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The Apple Pick

Consumer Reports · Best Laptops for College Students

Best MacBook

RTINGS · The 7 Best Laptops

The 2-in-1 Pick

Consumer Reports · Best Laptops for College Students

Great portability

Strong performance with M1 processor

Up to 12.5 hours of battery life on a single charge

High quality case and good panel

Good optimization for macOS

Great battery life

Pre-installed productivity apps

FHD 13.3" IPS QLED display

11th gen Intel processor

Big PCIe SSD and 16 GB RAM

Not suitable for those who need more multitasking power or storage space

Windows laptops offer more performance at a lower price point

No significant design updates since 2018

Not suitable for heavy gaming

Single fan may be too quiet or insufficient for cooling

No dedicated graphics card

Verdict

The Apple MacBook Air (2020) is a great choice for those looking for a highly portable laptop with strong performance. It features an M1 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of solid state storage. The battery life is also impressive, lasting up to 12.5 hours on a single charge. However, the base model may not be suitable for those who need more multitasking power or storage space. Additionally, some Windows laptops offer more performance at a lower price point.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Book Flex Alpha is a great choice for those looking for a laptop with excellent battery life, pre-installed productivity apps, and an FHD 13.3" IPS QLED display. It also has an 11th gen Intel processor, big PCIe SSD and 16 GB RAM, making it suitable for multitasking. The Outdoor+ setting allows users to boost the brightness over 500 nits, making it ideal for outdoor use. However, some users may find the single fan to be too quiet or insufficient for cooling.

Reviews by Topic

Our analysis shows how reviewers feel about different topics. Please note these are not full reviews.

Battery Life

All it needed was a totally new keyboard and faster processors

2GHz to get something done and then ramp it back down to 1.1GHz to preserve heat and battery life. This is a pretty normal strategy now.

Negative

2 years ago

theverge.com

College laptop recomendations

Battery life is enough to get through a whole day of use without having to recharge (with everything set to max and shitting on all energy saving options). I really like the pre-installed Samsung apps for productivity and they make maintaining the notebook fairly easy. I almost bought a Microsoft Surface 3 but that was a little too expensive for me so I went for the Samsung one, to propose another device.

Positive

2 years ago

reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace

Performance

Verdict – The Core i3 is the better choice for everyday tasks

There are also noticeable advantages in terms of the emissions, and especially the fan is much quieter with a slower maximum speed. This means the i3 MacBook Air is quieter for longer periods of time, even when you stress it.The MacBook Air with the dual-core i3 processor is the better device for basic workloads. The subjective performance impression is very good in these scenarios, the fan is quieter, and you can still enjoy the good display as well as the improved keyboard

Neutral

2 years ago

notebookcheck.net

This laptop is seriously worth the price.

so after a month of owning this laptop i have noticed that it is faster than my overpriced mac desktop in every way. update and restart in 22 seconds. i have not noticed any jitters or connection issues like others have stated.

5/5

4 years ago

walmart.com

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Apple MacBook Air (2020)