- Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 605
- Resolution: 1336 X 768
- Storage: 1 TB 5400-RPM SATA
- RAM: 4 GB DDR4 SDRAM
- Operating system: Windows 10 Home 64 bit
- Avg. Battery Life: 7 hours
The HP 4ND16UA is another budget laptop on our list and is ideal for students who want good performance for a low price. The laptop is equipped with an entry-level Pentium quad-core processor which is powerful enough to assist you with your writing tasks, excel sheets, watching movies, research work, and other basic tasks.
This 15.6-inch laptop features an Intel UHD 605 Graphics and 4 GB of RAM. It packs an ample 1 TB HDD storage capacity which works well for storing huge amounts of data and information. The laptop also has a touchscreen that is equipped with a 10-finger multi-touch support.
We think the HP 4ND16UA is a great choice for students who need a reliable laptop for light computing tasks and have a few hundred dollars to spend.
7. HP Chromebook X2
Best Chromebook for College
Specifications
- Screen: 12.3 inches
- CPU: Dual core 2.6 GHz Intel Core m3-7Y30
- Resolution: 2,400 X 1,600 pixel touchscreen
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 615
- Storage: 32 GB HDD
- Operating system: Chrome OS
- Avg. Battery Life: 12.5 hours
HP Chromebook X2 has a compelling convertible design that makes it very easy to use as a tablet or laptop according to your requirement. The laptop includes lots of accessories such as the Stylus and the keyboard that enhance the overall productivity of the system.
The laptop weighs 3.2 pounds and it’s 0.6 inches thick. It features dual USB Type-C ports that are split on the left and right sides. The headphone jack is present on the right while the SD memory card is located on the left. The touch screen is quite accurate and responsive, and colors look great on it.
The laptop offers a comfortable and solid typing experience and has decent responsiveness too. The battery life is perfect as it lasts all day after being charged. There is a 12.5 mega-pixel camera present at the rear that takes nice and vibrant photos.
What to look for in a College Laptop
When it comes to buying laptops for college, you don’t just need machines that could help you complete reports and assignments. These laptops can be used for multi-tasking, and thus a lot of factors should be considered.
If you’re confused about the factors to consider for buying a laptop for college students, following points should simplify things for you.
Budget:
Set a realistic budget for buying a laptop and stick to it. The price of the laptops depends on the features and components, and thus it is imperative to decide what you need.
If you need a laptop to perform basic productivity tasks, you’ll be able to get a good machine within the range of $500 to $1000. However, if you plan on increasing your budget you can get a high-end machine with a plenty of RAM and powerful GPU for $1500 or more.
Durability:
Laptops for college students must be durable as they might go through the wear and tear of daily usage. At college, your laptop will be moving around from one room to another and will bear the rigorous usage of combined studies at night.
Most of the HP laptops are designed to bear good amount of abuse but if you want a premium one, you must go for the business-class laptops. These laptops are equipped with humidity, dust, shock, temperature, and vibration resistance.
Battery life:
At college, you shouldn’t be worrying about plugging in your laptop as it is too annoying and waste of time. There are premium Ultrabooks that can provide 24 hours battery life but they are very expensive.
A good solution is to have an external battery backup with you and use it whenever your battery is out of power. There are various battery packs available in the market and most of them require a USB-C port to connect to the laptop.
Storage:
Being a college student, you’ll have to store a lot of data and information in your machine. There are presentations, documents, photos, videos, and a lot of other things that you need to store. A laptop with 500 GB to 2 TB storage is enough for fulfilling your storage needs. However, if you need more storage you can go for the external storage option, too.
Portability:
The design, weight, and size of a laptop shouldn’t be ignored if you’re going to carry it along with you to the college. Always go for a lightweight laptop with a sleek and slim design.
A large laptop of around 15 to 17 inches would be too heavy and uncomfortable to carry along to the college. The ideal size for a portable laptop for college students should be around 12 to 14 inches.
Bottom Line
Every college student realizes the importance of having a good quality laptop for the day to day academic tasks. HP has a range of different laptops in the market, but not all are suitable for the college students.
A perfect laptop for college must be powerful enough to run various software and programs, and also be able to provide entertainment during the free time. The HP laptops reviewed in this post meet all the required criteria of ideal laptops for college students.