Top 10 Best Laptops For MBA Students 2021

You got accepted for the MBA degree and looking for a brand new laptop that could assist you through the course of your MBA degree?

You are a little confused, you are not aware of the programs or software you will be using. You know that you need a laptop but what specs that laptop should house? What should be the top features that a business student needs to stand out in his/her studies?

The most important attribute a laptop should come integrated with to handle the operation is a ‘powerful processor’. You should try to grab the latest-generation processor and lots of RAM. In the course of your education, you will be handling software such as QuickBooks, Excel, InVision, G-Suite, and many other project management software.

The laptop that you are going to pick for your studies should be travel-friendly. As students move a lot, and a cumbersome laptop becomes hard to move around.

There are lots of other special features that a laptop for an MBA student should see. And this guide is going to help you, to make you learn what makes a laptop for business students ideal? Besides, you will also see top recommended laptops that are added after hours’ long research.

Before coming up with this guide we also consulted with professionals, institutes Old MBA students, and some experts about the needs and requirements of a laptop for MBA students. The mentioned laptops are average of the recommendation, so feel free to pick any, you would not get disappointed by them.

Best Laptops For MBA Students

1. Apple MacBook Pro

Students like and adore Macs. Around 80-Percent of the student you see in Europe brings Apple Macs there is the reason for that.

Apple Macs in my view are the finest laptops ever produced on the earth planet. They are great for everything in everything. You take them for regular computing business or professional scale tasks handling they are always there to assist you.

The newest M1 chip Macbook is a lot better than Intel chip macs. The latest M1 chip Macbook pro by all means leaves Intel-based Macbook and other laptops behind including Dell XPS 13, Asus Zenbook, and LG gram latest laptop.

This new chip named as M1 chip with AMR architecture is built using 16 billion transistors. The chip integrates CPU, GPU, neural engine, Facetime HD Webcam, and thunderbolt, to produces unmatched, unprecedented, and smoother results.

With an 8-core CPU, 8-Core GPU, and 16-Core neural engine, this chip produces smoother and faster results. You get enhanced processing power that consumes less power than imagine, increased GPU handling, and unimaginable Machine learning performances for the first time.

The model does not integrate a discrete graphics card, but it seems like integrated 8-core GPU powers through heaviest visual handling performances and lets you enjoy crisp, error-free visuals on a 13-inches retina display.

Do not forget that the retina display is one of the finest and brightest displays ever integrated and fitted in an ultrabook. With 500-nits of brightness, and 25-percent more colors than sRGB, this display produces clearer, sharper, and in-depth visuals that make your viewing, streaming, studying, researching, and computing experience smoother and brighter.

The latest M1 chip MacBook Pro has unified memory. It comes with 8GB RAM but offers the smoothest performance even when exposed to multiple operations. You can run as many operations as you like without freezing the laptop, including Adobe CC suite, and Excel sheets.

The storage compartment of this laptop comes filled with 256GB SSD, there is another variant with 512GB SSD, and more is yet to come, as the official website mentions the support of up to 2TB SSD. The higher storage variants are still not available, maybe by the time you read this, they are available. But, for business students, I think 512GB is more than enough.

Its battery runtime is the biggest attraction. This laptop offers the longest runtime. The older Macs were also good in terms of power consumption, but it seems that the ARM architectured M1 chip consumes way less power than high-end Intel laptops. So, the result is, you get around 20-hours of runtime in one-time charging.

In terms of ports and connectivity, Apple is not going to disappoint you. It got two thunderbolts 4 ports that support 40 gb/s data transfer, 6k monitor connectivity, charging at the same time. You enjoy smoother and enhanced visuals by connecting to high res monitors.

The keyboard is a plus point for this laptop. The magic keyboard is going to spell real magic like the way it did when introduced. The scissor switches with 1mm response time, and tactile feedbacks are there to let you enjoy typing.

Facetime HD Webcam produces more natural images in live video calls to make you take your online classes at home during the pandemic time. You get connected to your friends, do your business at home by attending virtual meetings.

In a nutshell, this laptop is something out of the future. It is a good piece of electronics and being a student, if you can afford to buy one, do not overlook it.

2. HP Spectre X360

HP is there in the world of laptop production for years. One of the biggest brands has more than one successful line-up, one of which is HP Spectre.

The premium laptop line-up is famous owing to its superior construction, steady performance, and ability to convert into a tablet. Yes, the most amazing aspect I like about this laptop is that it converts into a tablet and offers the efficiency of a tablet without letting the power of a notebook go.

All metal constructed laptop is resistant to accidental falls off and withstand roughness. It comes packed with excellent features and performance that make it an ideal candidate for MBA students and business students. Let us review this model and check its performance.

The most amazing aspect of this laptop is its display. With 15.6 inches Ultra HD display and touchscreen support spell real magic on students. The flip and fold designed screen laptop supports 360-degree rotation and lets the consumer transition it into a tablet.

Yes, it also comes with a digital pen. The stylus pen lets you craft things onto the screen, high PPI screen response well and make you take notes on the screen, draw anything you like, use it for sketching, and various other functionalities.

To power-up, this laptop there comes in a 10th Gen Intel i7-10510U mobile processor. It is a quad-core processor, that goes up to 4.9 GHz clock speed in turbo boost. It is a power-efficient processor, consumes less power, and lets you consume it for a day-long in one charging.

Yes, the HP  Spectre X360 laptop for MBA students also share a dedicated graphics card. With an MX330 dedicated graphics card of 2GB dedicated space, this laptop lets you handle visually complex processing.

For a business student, there is less use of a dedicated graphics card. I am not saying that it is useless to have discrete graphics but comparing to their use in modeling,  and  CAD apps handling, its use here is minimal.

Coming to memory and storage, this touchscreen convertible laptop for business studies comes integrated with 16GB RAM. To handle multiple operations at one time, and to handle more than one business software, this added  RAM size is more than just good. You can handle QuickBooks operation, Excel sheets handling and many more others in this row.

The storage compartment of this laptop comes packed with 512GB SSD storage plus 32GB Optane Memory. You will be able to load your files and application faster and quicker compared to HDD storage, it will be a different and boosted experience using an SSD compared to an HDD.

The Gem-cut designed HP laptop comes integrated with a backlight keyboard. The keyboard has a special numpad to help business users to handle lots of numeric data. The laptop also has a 720p Webcam, and a large trackpad to handle things on regular basis.

The availability of required ports and connectivity is more than amazing. The model got one USB Type-A port, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one headphone jack, and one SD card reader to support to let you connect anything you like.

3. Dell XPS 13

Dell designed the XPS series latest model as one of the viable options for business students. It checks all the boxes right for them; portability, longer battery life, sober looks, and performance.

This laptop is one of the finest pick and an alternative to the Apple MacBook. It is the closed competition to Macbook and in many ways considered better than macs.

The latest upgrade sees the 11th Gen processor. Yes, with the 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor you are going to get the desired scale of performance and computing. It is a quad-core processor and in turbo-boosting touches 4.8 GHz clock speed.

It is the finest processor for multi-thread computing tasks, besides handling business scale computing, it let you handle complex tasks including Engineering and architecture tasks. You can install any application you like and this processor will help you pass out of anything.

The most amazing benefit of getting this laptop and the latest 11th Gen processor is Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics card. Yes, you get this graphics card onboard, which is considered way better than many dedicated graphics card and assist the processor in handling image processing tasks. You will see your laptop is not getting freeze or bottlenecked in handling many image processing computing tasks.

The display is it’s one of the most touted and marketed aspects. With 13.4 inches FHD infinity edge display you are going to get desired results. It is a touchscreen display, with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, it allows you to enjoy streaming, business tasks handling, and computing.

The brightness scale of this display is as good as Mac’s. With 500-nits of brightness, Anti-glare coating, and touchscreen support make this laptop as good as MacBook Pro. But, many do not like Mac for business tasks handling, as Excel is well handled on Windows compared to Apple’s Macbook Pro.

As per Dell’s claims, this display is 40-times brighter than last year’s laptop. The trackpad is also bigger than the previous model, and the advanced cooling system also gives an edge over MacBook pro or many other top leading laptops.

Coming to the memory and storage of this laptop, you get 512GB SSD storage. Keep in mind, SSDs let you enjoy the fastest computing ever existed. With instant boots up, and enhanced 15-times faster data transfer, the SSD adds a rocket to your regular computing. And good thing Apple provides is, you get an extra slot that can be filled with another storage to increase the total storage size.

With 16GB 4267MHz DDR4 RAM, you get an amazing multitasking performance. Your laptop can multiple programs, let you search through the browser, open as many tabs as you like, run your favorite songs in the background, enjoy your excel tasks handling, and many more in the same time, no freezing, no lagging in switching through at all.

The laptop integrates a lid sensor. The sensors automatically awake the laptop when you lift the screen, it is really helpful and without turning on the laptop, turns it on. It also has a backlight keyboard, with a dedicated numpad to help you handle the numeric stream of data better than ever.

In short, this laptop has everything you ever sought for or demands business computing and for college studies. It is good-looking, lets you make a stylish statement, and handles anything everywhere with no lags or freezes.

4. LG Gram 14

LG Gram might not be a well-known brand in laptop manufacturing, it might not have earned a big reputation in laptop production, but the brand got an amazing line of products that offers superior computing and processing features that are absent in many top laptops.

First, it is a very lightweight laptop, weighs just 2.2 pounds, and shares 0.6 inches thickness that makes it a portable laptop. This lightweight laptop is uber easy to carry around without feeling any difficulty.

Second, its battery is the edge-out feature that makes this laptop super convenient for business students and professionals. Not just this one, but LG Gram overall produces laptops with good battery backup. This one posses around 25 hours long runtime to let you handle regularly to professional computing chores.

The laptop comes stacked with an 11th Gen Intel 1165G7 processor. The quad-core processor with 4.8 GHz clock speed in turbo-boosting lets you handle anything without any issue. It also integrates an Intel Integrated graphics card; Intel Iris Xe graphics that in image processing is as good as M1 chip 8-core GPU.

You can throw multi-thread computing and business tasks and this laptop without lagging or freezing lets you enjoy super smooth computing. The browsing becomes seamless and error-free, app handling goes hand in hand.

The model got 16GB RAM, to help you handle the workload a business student has to throw. They do lots of research, and open dozens of tabs, in an average laptop, the opened tabs handling becomes difficult and the laptop most often goes freeze, not in the case of the LG Gram laptop with 16GB high bandwidth RAM.

The storage size comes filled with 512GB SSD storage. The storage is also super amazing, an SSD storage under a thin 0.6 inches chassis is more than expected. I do not know how this laptop manages to be 2.2 pounds of weight despite packing away too much bigger specs.

It got a 14-inches FHD IPS WLED backlight display. IPS  panels as you know are great in producing high contrast ratio display, and right colors with perfect viewing angles. You behold clearer, crisper, and error-free visuals without any color skipping, color distortion, color-bleeding, motion blur, or any other common issue displays face.

Also, the 14-inches laptop also comes with an HD Webcam. The HD Webcam produces clearer visuals, lets you indulge in video conferences, and zoom virtual meetings.

Its pool of connectivity options is a huge plus. The laptop got two USB-A 3.2 ports, two USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support, one HDMI port to let you connect anything you like. You can connect the 14-inches laptop to high res monitors, and enjoy working on a bigger screen without freezing or lagging.

In a nutshell, this laptop is something you can rely on. It got the specs and features great for not only MBA students but overall college graduates and business professionals.

5. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

There comes another great laptop that is often picked by professionals. Thinkpad series is considered the perfect suit for professionals due to their traits.  The most famous aspect of this series includes Super fluid keyboard, business looks, sturdy construction.

Let’s review this particular model of the ThinkPad series and check how this laptop adds value to business students’ lives.

It is a powerful laptop, no doubt. It got a 10th Gen Intel Hexa Core i7-10750H processor. It is an hexa-core processor that runs at 2.6 GHz base clock speed and touches up to 5.0 GHz in overclocking. Hexa-core structured processor got the support of hyper-threading, it let you enjoy 12 virtual cores that produce superior and error-free computing results.

Another amazing aspect of this laptop is its display. It got a 15.6 inches FHD IPS display, it is a 300-nits display got the power to produce bright error-free images to produce smoother and seamless results.  It is an IPS display, got the full coverage of all colors and better viewing angle to improve the overall viewing, streaming, computing, editing, and tasks handling experience.

Do not forget to take its graphics card into account. The model got a GTX 1650 Ti 4GB graphics card. It is a powerful graphics card, got the power to handle visually loaded computing tasks. Besides letting you play the latest games, this graphics card helps you handle apps that require visual handling and image processing power.

So, from handling QuickBooks and Excel sheets, you will be able to handle CAD Apps, GIS software, and many others without any big issue or trouble.

The latest Lenovo designed laptop has 16GB RAM. Yes, the added  RAM size got the power to handle almost 95 percent of the apps, programs, or software that exist on the earth’s planet. So, switching through multiple programs, doing deep research would not be an issue for MBA students. Prepare your assignment, and do multiple other tasks, the beast is there to assist you.

The storage compartment is the only loose bond this laptop shares. With just 256GB SSD storage, the storage does not match the other specs this model has to share. But there is an extra slot that can be filled with another storage to increase the size.

The Thinkpad series laptop got a huge variety of ports. With 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Port, 2 USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port with Thunderbolt 3 support, one DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMII 2.0 Port, SD Card reader, Microphone Jack you never run short of ports. Connect anything you like, connect anything you like without any problem.

Do not forget to mention the spill-resistant keyboard. It got a 6-row spill-resistant keyboard with a dedicated numpad to let you enjoy a fluid typing experience. The keys got super travel, superior typing experience to assist you with long-hour typing.

6. Apple MacBook Air

Apple’s MacBook Air was considered a good pick for travel buddies, but the recent upgrade to the M1 chip made this laptop a viable option for students as well. This laptop comes powered with an M1 chip that runs at 3.2 GHz clock speed and handles most of the operations a student, and about all operations, an MBA student has to handle.

Let’s shed light on the top features and specs of this laptop and behold who this made makes MBA student’s studies different and remarkable.

The first and most important upgrade to this laptop is the M1 chip. This chip integrates a processor, RAM, Graphics card, ports, and neural engine to make this one of the compact power chips.

This M1 chip provides impressive power even for professionals. The M1 chip integrates 8-core GPU, this iGPU is powerful and stands still in front of many discrete graphics cards including GTX 1050. But, it is not designed for Gaming, and you should not take it for gaming purposes as well. It is for another type of visuals handling and lets you handle those tasks efficiently.

Coming to another important attribute and most marketed one; display. This laptop got a 13-Inches retina display with a 2560 X 1600 Pixel resolution. The retina display is an amazing integration, that has already been in the macs but the latest Macbook air some upgrades and makes more stunner.

With 500-nits of brightness, true tone technology, this laptop brings smoother, crisper, sharper, and more detailed results. The display is helpful for those who read text on the screen, as per inch pixel density of this display is better than many laptops that’s why users without harming their eyesight behold the texts on the screen better.

The latest MacBook Air comes integrated with 8GB unified memory. The RAM size can’t be upgraded after you buy it, and higher memory variants are not available right now. In other words, the RAM can’t be upgraded by opening the laptop and filling it with another RAM size. But the given 8GB RAM, due to the M1 chip construction makes the processing a seamless experience.

The MacBook Air comes with two storage variants, 256GB, 512GB SSD. We believe 256GB SSD is more than enough for you, to handle your studies. Students these days store their data on clouds, and stream movies online, they do not store data on local disks. So, the given SSD storage is good to go and adds a boost to your overall processing and computing.

The magic keyboard is also there to assist you, to let you type more words in less time, without hurting your fingers.

Two thunderbolts are also there to help you, let you connect this little beast with high-resolution monitors. It is a thunderbolt 4, with higher data transfer, charging, and support to 6K monitors.

The battery backup of the Air is more than just good. It is less than MacBook Pro, but more than a regular business student require to accomplish regular studying tasks.

7. Lenovo Flex 5

Are you interested in buying a convertible laptop under a budget price range? If yes, then I think Lenovo got your back, one of the biggest laptop brands offers you a convertible laptop that supports a touchscreen with a stylus pen.

The model comes powered with AMD Ryzen 5 4500U mobile-series processor. It is a six-core processor, with hyper-threading and turbo-boosting support. It runs at 2.3 GHz clock speed, and overclocking reaches up to 4.6 GHz.

In terms of processing and power, this laptop is amazing, you get the required processing done without any issue or hindrances. Many think that AMD processors are still not the best but after Ryzen 3, they have improved a lot, and right now they are ranking on the top slots in top processors with the highest benching marks.

It does not come with a dedicated graphics card. It comes with AMD Radeon Vega 3 integrated graphics that is relatively better than Intel UHD 620 Graphics and let you handle visually loaded tasks a little better than before.

The most aspiring and amazing feature of the convertible laptop is its display. It got a 14-inch FHD IPS 10-point multitouch display. The Widescreen LED Backlight touchscreen display with four-sided narrow bezels produces an error-free crisp display. It is an IPS display and you know the quality of image produces by IPS panels, produces full of colors wider viewing experience results to improve your streaming, computing, and viewing experience.

It got 360-degree hinges support. The latest convertible laptop adopts your lifestyle and makes you enjoy computing the way you like. It offers multi-mode to let you convert it into a tablet mode, streaming mode, stand mode to get things seamlessly done.

The latest model comes powered with 16GB RAM. It is hard to believe a budget range convertible laptop could house this much RAM, but Lenovo gives that to improve your computing results. You can run the apps your course requires you to install, and handle them well enjoy the smooth speed.

With 256GB of SSD storage, this laptop offers a good storage size. For most of the users who are addicted to carrying thousands of movies along, this storage might not be sufficient. But in my view, this is good to go storage,  enough for a regular MBA student to store files, folders, books, and much more others.

The battery backup of this laptop is on average. With 8-10 hours of runtime, it is good to go as an option for a student. Anyway, convertibles are considered good at the battery and last longer than notebooks due to their mobile designed specs.

8. Acer Swift 3

Here we are with another Acer product that fits budget users’ pricing range and a good fit in the longer run.  It is one of the lightest laptops on the list, weighs just 2.65 pounds, and makes a stunning piece of electronics for MBA students.

Although Another Acer Swift 3 variant has an Intel processor we preferred AMD Ryzen 7 an octa-core processor. The 8-core processor got the right power to handle students’ to professionals’ computing operations. It goes up to 4.3 GHz clock speed and makes your multi-thread operations go as seamlessly and error-free as you imagine.

It also integrates AMD Radeon Vega 3 graphics card. The integrated graphics card produces seamless results but does not take it for complex visual tasks, as it is not designed to handle those operations.

14-Inches Acer laptop got a 14-inches FHD IPS display. It is a non-touch display, WLED backlight IPS panels supported display provides amazing results and viewing angles. With an 82-percent screen to body ratio, this display got a bigger screen in less physical dimensions.

The model got great memory support to let professionals continue to handle their workdoings. It has 8GB RAM, which is enough for a business student to take on the apps or programs they need to install and experience.

Even for browsing, home computing, and regular tasks handling, the mentioned RAM is good too.

The storage compartment comes filled with 512GB SSD storage. It is amazing for a budget laptop to offer bulky SSD storage, we did not expect that from the model.

The port selection of the Acer for this laptop should be applauded. With multiple regular ports for connectivity, it does have a Type-C port, that supports charging as well as data transfer up to 10 gb/s.

You get a Backlight keyboard to illuminate your typing. With a dedicated numpad and comparatively software keys, you get a good typing experience.

The inclusion of a fingerprint reader, HD Webcam, and 10-11 hours of battery runtime makes this laptop a stunning option for budget users.

9. ASUS VivoBook 15

Asus designed this laptop for budget business users. If you are on a budget and looking for a laptop that is designed to optimize business computing tasks, get a hands-on laptop. It comes at a cheap price but packs all necessary nuts and bolts that make you enjoy super smooth computing without any hiccup or turbulence.

The model comes stacked with AMD designed processor. It is AMD Ryzen 5 3500 U processor that shares clock speed up to 3.6 GHz in turbo-boosting. The processing power of this laptop is good for business students, they can easily handle regular research, presentations, assignments, and many more other things.

About the memory options, the model got 8GB RAM. For the price, this RAM is more than just good. It is enough for a regular student to install the required apps, programs, or software. You can browse without freezing, research without lagging, and switch through the different tasks.

The storage compartment of the laptop comes filled with 256GB SSD storage. It is good storage for the price, and if you want more storage stacked, there is an extra slot to serve the purpose. You can increase the storage size after buying this laptop, open the bottom lid and increase the total storage of the model.

ASUS Budget laptop for business students comes fitted with a 15.6 inches FHD four-sided nano-bezels IPS display. The slim bezels around the display keep the dimension down to minimal still offering an enhanced viewing area of 88-percent. The amazing thing is, despite the small bezels, the ASUS still manages to bring an HD Webcam on the top bezels. An HD Webcam has become an absolute necessity as you communicate virtually these days due to still ongoing pandemic situations around the globe.

The model comes with a full-sized standard keyboard with a dedicated numpad. The keyboard shares a sturdy design offers ergonomic keys with a good 1.4 mm key travel distance to offer an improved typing experience. The ergo lift design of the keyboard lifts the display to 2-degree to offer an optimal typing angle.

With this model now connectivity becomes possible as it comes with lots of ports and connectivity options. There is one USB 2.0 Port, one USB 3.1 Port, one USB Type-C port, one HDMI port, and One Micro SD card reader. Now, you enjoy a reversible port to connect high res monitors, projectors, and other computer peripherals.

In total, as you can view, this laptop packs everything a business user would need through the course of their education. It comes at a budget price, and if you are not interested in shedding your hard-earned money or debited money, get hands-on model.

10. Acer Aspire 5

The list of best laptops for MBA students can’t have been made without adding this laptop. The obvious reason for adding this laptop is its affordability. It comes in hands at a cheap price range, around the 500-dollars price range. So, for budget users the laptop is one of the most viable options.

For the price under 500 dollars, imagine the processor you can house? I think you might have been expecting a core i3 processor but look at what Acer offers you with, it is a 10th Generation Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor. It is a 10th Gen processor that offers impressive clock speed and G-series processors are always good at handling image processing, you get smooth image loading without freezing, lagging, or stalling.

The other aspect of this laptop is also inspiring. It got 8GB RAM, I think the added 8GB RAM is enough for a regular student. I am not saying that the RAM is enough for a professional, it is good for an MBA student who has to handle regular presentations, Assignments handling, or doing research and browsing on the internet. If you feel like having more RAM there is still space for that, the model comes with an extra slot to help you increase the RAM size.

The storage compartment of the laptop comes filled with 256gb SSD storage. Another amazing feature and no one would expect a 256GB SSSD storage for a 500-dollars laptop, Here too, the laptop offers an extra slot,  you can increase the storage size by adding another storage.

You get a 15.6 inches FHD IPS display. Yes, the model offers one of the brightest possible displays for the price. It is 250-nits of the display, for text reading the brightness might not be that good, but for browsing, presentation, and doing assignments, I think for indoors the display is more than good.

Acer Aspire 5 laptop also comes with a backlight keyboard. It seems a downright steal for a 500 dollars laptop to come up with a backlight keyboard. It is a standard keyboard, the distance is a little low compare to premium laptops, but got the dedicated numpad to help you handle the numeric stream of data well.

The port selection of this laptop is quite wide. With one USB 2.0 Port,  2 – USB 3.1 Gen 1 port, one USB Type-C port, and one HDMI port it allows every computer peripheral connection. You enjoy seamless connectivity with a USB Type-C port with enhanced data transfer.

For budget users, and for students, I think this laptop got all the nuts and bolts needed. You get it for regular computing, studying, browsing, streaming, and other tasks handling.

Bottom Line

We have listed out some of the top models that are ideal suited for business students’ regular studies. These options have been chosen after hours-long research. We had listed out 20 plus models earlier but filtered out the added models.

We tried to pick the models that offer super smooth computing for MBA students and handle the apps or programs they use to install.

Some business schools recommend some particular apps or software to be used through the course of the degree. You should check the hardware configuration that the app or program requires to run smoothly. I do not think there will be any app that these models can’t run.

Still, every student may have different needs and requirements. It is up to you what catches your eyeballs and if you are running short of money, the options are limited for you. But we tried to cover laptops in every budget range to suit every student’s budget radar.

We think this guide will help pick the right model. We hope that after reading through this guide you find a perfect option that satisfies your personal to studies computing needs.