Quick intro, every year around August I post a Back to School Tech Shopping Guide series, lending my expert opinion on which computer, mobile device or any other of tech gadget would be well suited for the daily grind of the school year.
As you well know in present day 2016, tech gadgets play an important role in field of education. Smartphones are used to jot down notes, external drives can be used to store PDF files, laptop and desktop computers are definitely a prerequisite gadget to have in this modern age of technology. I mean think about this for a quick second before we move on, you can now take college courses online from the confines of your home, and throw in the fact that you'll need the computer to write that last minute term paper. So as you can see its safe to say that technology has changed the way we acquire our knowledge.
We kick off this annual tech shopping guide by taking a look at my list of recommended laptops you'll useful for school.
The Money Is No Object Option
Razer Blade Stealth
The Razer Blade Stealth is arguably one of the few laptops that puts the MacBook Pro to shame, in fact it'll put any laptop to shame that's currently being sold on the market. It truly lives up to the name as being razor thin and all. The design is beautiful,sleek, nice and flat, but the real deal breaker here is what's under the hood of the Razer Blade Stealth. The crafty folks at Razer managed to squeeze in a 6TH Gen Intel Core i7-6500U 2.5GHz processor with a Turbo Boost speed up to 3.1GHz, 8GB Dual channel memory. Its can handle plenty of pixels with the Intel HD Graphics 520, for storage you have up to 512GB PCI SSD.
Not only is this laptop excellent for those students who major in design and video editing, but in between your studies you can get your game fix in . The Razer Blade Stealth have the hardware to handle any graphically intense gaming title that's thrown its way.
Price: $1449.99
Selling Point: Razor thin design, impeccable hardware
MacBook Pro
The Macbook is always the top choice for all students alike, so the recommendation should not come as a surprise. Here's the deal, if by chance you're in the hunt for a MacBook Pro, I would hold off until say the middle part of Sept when Apple is expected to unveil their new MacBook Pro. It'll come with a total redesign and added on features such as the heavily rumored finger print reader.
The MacBook Pro in its present form is definitely the best option if your that student who majors are in film editing, engineering, and design.
Remember, this feature is the " money is no option" so if you have money to burn, go with the max hardware if you're currently shopping for a new MacBook.
Oh by the way, this is what $2,699.00 will get you, a 6th Gen Intel Core i7 3.1GHz processor, with a 3.4GHz Turbo Boost, 16GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM, 1TB PCIe based storage.
Price: $2,699.00
Selling Point: Good reputation of being very stable, impeccable hardware
The Mid Level Option
Dell XPS 13
There are several variants of Dell's XPS 13, but for the sake of this post, we'll go with the standard version. If you don't have captain of industry type money and still want that nice decent laptop that'll get through the hustle and bustle of the school year, then look no further than the Dell's XPS 13. This particular version I'm recommending hardware is pretty much I would say mid-level, its sporting a 6th Gen Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory and 128GB solid state drive, not bad hardware, I would say its the next best thing. The big seller here is its display, its rocks a lot of pixels at 3200 x 1800 resolution, making this one the sharpest, crispiest displays on a laptop on the market.
Now if this laptop just so happen to peak your interest and plan on order such device from Dell, you do have the option to upgrade the hardware upon purchase, but it will of course pad on more money than the price I have listed below this paragraph.
Price: $899.99
Selling point: nice compact design, beautiful display
You're on a tight budget but still need that laptop for school option....
Acer Chromebook 14
The Acer Chromebook 14 is no ordinary laptop that you so used to seeing, it doesn't run Windows or Mac OS X or even Linux for that matter, but runs Chrome OS, which is a browser based OS that's created by Google. So basically you do all of your task within the web browser, any apps you want to download, you get it from Google Play store.The app that's compatible with Chromebook I know of is Microsoft Office which is perfect for students. And yes you can download Microsoft Office from the Google Play store.
Now when I said that this is a budget option, I wasn't kidding, the price tag for such a device will cost you just $269, definitely for the budget conscious student not looking to spend an enormous amount of money on a laptop.
Its not laced with heavy duty hardware like the laptops I've recommended in this post,but it will still get the job done, it comes with an Intel Celeron Quad-Core processor, Intel HD Graphics 400, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.
Price: $269.99
Selling point: Exceedingly dirt cheap, nice compact design