When college season comes close, it’s time for students to look for the top when it comes to budget laptops. Every college student needs a laptop, but they might be hard-pressed to zero down on the right one, given the number of options out there. To make an easier decision, we’ve made a list of our top recommendations for college laptops for students.

HP Spectre x360 13
Flexible, powerful, and beautiful, the HP Spectre x360 is the best 2-in-1 college laptop for students. Updated with a 10 ^th gen i5/i7 CPU and a stunning, sleek, and ultra-portable design, the Spectre x360 13 is certainly an improvement over its predecessors. Some of the best aspects of this laptop include fast overall performance, vivid, bright display, and great battery life. While the speakers sound a bit shrill at max volume and the laptop runs a little warm, these cons fall short when it comes to the overall pros of this nifty laptop.

Lenovo Yoga C940
Lenovo has taken a proven formula and improved greatly upon it with the Yoga c940. With dynamic, crisp speakers, a fast performance, longer battery life, a beautiful 4K display, and a premium, slim design, the Lenovo Yoga C940 is an excellent college laptop. What’s more, the C940 has an ultra-portable, premium chassis with a unique hinge which is also a soundbar speaker. Also, since the laptop is a 2-in-1 one, the hinge is rotatable to a full 360 degrees, convert it into a proper tablet too. The only possible cons are that the battery life is a bit lower and there’s no SD card slot.

Asus ZenBook UX333FA
The Asus ZenBook UX333FA is one gorgeous-looking, premium college laptop that offers fast performance at a reasonable price. For just $850, users get 256 GB storage, a RAM of 8GB, and an Intel Core i5-8265U CPU. However, it’s the laptop’s outstanding battery life which is its biggest selling point. Apart from that, the sleek aluminum chassis which is also enduring and easy to use is what makes this laptop so great for college students. However, the dim display could be off-putting for some.

Dell XPS 13
(Best for science students): The Dell XPS 13 is the best Ultrabook overall, complete with a stunning 13.3-inch InfinityEdge display and super-thin bezel. The design is lightweight and slim, the webcam is improved, and the performance is outstanding. While the battery life could be better, the other specifications more than just make up for it.

HP Envy 13
With an Intel Core i5/i7 CPU, fantastic battery life and performance, and a portable yet attractive chassis place the HP Envy 13 at the top of the list for an overall laptop choice for college students. The laptop even boasts of a ton of new security features and powerful speakers. The newest version even has a webcam kill switch for avoiding online snooping and a fingerprint sensor.