There was a time when buying a laptop was more of a luxury and something that only the corporate sector could afford. Today, it has become a necessity for everyone, especially students. They need it for attending online classes, researching and learning various topics, preparing and submitting assignments, to name a few. Even learning various types of software is now a part of the curriculum for a lot of courses. The need for a suitable notebook PC therefore is something that cannot be ignored anymore. That being said, one of the biggest challenges that students and especially parents face is not knowing which laptop to buy. It’s a fairly complex decision, with so many factors to consider like price, computing capability, performance, battery life, ruggedness, to name a few. This blog is an attempt to help both parents and students understand the different types of laptops that are available in the market to facilitate a more informed choice.
Chromebooks
When Google launched the Chrome OS on Chromebooks it did make a huge splash in the market and now years after it was launched, Chromebooks have finally found their market segment. Students are one of the biggest consumers of Chromebooks and especially those students who are not studying technical courses. Chromebooks are great for students since most of the research or content consumption can be done on them and they are more affordable than Windows-based laptops. So, for younger kids, the ideal notebook of choice would be the Chromebook.
Normal Laptops
When it comes to buying a laptop for taking online classes and using software programs like MS Office, you need a laptop running Windows but that doesn’t mean you need to have an extremely powerful laptop. Most laptops that offer Intel i3/i5 processors are plenty capable of handling tasks that a student has in terms of school work and college work unless they are doing a course that needs a powerful machine. For most students, an ideal laptop configuration should be an Intel Core i3 or i5 processor, 8 GB RAM and 1 TB or 512 GB storage. A good example would be the HP 250 G7 laptop. It’s a perfect example of what is the bare minimum required for students to help them with their studies.
Gaming Laptops
As much as parents think gaming laptops will just be a waste of time for their children, that is not the case. Gaming laptops actually can be extremely useful and especially for college students. Gaming laptops actually provide a great middle-ground between the more powerful mobile workstations and the less powerful normal laptops. Since gaming laptops come with decently powerful GPUs or graphics cards, they can also be used for learning things like programming, coding, Photoshop, Machine Learning, animations, etc. They can serve as a gateway into the professional world. Also, they can be used for playing games since students do need to have some fun as well.
Convertible Laptops
Convertible laptops and notebooks provide the ideal middle ground between having a tablet and a laptop. Students who are in the medical field have often shown interest in tablets and convertible laptops since they are lightweight and can be used to write notes as well in a hurry. Not only that but convertible laptops like the HP Elitebook x360 have a stylus with them, which can be used to make diagrams that are especially important for medical students.
Mobile Workstations
This is a class of laptops suited for running resource intensive applications like AutoCAD, SolidWorks, and even data science algorithms. These can be useful, for students who’re pursuing engineering, as this class of devices would learn applications that they’re likely to use when they join work after completing their studies.
With this, we have covered most of the laptops that are widely available in the market. Most of the laptop segments that have been covered here are offered by HP India on their website.
Check out https://store.hp.com/in-en/default/hp-business-offers for some good deals by HP.
