Are you looking for the best HP laptops for college students?
Well, you’re in the right place.
HP Pavilion x360
Specifications:
- 14″ FHD
- Intel Core i5-10210U
- 8GB DDR4 Memory
- 256GB PCIe SSD
We recommend the HP Pavilion x360 as the Best HP Laptop For College Students. Performance-wise, this is one of the best laptops from HP that we have ever used.
We spent hours on research and we’ve come up with the best HP laptop for each category that we think is important for college students.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the best HP laptops for college students in 2022.
Best HP Laptops For College Students
| IMAGE | PRODUCT | SPECIFICATIONS | PRICE |
|---|---|---|---|
EDITOR’S CHOICE
| HP Pavilion x360 |
| View On AmazonRead Reviews |
RUNNER UP
 | HP Omen 15.6 |
| View on AmazonRead Reviews |
BUDGET PICK
 | HP 15.6 |
| View on AmazonRead Reviews |
Best Overall
 | HP Chromebook |
| View On AmazonRead Reviews |
1. HP Pavilion x360 – Editor’s Choice
- ▶ 10th Gen Intel Core i5-10210U mobile processor 1.6GHz (with Max Turbo Speed of 4.10GHz);Ultra-low-voltage platform. Quad-core, eight-way processing provides maximum high-efficiency power to go....
- ▶ Beautiful 14" Full HD multitouch screen:The 1920 x 1080 resolution boasts impressive color and clarity. Touch, tap, glide and make the most of Windows 10. IPS technology for wide viewing angles....
- ▶8GB DDR4 Memory for full-power multitasking; 256GB PCIe SSD + 16GB Optane Solid State Drive (PCI-e) Save files fast and store more data. With massive amounts of storage and advanced communication...
The HP Pavilion x360 is our Editor’s Choice for the best HP laptop for college students. This HP Pavilion x360 brings all the essential stuff a college student would appreciate without asking for a premium price.
Before we go into any detail, we want to talk about the design of this laptop. For a student’s laptop, you don’t want a flimsy laptop that creaks every now and then. The construction of the laptop has to be durable and it should last the test of the time.
Luckily, the HP Pavilion x360 comes with a sturdy build quality and should take a few hits without creating any serious damage. The feel of the laptop also is very premium though we have a decent price point at our disposal.
Even though the laptop looks a bit bulky, it weighs around 3.48lbs making it one of the lightest laptops out there. You can easily insert this into your backpack and take it along with you for lectures.
Staying with design, HP has made a smooth laptop that seamlessly transitions into other modes. The hinges are so smooth you don’t feel anything while changing modes. These hinges are tested and will be intact for the next few years to come.
As a student, you will need a lot of connectivity options. The HP Pavilion x360 comes with a couple of USB 3.1 gen 1 Type-A ports and a USB 3.1 gen 1 Type-C port that are great for data transfer at high speeds. There is also an HDMI port for connecting your laptop to a larger, more resolution external display.
You can also find an SD media card reader which should come in handy if you’re someone who uses SD for storage purposes. This will also be useful to photographers and videographers too. In addition to these ports, you also get an audio jack as well.
What’s a good laptop without a high-speed internet connection? The HP laptop comes with an 802.11 WiFi adapter that gives you access to high-speed internet without the need for an Ethernet connection. You also get Bluetooth 4.1 which can be pretty handy as well.
The display on the HP Pavilion x360 is a 14″ laptop that comes with a 1920 x 1080 resolution. The display comes with an excellent contrast ratio and as a result, you get very good colors with deep blacks and bright whites.
The IPS panel does well when it comes to the vibrancy of the images. You can view the screen from pretty much any corner of the room, and you’ll see the same picture without any loss in the color reproduction. This display is perfect for streaming videos, taking notes, doing research, and much more.
The touchscreen is also a pleasure to use. It is sensitive when it comes to responsiveness and works well in tandem with the operating system. As s student, if you want to take notes, then you can’t ask for a better HP laptop.
The keyboard on the HP Pavilion x360 is another good selling point for this laptop. We have a tactile keyboard that gives you good feedback on typing. The layout is excellent and doesn’t meddle with your typing speed or accuracy. The trackpad is standard and it comes with support for Windows gestures which is nice.
The HP Pavilion x360 comes with an Intel Core i5 processor from the 10th generation of Intel chips. This quad-core processor comes with a base clock speed of 1.60GHz and a maximum clock speed of 4.2GHz. Without doubt, this is one of the best processors in the latest generation of Intel chips.
The processor is capable of handling pretty much anything you throw at it without any hiccups. Whether you are taking notes or working on your thesis, this processor will be the right choice for your college needs.
There are 8 gigs of DDR4 RAM in the memory department with a clock speed of 2133MHz. This memory is sufficient for most students depending on their disciplines. You should be able to multitask without having to affect the performance of the laptop.
For storage, there is a 256GB solid state drive. This SSD is pretty fast when it comes to reading and writing speeds. You can move even GBs of data around in just a few seconds which is great for a student. In addition to space, the SSD also brings the advantage of performance to the laptop as well.
Regarding graphics, the HP Pavilion x360 comes with only the integrated graphics card. The lack of a dedicated graphics card shouldn’t be a problem unless you’ve to work on modeling or other graphically-intensive stuff. If that’s the case, we recommend going for a laptop with a dedicated graphics card.
The battery life of the laptop is also pretty good. With light use, you should be able to go through your entire day at school without recharging. Even on your heavy performance days, the laptop should last for a solid 6 hours which is very good.
Overall, the HP Pavilion x360 is an excellent laptop. It is not the laptop with the best specs or performance, but it is the best laptop with the right combination of performance and pricing. If you’re looking for a laptop that is affordable and a workhorse, this is the one.
- Excellent design
- Stunning battery life
- Good performance
- None at this Price Range/li>
2. HP Omen 15.6 – RUNNER UP
- 【Upgraded】Seal is opened for upgrade only, 1-Year warranty on Upgraded RAM/SSD from SnowBell, and original 1-Year Manufacture warranty on remaining components.【16.1" QHD 165Hz Display】2560 x...
- 【11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H】Ultra-low-voltage platform. Octa-core, sixteen-way processing provides maximum high-efficiency power to go. Audio by B&O with dual speakers & HP Wide Vision HD...
- V
The best HP gaming laptop for college students is this HP Omen model. Again, this is not the best HD gaming laptop there is but the best choice for students considering an affordable price point.
This HP omen laptop comes at a decent price under $900 and delivers very good hardware that will give you pleasant gaming experience. You will not find all the bells and whistles you find in high-end gaming laptops, but this one will run games and is very good at it.
Right from the design of the laptop, you can tell that this is a gaming laptop. The device comes in dark black and has red accents all over the place. Being a gaming laptop you can find large ones behind the laptop and at the bottom of the device.
The display we have here is a 15.6-inch one that comes with full HD resolution. The display as of the IPS micro-edge LED type which is a slight improvement over the usual IPS panels we find on laptops. The picture quality of the display is excellent and you will have a great time playing games and consuming media on this display.
One of the concerns we have about this laptop is that this is not a portable laptop. Since we are focusing on gaming here, this laptop comes with all the top-notch gaming hardware you need and does not focus anywhere else. However, the laptop weighs just 5.34 pounds which is not that bad for a full-fledged gaming laptop.
The graphics card we have here is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650. This is an upper mid-range graphics card and it comes with 4 GB of dedicated video RAM. This is a pretty good graphics card and it allows you to play almost all the games without any issues.
Let’s talk about the keyboard. We have a full-size island-style red-backlit keyboard that comes with a dedicated number pad as well. The keyboard as good travel and kiss you and feedback to ensure a pleasant typing experience. The backlighting definitely helps when you’re stuck in a dark environment.
The trackpad comes with support for Windows gestures as this is a Windows precision trackpad. It has a smooth surface are you going to glide all along without any friction whatsoever.
For processing power, we have a nine generation Intel Core i5 processor. This quad-core processor comes with a base clock frequency of 2.4 GHz which can go up to 4.1 GHz with the help of a turbo boost. The processor also has a smart cache memory of 8 MB which should come in handy when you’re dealing with everyday applications.
This processor is one of the best i5 chips in the ninth generation and is a high-performance processor which means you’re going to get excellent performance without any issues. You can do pretty much throw any game or heavy application at this laptop and it will run smoothly.
Play memory department comes loaded with 12GB of RAM which is adequate memory to have decent gaming experience. This memory will also allow you to do multitasking without any restrictions as a student.
When it comes to storage we have a combination of both a hard disk drive as well as a solid-state drive. We have a 1TB hard disk drive and 128GB solid-state drive for storage purposes. this combination is a pretty good one as it gives you both the space you need in the form of an HDD as well as the speed and performance you deserve with the help of an SSD.
When it comes to connectivity, we have a lot of options on this HP omen laptop. We have USB 3.1 type C port, 3 USB 3.1 gen 1 ports, an HDMI port, a mini DisplayPort, an ethernet port, and also an audio jack. The laptop also comes with WiFi 6 which should give you excellent internet speeds and also has Bluetooth 5.0 which is the latest and greatest from the Bluetooth world.
As a student, battery life is one of the most important aspects of a laptop. But the thing was gaming laptop says that they seldom give you excellent battery life. This HP omen laptop follows the same route. With light use, you will be able to get around 5 to 6 hours of battery life but with heavy gaming, 2 to 3 hours is a stretch.
Overall, this HP omen laptop is an excellent gaming laptop for students and it comes at a price that is affordable by most. It has excellent specs and offers an amazing gaming experience which is why this is the best HP gaming laptop for college students.
- Excellent graphics performance
- Solid display
- Neat cooling system
- Not portable/li>
3. HP 15.6 – Budget Pick
The HP 15.6” Laptop Is our choice for the best budget HP laptop for college students.
When we say budget, we don’t go for the absolute cheapest laptop there is. For us, a budget laptop for students is one that most students can afford, and at the same time, they should get a good experience from that device. This HP 15.6 inch laptop achieves just that.
Let’s talk about the design of this laptop. The laptop comes in a light shade of grey and has pretty good construction. Even though most of the laptop is just plastic, It doesn’t feel super cheap. One of the good things about this laptop is that despite having a 15.6-inch screen, it weighs just around 3.75lbs which is super portable.
The laptop also excels when it comes to battery life. With light use, you should be able to get around 10 hours of battery life which is pretty good considering the price. Another good thing is that this laptop comes with support for fast charging which means you will get 50% charge in approximately 45 minutes which is really cool.
The 15 point inch display comes with full HD resolution and has more than 2 million pixels on it which gives you crystal clear visuals and vibrant details. The display is perfect for media consumption as it is a widescreen and is also very good for other everyday activities as well.
One thing to note here is that the display comes with thin bezels on its sides which gives a screen to body ratio of 82% which is pretty good. If you’re a fan of modern-looking displays, then this one will impress you.
The laptop comes with dual-array microphones and two mics to make the media consumption experience more wholesome. The laptop can definitely fill a small room with sufficient sound and can manage to fill a mid-size room without any problem.
This HP 15.6 inch laptop is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor. This is a quad-core processor from Intel’s 10th generation of chips and it comes with a maximum clock speed of 3.6 GHz which is more than enough power for more students.
The processor does well when it comes to benchmarks and it reflects in real-life performance as well. We will be able to run pretty much any application on this laptop, thanks to this processor.
We have 8GB of DDR4 RAM in the memory department. This memory should be more than enough to do sufficient multitasking without any restrictions. You can run several applications side-by-side and you can even have browsers with multiple tabs open.
For storage, we have a 256 GB solid-state drive. The solitary drive was pretty good when it comes to reading and writing speeds. You can easily move around even gigabytes of files in a few seconds, thanks to this solid-state drive.
It boots up the operating system in a flash and loads applications super quickly. once you start using this solid-state drive, there is no way you’re going back to a traditional hard drive of any sort.
The keyboard we have here is the chiclet type keyboard that gives you a nice push and typing. Though there is not much key travel the keyboard tries to mimic the experience of a mechanical keyboard which is nice.
As this is a full-size keyboard, we also get a dedicated numeric keypad which is a nice touch. Backlighting in the keyboard which means you can use this laptop even in dark environments without any problem. The trackpad is decent and does what is supposed to.
When it comes to connectivity, this HP laptop comes with a USB 3.1 Type-A port, a USB Type-C port, an HDMI port, a media card reader, and an audio jack. Laptop also comes with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 which are the latest and greatest when it comes to wireless standards.
The lack of a dedicated graphics card is nothing to worry about as the integrated Intel graphics card will handle most students’ graphics needs without any issues. You can even play some mid-range games and even some high-end games by reducing the settings a bit.
Overall, this HP 15.6 inch laptop comes at an affordable price and offers good performance for college students. If you’re looking for a budget HP laptop that does not compromise on performance, then this is the one for you.
- Affordable
- Excellent display
- Solid battery life
- No discrete graphics/li>
4. HP Chromebook – TOP CHOICE
- Power to work and play all day: all the power you need to stay productive and entertained on a seamless Chrome experience
- Daily dose of entertainment: immerse yourself in Dual speakers and audio by B&O play, and easily share your screen with a flexible hinge that allows up to 180-degree rotation
- Processor: AMD Dual-Core a4-9120, 2.2GHz up to 2.5GHz
Chromebooks are a great option for students who mostly rely on web-based applications. If you do not depend on standalone applications and if you can work with an operating system like Chrome OS, then going for a chrome book is probably not the worst idea.
This HP Chromebook here is a very good choice for students as it comes with a decent price and also offers the best of ChromeOS. It comes with a 180° hinge which allows you to share the content on your screen with your friends freely.
One of the best things with chrome books is battery life. With the HP Chromebook, you should be able to get eight hours and 30 minutes of battery life with light use. This number will go up and down depending on the usage habits but it is impressive battery life for most students.
The display we have here is a 14-inch display that comes with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. This is an IPS display and it comes with vibrant colors and impressive picture quality. The viewing angles of this display are nothing short of excellent it is exactly what we would expect in an IPS display.
The display is perfect for streaming videos online, doing research, taking notes, and even spending time on your social media. The speakers on this laptop are decent and if you’re not an audiophile, you should be okay with the speakers even for media consumption.
The keyboard and the screen book comes with a good layout and well-spaced keys for an optimum typing experience. On typing, you get good feedback which helps in retaining your speed and accuracy. Thanks to the size of the laptop, there is no dedicated numeric pad and that might disappoint some.
The keyboard does not have backlighting which is a bit disappointing. This prevents you from working in dark environments which is where most students find them often. The trackpad is a standard one and it does well when it comes to everyday use.
The processor that powers this HP Chromebook is an AMD A4 chip. This is a dual-core processor that comes with a maximum clock speed of 2.5 GHz. Like in many other chrome books, we have an entry-level processor but it does a pretty good job when it comes to handling chrome OS and other everyday applications.
You don’t need a lot of memory when it comes to chrome books. In this HP Chromebook, we get 4 GB of SDRAM which is sufficient for efficient multitasking. You can run several applications side-by-side without impacting the performance of the device.
Coming from traditional operating systems, you might think that this is not a lot of memory. But ChromeOS is optimized differently and 4 GB of RAM is more than enough for students in most cases.
Chromebooks do not come with a lot of local storage as they predominantly deal with cloud storage. However, you do get 32 GB of eMMC storage to handle some of your data locally. This storage space also includes the space taken by chrome OS and other updates you will receive in the future.
You get a lot of options when it comes to connectivity. You have a couple of USB 2.0 ports and a couple of USB type C port which should come in pretty handy for transferring data. There is also an audio jack as well. The lack of an HDMI port is disappointing as you have to use an adapter to connect your laptop with an external display.
The Chromebook also comes with support for 802.1 1ac Wi-Fi which gives you access to high-speed internet. You also get Bluetooth 4.2 which is perfect for connecting with external devices without the need for wires.
If you are a gamer, this is not the right laptop for you. With a Chromebook, You will be able to play web-based games But they are nowhere near the quality of PC games. You will be able to play android games as Chromebooks now have support for running android applications but that’s pretty much it.
Overall, if you are a student looking for an HP Chromebook then this one is probably the best of them all. It comes with a reasonable price tag and delivers a very good performance which is pretty much what we could ask for.
- Affordable
- Good performance
- Excellent battery life
- No HDMI port/li>
That’s all we have for this post and we hope you found something useful out of it.
If you’re still struggling with finding a good HP laptop for college, do let us know and we’ll help you with that personally.
If you have any questions or doubts, do not hesitate to contact us so that we can help you with your issues.