The best back

Much to the bemoan of students everywhere in the United States, back-to-school season is in full swing. Whether you’re shopping for an elementary student or a college freshman, the number one item on your list is (most likely) a good laptop. HP is known for producing some of the most lightweight and portable laptops around as well as some powerful gaming machines. Fortunately, HP is holding its back-to-school sale right now, where you can save up to 67 percent off of specific laptops. There’s no better time than now to dive in and take advantage of those scrumptious deals.

If you’re not sure where to begin your shopping adventure, don’t sweat it. Instead of scrolling through page after page of deals, we did the hard work by meticulously curating a list of the best HP back-to-school laptop sales right now. We’ve also made sure to include a variety of different machines such as Chromebooks, gaming rigs, 2-in-1’s, and more. If you have any lingering questions, be sure to check out our FAQ section at the end of this article.

Looking for the best of the best? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops available today.

Sometimes all you need is a basic laptop for day-to-day tasks like writing papers and doing research on the web. After all, there’s nothing wrong with a straightforward laptop designed to handle straightforward workloads. If your college major doesn’t require a very powerful system (hey, English majors!), then you should pick up one of these everyday HP laptops listed below.

The HP Pavlion Laptop 15t deserves its own call-out because of the price and combination of hardware. Not only are you getting a 1080p display and 16GB of memory, but also a powerful Intel Core i7-1355U CPU. For just $599.99, that’s a damn good buy.

Many students often moonlight as serious (sometimes competitive) gamers when they leave the classroom (myself included when I was in school). That’s why it’s always important to take hobbies into account when shopping around for a student, whether they’re in high school or college. You’re going to need a powerful machine for those late-night gaming sessions, especially if you plan on playing some intensive titles.

The HP Victus Gaming Laptop is a good option for the entry-level gamer. Between the Intel Core i5-13500HX CPU and the RTX 4050 GPU, this laptop should be able to whiz right through most games on medium to high graphics. The 16.1-inch display also has a refresh rate of 144Hz, which is important when things get blazing hot during an intensive match.

Here at PCWorld, it’s common knowledge that we have some serious Chromebook fans on staff (hi). It’s easy to see why, as battery life is crazy long and they’re largely virus-free. Although they’ve been popular in the education market for quite some time, they’ve gotten powerful enough to attract mainstream appeal. If you prefer ChromeOS over Windows or macOS, you should definitely check out the recommendations below.

Out of all the deals above, the best bang is the first option, the HP Chromebook 15a. The Intel Pentium Silver N6000 isn’t the fastest CPU we’ve ever played around with, but it’s good enough for everyday tasks like responding to e-mail and researching topics. Plus, the 1080p display is plenty sharp for watching your favorite Netflix shows and YouTube channels.

If you’re not the kind of person that travels light, you should probably skip this section. However, if portability is at the top of your priority list, then you best stick around. Most older students will likely take their laptop to classes with them, so it’s important to travel light. If you’re in the market for such a machine, then 2-in-1 laptops are your best bet. Convertibles make such versatile machines because you can swing the screen around 360 degrees. Read on to check out our picks below.

If you’re in the market for a convertible laptop with a really nice display, we’d recommend picking up the HP Spectre x360, which you can find in the bulleted list above. According to HP, the touch display has a maximum brightness of 400 nits and a sharp resolution of 3072×1920, which is impressive given the price and hardware. This machine also comes with an HP Rechargeable MPP2.0 Tilt Pen, which means you don’t have to worry about the extra cost.

If you’re studying to become a photo editor or graphic designer, you’ll need a powerful laptop with a good screen and plenty of storage. For content creation laptops, we always recommend ones with discrete graphics, which is important for editing (trust me you definitely want more oomph in the graphics department). To help narrow things down for you, we found a great deal on a laptop with a beastly RTX 4070 GPU inside.

Sure, if you want to get technical, the HP Omen Laptop 17 is a straight-up gaming rig. However, given the powerful components inside, it’s actually perfect for content creation. The RTX 4070 GPU is more than capable of handling photo or video editing tasks as well as running modern titles on the High or Ultra graphics preset. The display is also quite spacious at 17.3-inches, which is important for getting those minute details just right.

The HP back-to-school sale has been going since July, but you’ll start seeing quite a few steeper discounts from August onward. In some cases, you can save up to 67 percent on specific devices and products. You can even earn an additional 20 percent off on HyperX and Poly accessories when you buy them with a PC or monitor. Make sure you check out HP’s back-to-school sale landing page, where you can navigate to whichever category you desire.

HP doesn’t specify when the sale will end, but we suspect sometime in September when the school year is in full-swing. That’s why we’d recommend hopping on this bandwagon sooner rather than later, as the end of August will be here before you know it. Whether you’re a teacher or a student, it helps to be as prepared as possible before the school year begins. Trust me, you don’t want to be scrambling to buy a laptop the last-minute.

Ah, my favorite debate of all time. When it comes to Windows machines and Chromebooks and which one is better than the other, it really just boils down to personal preference and lifestyle. Some (like me) prefer the Chrome ecosystem, where everything is in one place in the cloud. That said, if you need something more powerful for gaming or content creation, or need the ability to install traditional desktop programs, you should probably spring for a Windows machine.

Ashley is a professional writer and editor with a strong background in tech and pop culture. She has written for high traffic websites such as Polygon, Kotaku, StarWars.com, and Nerdist. In her off time, she enjoys playing video games, reading science fiction novels, and hanging out with her rescue greyhound.