Watch and Buy: The Best Laptop for Every Type of Student

At PCMag, we rate and review more than 100 laptops each year. Who better to help you figure out the right one to take you through the school year and beyond?

In our shoppable video, originally aired on Aug. 3, PCMag’s executive editor and lab director John Burek and popular streamer Justin Robey (@Robeytech) bring you their picks for the best back-to-school laptops for every kind of student, from grade school to college.

Shop along with us, and if you see a laptop you like, you’ll be able to add it to your Walmart cart and check out while watching. We also streamed the broadcast to the following social channels (though without the shopping features):

Can’t wait to shop? Be sure to check out our Back to School content, including:

Want to Go Deeper? Read PCMag's Deep-Dive Reviews

We've got direct Walmart shopping links above (in modules below the stream window) to the laptops we've highlighted in the stream. But for a more detailed look at PC Labs' tests and detailed breakdowns on each, check out the links below.

HP Pavilion Aero review (BUY)
MSI Modern 14 review (BUY)
Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 review (BUY)
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 review (BUY)
Apple MacBook Air (M1, Late 2020) review (BUY)
Asus Chromebook Flip CM3 review (BUY)
Acer Chromebook 317 review (BUY)
Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook review
(BUY)
MSI Katana GF66 review (BUY)
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 review (BUY)
Acer Enduro Urban N3 review (BUY)

About Our Expert

John Burek

Executive Editor and PC Labs Director

My Experience

I have been a technology journalist for almost 30 years and have covered just about every kind of computer gear—from the 386SX to 64-core processors—in my long tenure as an editor, a writer, and an advice columnist. For almost a quarter-century, I worked on the seminal, gigantic Computer Shopper magazine (and later, its digital counterpart), aka the phone book for PC buyers, and the nemesis of every postal delivery person. I was Computer Shopper's editor in chief for its final nine years, after which much of its digital content was folded into PCMag.com. I also served, briefly, as the editor in chief of the well-known hard-core tech site Tom's Hardware.

During that time, I've built and torn down enough desktop PCs to equip a city block's worth of internet cafes. Under race conditions, I've built PCs from bare-board to bootup in under 5 minutes. I never met a screwdriver I didn't like.

I was also a copy chief and a fact checker early in my career. (Editing and polishing technical content to make it palatable for consumer audiences is my forte.) I also worked as an editor of scholarly science books, and as an editor of "Dummies"-style computer guidebooks for Brady Books (now, BradyGames). I'm a lifetime New Yorker, a graduate of New York University's journalism program, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

The Technology I Use

I use a lot of computers on rotation in my daily work, but I rely on just a few to get things done. I split my work life mostly between a Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (a 15-inch Ryzen model), paired with a Lenovo ThinkVision portable monitor, and a custom-built big-chassis Windows 10 desktop PC that has served me well for years now. (Specs: Liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition, 32GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1080 card.) That's all in a giant chassis with six hard drives and SSDs packing its bays. (As I upgrade systems, I just keep moving the old warhorse drives over.) This behemoth is hooked up to a 32-inch LG monitor.

I also have a bunch of PCs around the house, all custom builds: another one attached to my main TV (for gaming and occasional forays into VR), a mini-PC on the bedroom TV (acting as a media server), and a Mini-ITX desktop in a corner of the living room...just because. I carry around an oversize OnePlus phone, but when I do long-haul travel, a vintage iPod Touch comes along, too, for old times' sake.

I wasn't always a PC guy. I cut my teeth on a cassette-drive-equipped Commodore VIC-20 in the 1980s. But I got serious with Apple desktops in the early 1990s, starting with a Macintosh SE, then a Macintosh LC, and finally one of the short-lived Umax "clone" Macs, before building my first PC and never looking back.

With all my typing and editing work over the years, I've become a huge proponent of thumb trackballs, which minimize wrist action (and my wrist pain). I have a secret cache of the long-discontinued Microsoft Trackball Optical Mouse (my personal favorite), held in an undisclosed location.

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