The Best Notebooks for Teenagers and University Students

The Swift 3 SF314 is a 14-inch notebook in a good-looking slim case featuring a matte display, decent battery life, a backlit keyboard, quiet operation, and low temperature emissions. Its main drawbacks include the dim display and the low amount of RAM. It comes preloaded with Windows 10 Home and is ex facto limited to running applications from the Windows Store only. Fortunately, this limitation can be lifted for free by installing an update.

Lenovo offers a tough competitor for the Microsoft Surface Go: The IdeaPad D330 follows the same concept as Microsoft's smallest tablet, very long battery runtimes, an LTE modem, a bright screen, and a good keyboard dock. You also get 128 GB storage, but the IdeaPad with the keyboard dock is also much heavier and the quality is not as high compared to the rival from the Windows developer.

The Lenovo IdeaPad D330 is a 2-in-1 with a good price-performance ratio.

So affordable and already a high-quality convertible! The Microsoft Surface Go already starts for less than 500 Euros, but this version is shipped without physical keyboard. You can either use a Bluetooth keyboard or the optional Type Cover, which will increase the price noticeably. The storage is also limited on the base model at just 64 GB, and Microsoft charges a hefty premium for the 128 GB option. You can at least use the microSD reader to store more data.

The quality of the magnesium case is excellent, the Surface lasts long on battery, and you get a bright as well as high-contrast screen. The performance is not that bad, either. You notice that the Surface Go is no real notebook when you look at the ports, because one USB-C port will have to suffice.

If you are looking for a simple 14-inch notebook for less than 300 Euros, the Medion Akoya E4253 may be the rigt device for you. It offers decent battery life, a matte IPS display, and a fairly effective passive cooler. Clearly, you should not expect top-notch performance in this class but at least storage is upgradeable, and some SKUs feature more RAM, should this be required.

The AMD Ryzen 5-powered Acer Aspire 5  starts at less than 500 Euros. While this sounds fairly promising given the Ryzen’s multimedia reputation the CPU is incapable living up to its fame in the Aspire 5. Due to a undersized cooling solution the CPU is forced to thermal throttle quite dramatically. Nevertheless, for a notebook as affordable as this performance is more than adequate, and the robust case with its high-quality input devices and its straightforward and relatively simple maintainability basically seal the deal.

AMD hardware in a slim case: meet the MateBook D 14. Thanks to its affordable AMD processors the laptop is affordable enough to be considered for this top 5, and it performed very well indeed. Long battery life, high-quality input devices, a good-looking robust case, and most importantly its great price-performance ratio are its main selling points.

The E490’s predecessor, the ThinkPad E480, sat atop this particular list for the longest time, and the ThinkPad E490 follows in its footsteps. Lenovo’s entry-level ThinkPad is not as constricted as its low price might suggest. Battery life and input devices are excellent, the case is robust and sturdy, and apart from its poor color representation we really liked the matte display. To top things off the laptop is fairly quiet and comes with fast SSD storage.

If you are looking for plentiful connectivity and high performance at affordable prices the Dell Latitude 3400 might be worth a closer look. It performs very well thanks to SSD and Core i3 CPU, and it offers a matte IPS display albeit one that was slightly too dim for our taste.

If you want the flexibility of a convertible the IdeaPad C340 is the right device for you. It supports stylus input, comes with a backlit keyboard, offers low sound and temperature emissions, and a decent battery life to boot.

A good-looking metal case, a Ryzen 5 CPU, and low temperature and low emissions – what’s not to like? Not much, really, especially considering the fact that the Acer Swift 3 also offers a backlit keyboard, good battery life, and a matte IPS panel.

Quite frankly, a ThinkPad T490 without dedicated graphics is even better than one with. It offers longer battery life and lower temperatures. If you don’t really need the graphics performance offered by a dedicated GPU, you should probably opt for this more affordable option instead. Regardless of SKU all devices carry the typical ThinkPad genes: a robust and sturdy case, a bright colorful display, and great input devices.

A model number ending in 5 is a clear indication: this is an AMD-based Thinkpad with plenty of CPU and GPU performance trumping that of many Intel-equipped devices. The ThinkPad X395 might not be a full-fledged gaming notebook, but it is certainly more than capable of running less demanding games smoothly.

Apple’s iPad Pro 11 2020 requires a keyboard cover or Bluetooth input devices to become a full-fledged laptop alternative, all of which can be purchase either directly from Apple or at lower prices from third-party OEMs. Thanks to the latest iPad OS updates mouse support is now fully integrated into the system, and the iPad Pro 2020 is even slightly cheaper than its predecessor.

The HP ProBook x360 11 G4 is a device targeted specifically at the education market. It is fast and supports stylus input. We particularly liked its great input devices, its robust and sturdy case, and its very low noise emissions. In return, it lacks a keyboard backlight and the display was too dim overall. Considering its small display, the low resolution is not as bad as it might seem at first glance.

So affordable and already a high-quality convertible! The Microsoft Surface Go already starts for less than 500 Euros, but this version is shipped without physical keyboard. You can either use a Bluetooth keyboard or the optional Type Cover, which will increase the price noticeably. The storage is also limited on the base model at just 64 GB, and Microsoft charges a hefty premium for the 128 GB option. You can at least use the microSD reader to store more data.

Huawei’s MateBook 13 is a subnotebook with a limited port selection. In return, it comes with a docking station that even offers a VGA port by default as well as a sleek high-quality case. At the time of writing Europe was limited to the iGPU SKU without dedicated graphics. Battery life is acceptable, and the device managed to last 7 hours in our real-world Wi-Fi battery test. That said other notebooks lasted a lot longer.

The Acer TravelMate Spin B1 is a device targeted specifically at the education market. The small and sturdy convertible supports stylus input, and it offers a colorful FHD display as well as fanless and thus completely silent operation.