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Best laptop for students

Forget those expensive textbooks, non-stick pans and packets of noodles -- the most important thing you can buy as a student is a laptop.

A laptop will be your office, your media hub and a valuable connection to your friends' goings-on (and maybe to your parents if they're lucky), all wrapped up in a few inches of plastic and metal. Sounds like magic, right?

Unless you've got cash coming out the wazoo, you're going to want your machine to last at least the three years you'll typically spend at university, so you shouldn't skimp on the important bits. Look for solid construction (a metal chassis is best), and a full-size keyboard for comfortably typing long essays.

If you want to watch films and TV shows on it -- which I assume you do -- you'll need a large screen of at least 14 inches, with a minimum resolution of 1,366x768 pixels.

HP ENVY Sleekbook 6

You need a thin and light laptop to haul around at school but you "want" a larger display so things are easier to see and you have more space for a larger keyboard. Not only that, but sometimes a typical Ultrabook is just a little too expensive for a student's (or their family's) budget. That's where the HP Sleekbook line of thin and light laptops comes to the rescue.

The ENVY Sleekbook 6 is a 15-inch laptop packed inside a lightweight shell that is "similar" to an Ultrabook without the Ultrabook price. Starting at less than $600 with AMD processors and graphics (Sleekbook 6z) or less than $800 with Intel Core i5 (Sleekbook 6t) the ENVY Sleekbook 6 series delivers a stylish design and great battery life (7+ hours). Performance isn't as impressive as other laptops in this list, but it's still more than enough for student needs. Unfortunately, there is a compromise ... the keyboard on the Sleekbook 6 is perhaps one of the worst we've tested in terms of poor feedback (the keys feel very "mushy" as you type). If you're willing to live with the keyboard then the Sleekbook 6 will give you a thin and light laptop with a 15-inch screen.