It's back-to-school season and many students, especially those going to college, need to upgrade or buy new laptops to finish those assignments and research. Below are some of the coolest and most affordable laptops to choose from.
MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is one of the most popular laptops ever to hit the shelves from Apple because of its lightness and reliable performance. Apple has released a 13-inch model of the MacBook Air, which is 38 percent bigger than the previous 11-inche model that also comes with a longer battery life.
The new 13-inch MacBook Air has an SD card slot for convenience transferring files and expand the storage capacity of the notebook, using Transcend JetDrive Lite and similar accessories. However, Apple may have compromise on the resolution of the new MacBook Air. Going from any of the Retina MacBooks to the Air's 128 PPI (13-inch) or 135 PPI (11-inch) resolution is pretty jarring.
The MacBook Air 13-inch model starts at $949 per unit with 128 GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM. The old 11-inch MacBook Air sells at $849.
If you have an extra budget, you can opt for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. This is particularly recommended to students who require extra speed and power than the average Chromebook or MacBook Air. The Retina MacBook Pro also has the best series of ports: two USB 3.0, SD, HDMI and two Thunderbolt, but it costs $250 more than the 13-inch MacBook Air.
The specs of the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro are: CPU: 2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB L3 cache (Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz). Graphics: Intel Iris Graphics 6100. RAM: 8GB. Screen: 13.3-inch IPS, 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. Storage: 128GB SSD. Connectivity: 802.11ac Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.0. Camera: FaceTime HD. Weight: 3.48lbs (1.58kg). Dimensions: 12.35 x 8.62 x 0.71-inches (W x D x H)
Lenovo ThinkPad E555. At $349.99 per unit, the Lenovo ThinkPad E555 is ideal for students who are tight on the budget. On the plus side, this notebook has a great keyboard and a decent performance. Although on the downside, it has poor battery life and weighs more than the average laptop.
The Lenovo ThinkPad E555 is powered by an AMD A8-7100 APU chipset and a Radeon R5 graphics card. It has a 4GB DDR3L 1600Mhz RAM (0.67GB allocated to graphics) of RAM, 15.6-inch AntiGlare display capable of1366 x 768 pixel resolution, 500GB (7200RPM) | of hard drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.0 and HD camera. It weighs 5.29lbs (2.54kg) .
Dell Inspiron15 7000. The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 is selling at $549.99 and is powered by a Touch Intel Core i5 processor with 6GB of memory. This premium laptop with aluminum construction has a backlit keyboard and a touchscreen display with durable Corning Gorilla Glass to survive scratches.
Microsoft Surface 3. This is the cheapest and most portable Surface tablet available in the market, aside from being an ultra-lightweight computing machine. The Microsoft Surface 3 can be yours for just $499. The device is thinner, lighter, quieter and definitely cheaper than the rest.
It is sporting a Quad Core Intel Atom x7-78700 processor (2MB Cache, 1.6GHz turbo boost to 2.4GHz), Intel HD Graphics, 4GB RAM, 10.8-inch ClearType Full HD Plus Display (1920 x 1200) monitor and 128GB hard drive. The machine also comes with an 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 and a 3.5 megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and 8.0 megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus. It weighs roughly 1.37 pounds.
