Shopping for a new laptop can be stressful — especially when you have tuition fees, schooling costs and inflation on your mind.
Laptops are considered a course pre-requisite for millions of students across Canada, starting as young as elementary school.
No matter your age or education level, for many shoppers, finding the right computer comes down to one thing: the price. With this in mind, we searched the internet to find the best laptop deals for students in 2023, starting at less than $200.
From Amazon to Best Buy Canada, Chromebooks to Macbooks, PCs and everything in between, these are the 17 best affordable laptops for elementary, high school and university students in 2023, according to ratings and reviewers.
17 best laptops for elementary, high school & university students in 2023
Best laptops under $500
This “Amazon’s Choice” touchscreen Chromebook features an 11.6-inch screen that can swivel to be used both in tablet and laptop form. According to one five-star reviewer, it’s an “excellent little laptop for the value.”
Designed to keep you productive and entertained from anywhere, the HP 14-inch laptop combines long battery life with a thin and portable, micro-edge bezel design.
With an average rating of 4.3 stars, Amazon shoppers describe the 14-inch ASUS Chromebook as a “great value” laptop. It’s a “great little Chromebook,” according to one reviewer. The “battery life is impressive.”
This budget-friendly Lenovo Chromebook 3 boasts up to ten hours of battery life, 4GB of memory, an HD Webcam, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity. “I can’t believe how fast this is,” raves one Best Buy Canada reviewer. “I love how I can do so much more on this than ever before, in half the time.”
This Lenovo Chromebook has earned an average rating of 4.1 stars from Staples shoppers. The 14-inch IdeaPad 3 has built-in virus protections for the latest security, ten hours of battery life and dual stereo speakers.
With an average rating of 4.4 out of five stars, Best Buy Canada shoppers call this 15.6-inch computer the “best and fastest laptop [they’ve] ever owned.” According to one reviewer, the “battery life is amazing the processor is fast and it has lots of storage space.”
Best laptops under $700
A crowd-favourite among Amazon shoppers, this 15.6-inch Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop has earned an impressive average rating of 4.3 stars based on more than 34,000 reviews. The device boasts an AMD Ryzen 3 3200U Dual-Core Processor, 4GB DDR4 Memory and 128GB NVMe SSD.
Work from anywhere with ease with this best-selling ASUS VivoBook laptop. Weighing in at 3.5 pounds, the device has the latest Intel Core i3 processor and features fast-charge technology. It’s a “great laptop,” writes one shopper; “I should have bought it sooner!”
This 15.6-inch touchscreen Lenovo IdeaPad has earned rave reviews from Best Buy shoppers and top marks for value, portability and its touchscreen function. It’s “great for students” and “worth every penny,” according to reviewers.
The fan-favourite Aspire 5 is ideal for anyone creating and sharing on the go. It features the latest AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processor, AMD Radeon Graphics & plenty of high-speed storage and memory.
Be productive anytime, anywhere with the Microsoft Surface Go 3 128GB Windows 11 S tablet. This 2-in-1 tablet has a 10.5″ PixelSense touchscreen display, Windows 11 technology, is optimized for digital pen and touch, and features tablet-to-laptop versatility.
Best laptops under $1,500
Shoppers can expect high performance, quick responsiveness and a long battery life with this “Amazon’s Choice” laptop. The device boasts an Intel Core i7-1165G7 Processor, up to 4.7GHz, 4 cores, 8 threads, 12MB Intel Smart Cache and a 14-inch full HD IPS display.
With an encouraging average rating of 4.9 stars, this sleek Microsoft Surface Laptop boasts a powerful 11th-generation Intel processor with a 2.4GHz processor speed. It’s “surprisingly quiet, responsive and compact,” according to one reviewer. It “surpassed my expectations,” they add.
This 2020 Apple MacBook Air has racked up more than 14,000 reviews from Amazon Canada shoppers. The device, which offers up to 18 hours of battery life and 8GB of unified memory, has been called “really fast and reliable” by reviewers.
The 17.3-inch Lenovo laptop has earned near-perfect reviews from Best Buy Canada shoppers, with an average rating of 4.7 stars out of more than 150 reviews. Reviewers say the versatile computer “does everything you want.”
This 2-in-1 laptop is built with an Intel Core i5-1235U processor, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. Its convertible design has a 360-degree hinge, allowing a smooth transition between the tablet and laptop mode.
$1,100 $1,500 at Best Buy Canada
Stay on-the-ball and entertained from anywhere with this Acer Nitro 15.6-inch gaming laptop. Featuring an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card and 8GB of RAM, the “Amazon’s Choice” computer has earned more than 2,300 five-star reviews from shoppers.
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Originally published