Best Laptops For Accounting Students – Reviews

Are you searching for the best laptop for accounting students? Awesome! You’ve come to the right place.

In this post, we’ll look at the best laptops for accounting majors that are categorized to meet the needs of every kind of student out there.

When it comes to accounting, you’re not going to need a powerhouse of a laptop. That doesn’t mean that you can work with any laptop out there.

Getting the right laptop will make your life so much easier. Finding one laptop that fits your needs in an ocean of notebooks might be daunting.

That’s where we come in. We’ve done all the research and will give you a list of laptops that is perfect for accounting students and professional accountants.

Without wasting any more time, let’s jump in.

Best Laptops For Accounting Students

Check out our top choices for Accounting Students:

• ASUS ZenBook 13 – Editor’s Choice
• MacBook Air – Mac Pick
• Surface Book 2 – Convertible Pick
• Acer Aspire 5 – Budget Pick

1. ASUS ZenBook 13 – Editor’s Choice

The ASUS ZenBook 13 is our Editor’s choice for the best laptop for accounting students.

The ASUS ZenBook 13 scores highly when it comes to portability. With a slim profile, the laptop weighs around 3 lb making it one of the most portable Ultrabooks on the market. To make things better, this is one of the smallest 13.3-inch laptops you can find.

ASUS has significantly reduced the bezels around the screen, giving it a modern and trendy look. Thanks to these slim bezels, the laptop can now fit into the footprint of an 11″ laptop. This has also resulted in an excellent screen-to-body ratio of 88.7%.

The display comes with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. It supports 100% of the RGB color gamut and has a stunning contrast ratio of 1500:1. This contrast ratio helps achieve deep blacks and bright whites, presenting you with more colors than ever. Laptop also comes with a maximum brightness of 400 nits which is ideal.

The display is perfect for working your spreadsheets and is also one of the best for web browsing. As this is a smaller display, the pixel density is rich and gives you super-sharp images. The speakers on the device are also extraordinary making this laptop a powerhouse for multimedia consumption.

Let’s talk about the keyboard. The keyboard has a nice matte finish, delivering a pleasant typing experience. The layout of the keys is perfect and does not affect your speed or accuracy. The keyboard is backlit, allowing you to work in dark places if that’s your thing.

Thanks to its size, you do not find a dedicated number pad on this laptop. However, this is not a deal-breaker as you can easily get an external number pad and plug it into the laptop.

The trackpad on the ASUS ZenBook 13 is a Windows precision trackpad. The trackpad has a nice, smooth surface that is perfect for gliding your fingers. As the trackpad gives excellent support for all Windows gestures, you will have a satisfactory experience navigating the operating system.

The laptop shines in the battery life department. With simple use, you can easily extract 9 to 10 hours of battery life which is perfect for a flagship laptop like this. Even when using spreadsheets, you don’t have a significant drop in battery life which is impressive. You can use this laptop for an entire day without hunting for free charging points.

Processing Power

The silicon that runs the ASUS ZenBook 13 is an Intel Core i7 processor from the 10th generation of Intel chips. This is a Hexa-core processor, and it comes with enough power to handle all your spreadsheet needs with ease. Honestly, this processor is overkill for an accounting student, but you can only sometimes have enough power.

The laptop comes with 16GB of RAM is of DDR4 type. This is a lot of memory for an accounting student; honestly, it is not justified. But since this laptop comes out for pretty much anything, we thought this memory would knock it off the park.

You can run various applications side-by-side, and you won’t feel any drag on the laptop’s performance. You can also run heavy applications like photo editing and video editing apps that are perfect for utilizing the hardware on this laptop.

The ASUS ZenBook 13 comes with a solid-state drive that has a capacity of 512 GB. This is more than enough space for any accounting student. More than space, you will absolutely fall in love with the speed and performance improvements the solid-state drive brings to the table. It boots the operating system in just a few seconds and opens up any application within a few seconds.

You do not get a dedicated graphics card in the ASUS ZenBook 13 model. The integrated graphics card is an advanced one and does a fantastic job when it comes to handling the graphics requirements of an accounting student. Since you will primarily work with spreadsheets and browsers, this setup will serve you just fine.

Unless you are a gamer, you will do very well with this graphics card in place. If you are a gamer, we recommend you check out the gaming laptop mentioned in this list below.

The ASUS ZenBook 13 comes with excellent connectivity options. You get a USB Type-C port and a USB 3.1 Type-A port that are great for data transfer and external connectivity. There is also an HDMI port to connect your laptop to external monitors. The laptop also supports all the current wireless connectivity standards, which is nice.

Overall, the ASUS ZenBook 13 gives the best Windows experience for accounting students. Not only for accounting students, but even if you are a professional accountant, this laptop will be the best choice for you.

2. MacBook Air – Best Mac For Accounting Students

If macOS is your operating system of choice, then the best laptop for you would be the MacBook Air.

Do we have more robust options in the form of a MacBook Pro? We chose to go with the MacBook Air as it is more affordable and can give you all the power you need for your accounting needs.

Let’s talk about the design of the MacBook Air. The 2020 model is probably the slimmest MacBook Air. It weighs around 2.67 lbs and can easily fit into any backpack without adding anything extra. It comes in three colors and rocks a design that is both sleek and durable at the same time.

The first thing you notice after opening the laptop is the display. We have a 13.3-inch retina display with a 2560 x 1600 pixels resolution. This display is filled with more than 4 million pixels, giving us a crazy pixel density. You will be hard-pressed to find individual pixels even at a close distance from the laptop.

The display on this laptop is enriched with true-tone technology. Accurate tone technology improves the entire visual experience by bringing natural, lifelike colors. The display’s contrast ratio is excellent and manages to achieve deep blacks and bright whites.

The display can present 48% more colors when compared with the older MacBook Air. With a brightness of 400 nits, you can use this laptop even under the bright sun without any problems.

The speakers on the MacBook Air are excellent. These speakers give out 25% more volume when compared to the non-retina MacBook Air from the previous generations. It also gives twice the bass performance, which is very hard to see on a small laptop. Along with the excellent display, this speaker system gives you an out-of-the-world multimedia experience.

The keyboard on the MacBook Air is called the magic keyboard, and it comes with a redesigned scissor mechanism with a key travel of 1mm. This keyboard is a vast improvement over the keyboard to be found in the last generation MacBook Air. The Scissor mechanism is much better than the butterfly mechanism, which spoiled the typing experience for so many people.

This keyboard is a pleasure to type on, thanks to its soft keys and excellent layout. The keyboard does not get loud even when you are typing like a train flying at 200mph. Make this a good laptop for public places like libraries and cafes.

The trackpad on the MacBook Air is one of the best ones you can find on a Mac. It is 20% larger and gives you more space for all your Multi-Touch gestures.

Another addition to this MacBook Air is Touch ID. This is the same Touch ID we use on our iPhones. Touch ID brings a lot of convenience to the user by skipping entering your password. You can tap the touch ID key on the laptop and log in to your user profile.

If your laptop has multiple user profiles, tapping the Touch ID sensor will log you into your super convenient user profile. You can also use this to encrypt important and super-secret files on your laptop with the help of third-party applications.

Processing Power

Let’s talk about the processing power of the MacBook Air. An Intel Core i3 processor from the 10th generation of Intel chips powers this laptop. This i3 processor might look like an entry-level laptop, but it packs a punch when handling your everyday activities.

As an accounting student, you would predominantly spend your time on spreadsheets. This processor runs spreadsheets smoothly without any issues whatsoever. Even when you’re dealing with large files, there is absolutely no lag in performance which is perfect for user experience.

The memory department with 8GB DDR4 RAM complements the processor nicely. You can multitask efficiently without having to worry about performance issues. You can walk on your spreadsheets while browsing the web and listening to music simultaneously, which is a pretty sweet user experience.

Apple makes the finest solid-state drives, and we have one of those on this laptop. The SSD on this laptop comes with a capacity of 256 GB. With reading and writing speeds of around 2GB/s, this is easily one of the fastest solid-state drives you can find on the market. Regarding performance, this SSD does a splendid job.

The battery life is one of the major selling points of the MacBook Air. With light use, the MacBook Air can easily last for 11 hours, which is incredible. As an accounting student, this means you don’t have to charge your laptop in the middle of the day.

You can use your laptop pretty much anywhere you want without seeing if the nearest charging outlet is free. This battery life also plays a significant role in keeping sanity, as you can work freely without thinking about it.

MacBook Air comes with a couple of Thunderbolt 3 ports. Thunderbolt ports are very versatile in terms of what they can do. They can transfer data, charge your laptop, and connect it to an external 5K display. If there is one problem with the MacBook Air, it is with the I/O.

The problem is that the MacBook Pro does not come with any other port. You have an audio jack, but that’s it. This means you have to get adapters for devices that do not directly support Thunderbolt 3 ports, which could get messy.

Overall, the MacBook Air is a solid laptop with adequate specs to give you an excellent user experience. If you are an accounting student who wants to spend less money to get the best macOS experience, this laptop might be the right choice.

3. Surface Book 2 – Convertible Pick

Surface Book 2 is our choice for the best convertible laptop for accounting students.

Microsoft has been making laptops for a few years now, and the devices only get fine-tuned year after year. Surface Book 2 results from a lot of fine-tuning, which is a solid product.

If you like to have the flexibility of both a laptop and a tablet, then the Surface Book 2 will give you the best Windows experience. The main advantage of the Surface Book 2 is that you can complete an international keyboard and use this as a standalone tablet. Most convertible laptops will not give you this freedom.

The battery life of the Surface Book 2 is nothing short of extraordinary. With light use, you can get around 15 to 17 hours of battery life, which is crazy. Without the keyboard, the Surface Book 2 weighs only around 1.5 lbs which are super light and easy to carry around.

As an accounting student, you will need your laptop at any time. You will surely appreciate this battery life as you don’t have to stress about when to charge your laptop so that you can keep running. Also, you can start your day very early, and still, at the end of the day, you would have a certain amount of battery left which is excellent.

The display we have here is a 13.5-inch display that comes with what Microsoft calls pixel sense resolution. This resolution is 3000 x 2000 pixels and gives an excellent pixel density to work with. You will appreciate the crisp pictures and the shop text you see on the screen. Since you will primarily be working with numbers, the sharp text does help a lot.

There is no lack of processing power in Surface Book 2. It comes with an Intel Core i7 processor from the 8th generation of Intel chips; this processor can clock up to a maximum of 4.20 GHz, which is a lot of power for an accounting student.

The processor handles spreadsheets, browsers, and other everyday applications with ease. It is well supported by the 16GB of RAM in the memory department. For an accounting student, is this a lot of memory? Yes, but if you’re going to work with large spreadsheets and a lot of data, this memory might be the right thing.

The storage we have here is a 512 GB solid-state drive. This solid-state drive brings vast improvements when it comes to the performance of this laptop. It boots up the operating system in a few seconds, which saves you a lot of time. You can also see that applications launch much quicker than with a mechanical hard drive.

Our graphics card on the Surface Book 2 is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050. This is a pretty good graphics card, and it comes with a dedicated video memory of 2 GB of GDDR5 RAM. With this GPU in place, you can play most mid-range games without any issues whatsoever. As far as accounting is concerned, you will do fine even without this GPU, but every bit helps.

Overall, Microsoft Surface Book 2 is an excellent convertible laptop. It is not that expensive and brings a lot of good features to the table. If you’re looking for a completely detachable convertible notebook, you won’t find a better option than this one.

4. Acer Aspire 5 – Budget Laptop

The best budget laptop for accounting students and accountants is the Acer Aspire 5 laptop.

Being on a budget doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use a laptop until you can get a high-end laptop. The Acer Aspire 5 offers excellent performance with a price tag affordable for many people.

Being a 15.6-inch laptop, the Acer Aspire 5 loses all the competition regarding portability. And then, we cannot call this the heaviest 15.6-inch laptop out there. In fact, this model is one of the lightest 15.6-inch laptops, which works in our favor. Despite a little bulk, you can carry this laptop in your backpack.

The display on the Acer Aspire 5 is a 15.6-inch one with full HD resolution. Despite being a budget option, this laptop comes with an IPS panel and delivers an excellent contrast ratio resulting in rich colors and sharp viewing angles. You will love this display for consuming your favorite media content.

The display is also perfect for accounting students as it gives you a white screen to see more clearly. The texts are quite sharp, making them easy to read and browse the web. The speakers on the laptop a pretty decent but not as good as the ones we’ve seen in flagship models.

Another area where this laptop does an outstanding job is the battery department. With regular use, you will easily get around 9.5 hours of battery life which is commendable. Even when doing severe spreadsheet work or bookkeeping, this laptop should last you for at least 6 hours which is still impressive. Being a budget laptop and giving this kind of battery life is excellent as it allows people on a budget to do great things.

The processor that powers the Acer Aspire 5 is an Intel core i5 processor. This i5 processor is dual-core and comes from the 10th generation of Intel chips. The advantage of being one of the latest processors is that it comes with excellent efficiency and does a fantastic job in everyday performance. You can run your daily applications like spreadsheets and other stuff without any issues.

The memory department on this laptop is loaded with 8GB of RAM. This memory is more than enough for most accountants. You can multitask without having to worry about any restrictions. In rare cases, you will need more memory than this, making this a good choice for accountants who want to multitask.

The storage on this laptop is made up of a 256GB solid-state drive. Acer has used a solid-state drive in a budget laptop, and we cannot stop clapping our hands. The impact of a solid-state drive in a budget laptop like this one is much more than its impact on the iron machine. This laptop boots on the operating system in a few seconds and opens applications in a flash which is simply the same user experience a high-end laptop is getting, and you can thank the SSD for that.

Another thing that deserves mention is the keyboard. The keyboard we have here is a full-size keyboard that comes with a dedicated number pad. This means you don’t have to get an external number pad which is nice. The dedicated number pad is necessary for accounting students, and this is the only laptop on this list with one.

The keyboard is pretty good for typing. The keys are well laid out, as a good design, and come with good key travel. The trackpad is a decent one and does its job without making a fuss. The keyboard has backlighting which means you can work on your numbers even in a pitch-black room.

You do not get a dedicated graphics card on this laptop; honestly, it doesn’t matter. The integrated graphics card does a pretty good job of handling the graphics requirements of an accounting student. Unless you are a gamer, this machine does not need a dedicated GPU.

The Acer Aspire 5 is an excellent laptop with a budget package. If you don’t have enough money to get a premium laptop, we recommend getting this one as it will give you the nearly identical Windows experience but without the bells and whistles.

What To Look For In The Best Laptop For Accounting Students?

The best laptop for accounting students is one with good portability and the power to handle a lot of data and computations.

As an accounting student, you might want to get through calculations quickly, so you’ll need a swift device that does not hold you back in any way.

So how do you find a laptop that takes your accounting performance to the next level?

If you know what you’re talking about, you may not even need this guide. But, on the other hand, if you have no idea how to find the right laptop as an accounting student, then the below guide will surely benefit you.

Before buying one, you should be aware of the following elements of a laptop.

Portability

The portability of your laptop is very valuable. As a student, you will be moving around a lot, and you don’t have to carry a heavy device with you all the time.

For us, the correct weight of a laptop is around 3 lbs. To get a laptop in this weight range, you need a 13.3″ screen. Very rarely will you find a bigger size laptop within this weight range?

The catch here is that not all 13.3″ laptops will be affordable. The smaller laptops get, the bigger their price tags grow. If you can’t find a 13.3″ laptop within your budget, then there is nothing wrong with going with a laptop that has a bigger display. However, it will be a lot heavier than 3 lbs and can affect your portability.

Display

As an accounting student, you will spend a ton of time in front of your laptop. Getting a good display on your laptop is very important as it could affect your studies and health.

So, which is the right display size for an accounting student?

The answer depends on the student.

If the student values portability more than anything, the right here would be a 13.3″ screen.

If you’re a big screen person, we recommend going with a 15.6″ display. We would not suggest a 17.3″ display as it is too big and can cause serious portability issues.

Regardless of the size of your display, make sure you have at least a 1080p resolution on that display. This is full HD resolution and should be the minimum resolution. Full HD resolution gives you good quality images on the screen with sharp text and crystal clear pictures.

You will not be able to see blurry images or text with this resolution, and that’s nice. If you can go for it, we recommend a QHD display, as it brings more clarity to the table. Finding an individual pixel from a normal sitting position would be impossible.

Though not that important, the nature of the display is also something you can choose. You should choose matte displays over reflective ones to avoid those distracting reflections, especially if you spend the most time in a brightly-lit room.

Another question to ask is if you need a touchscreen.

A touchscreen, again, is more of a personal preference. We think touchscreens don’t bring a lot on board for regular laptops. If you want a touchscreen, you should go for convertible devices like the Surface Book 2 or the Acer Spin 3.

If you plan to work a lot while traveling or in bright places like the park or cafes, ensure that your laptop comes with decent maximum brightness. Anything above 400 nits is a pretty good number, but you’ll be best served with 500 nits.

Processor

As we said earlier, accounting does not need a lot of processing power. You will be fine with an i3 processor from Intel in most cases. If you’re dealing with a lot of data, we recommend going with an Intel Core i5 or an i7 processor.

In any case, we would not recommend going with a processor more than a couple of generations old. The oldest we can live with is an 8th-generation Intel chip.

Also, ensure that the processor’s base clocking frequency is a decent number. We do not like processors with a base clock speed of around 1GHz, as they are way too slow.

Yes, they can go to higher clock speeds with the help of Turbo Boost, but that will also make your computer hotter and turn on the fans making your laptop louder. If you’re sure you’re not dealing with a lot of data, then it is fine to choose a dual-core processor.

If you have a lot of data, we urge you to get a quad-core or a Hexa-core processor. If you are short on money, you can also go with an AMD equivalent of the Intel laptop that is perfect for your needs.

RAM

The memory on your laptop is another crucial component you don’t want to skimp on. Accounting students are usually fine with just 4 gigs of DDR4 RAM. Yes, you don’t even need 8GB of memory to carry on with your accounting studies.

But having just 4 gigs of RAM will always be a bottleneck later. In our opinion, if you want the best experience, then you should always opt for 8GB DDR4 RAM.

This memory is excellent as it lets you do a lot of multitasking without any restrictions. This also enables you to run bookkeeping applications like QuickBooks smoothly without any issues whatsoever.

If you’re going to handle heaps of data regularly, then you should get 16GB of DDR4 RAM. This memory is perfect, though overkill, and will give you peace of mind when dealing with large datasets.

Storage

The amount of storage an accounting student needs varies per person. If you’re going to handle everything off the cloud, then very little storage, like 128GB, should be enough. If you’re dealing with GBs of data, you should go for at least a 512GB.

More than the storage capacity, the type of storage is very important.

Most modern computers come with an SSD in them. SSD stands for a solid-state drive, and it has no mechanical parts giving you faster performance when compared with the traditional mechanical hard drive disks.

If you prefer a fast user experience, then using an SSD is the best thing you can do. Having an SSD will boot up the operating system in a few seconds and open applications within a snap of your finger (okay, that was a bit of exaggeration, but really fast).

The catch here is that SSDs are way more expensive for the same capacity as an HDD. You can get a 1TB hard drive disk for a lot less, but a 1TB SSD will cost you a fortune.

This is hard, especially if you’re on a budget. In such a situation, we recommend using a hybrid storage solution. You can add both the SSD and the HDD as your storage choices. This will bring both speed and the space you need for your accounting needs.

Battery Life

The battery life is another vital aspect and is as important as any other laptop feature. If you’re an accounting student, you will need your laptop to be with you throughout the day. We stress accounting students like you to get a laptop with all-day battery life.

Some examples of laptops with all-day battery life are MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Dell XPS 13, Microsoft Surface Book 2, and many more.

If your laptop’s battery runs out in the middle of the day, you must find a power outlet to recharge your laptop. This will take a lot of your time that could have been spent studying or doing a paper.

Colleges are very crowded when it comes to charging outlets. Refrain from thinking you can arrive early and use an outlet. That’s not something that happens, and there’s always this one student who clogs up your power outlet.

Even if you can’t manage to get a laptop with incredible battery life, it is essential to get a device that will last you for at least 5 to 6 hours. You can minimize the brightness on your display and use other power optimization techniques to improve your battery life.

Operating System

This, again, is based on your personal preference. If you’re a user of one operating system, say Windows, for a long time, you don’t have to change course for any reason and vice versa.

Most accounting-based apps are supported in both Windows and macOS, which are the most used and popular operating systems. One advantage of going with a MacBook is that you can also install the Windows operating system. This is possible with all Intel-based macs that are available right now.

Apple recently announced that they would be moving to ARM-based processors and won’t be directing booting Windows on those machines. However, you will still be able to use virtualization software like Parallel and install Windows on your system.

Another choice you have when it comes to operating systems is Google ChromeOS. This is the operating system you’ll find in Chromebooks, and if your workflow is predominantly online, then there is nothing wrong with going with one. However, you must ensure you can use all your accounting applications on your Chromebook.

One advantage of Chromebooks is that they are super cheap. You can save a ton of money by opting for a Chromebook but be informed that ChromeOS is very limited in functionality compared to Windows and macOS.

Budget

The laptop you get heavily depends on your budget. If you are on a tight budget, we recommend going for a low-end laptop that can handle everything at a basic level. A simple laptop with an Intel Core i3 processor and 4 GB of RAM would fall under this category.

A laptop with this configuration might give you a vanilla performance, but it will count as you get the best out of your budget.

If you have a decent budget, we recommend purchasing a laptop that costs around $600. At this price point, you should be able to get a laptop that does a fairly good job when it comes to handling accounting-based applications.

If any budget does not bind you, we recommend going for a high-end laptop, as you will get the best performance and won’t have to upgrade your laptop in the coming years.

Input Devices

The keyboard on your laptop has to be solid. The keyboard should come with a good layout and decent key travel. Your typing experience should be pleasant, and you must maintain this as you will be doing a lot of typing for the rest of your life.

One thing that would be of great advantage is a dedicated number pad. It would be unfair to expect one in a 13.3-inch laptop, but most 15.6-inch laptops will have a dedicated number pad.

A dedicated number pad allows you to work with numbers much faster. If you develop a muscle memory while using the number pad, you will become a master of handling numbers which is the skill you will enjoy as an accounting student.

Since most 13.3-inch laptops do not have a number pad, you can get an external number pad that you can connect to your laptop through the USB port. This might look like an additional accessory, but once you get used to it, you cannot live without it.

The trackpad on your laptop must also be of very good quality. The surface should be smooth enough to have a good browsing experience. It is better to have a Windows precision trackpad as it will give you complete support for all the gestures you find on the Windows operating system.

Graphics Card

As an accounting student, you can have a perfectly fine computing experience with the integrated graphics card on your laptop.

Most accounting software will work fine without needing a dedicated graphics card. You will spend most of your time in spreadsheets and browsers, which will function fine with the integrated graphics solutions.

If you are a gamer, you need a dedicated graphics card. The integrated graphics card can only handle so much and cannot run high-end games. With a dedicated graphics card, you will be able to do much more than just gaming, which opens many avenues.

Connectivity

As a student, you must have certain laptop ports for good connectivity. Some of the most important ports you need our

• USB Type-C port
• USB 3.0 or better Type-A port
• HDMI port
• Ethernet port
• Audio jack

In addition to these ports, the laptop should also have good wireless connectivity. As a minimum, the laptop should come with 802.11 AC Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2. If you are going for a high laptop, then make sure the laptop has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 built-in.

Conclusion

As an accounting student, you need a quite flexible laptop in terms of portability and power. We have gathered several laptops that span different requirements so that there is a laptop for every kind of user.

If you still can’t find the right laptop, then let us know. We will get in touch with you and see if we can find a laptop that addresses your needs well.