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Picking out a laptop for college doesn’t have to be annoyingly complicated. Whether you’re stuck in lectures all day or pulling an all-nighter to finish a last-minute paper, having a reliable laptop will make things a heck of a lot easier. The trick? Figuring out what really matters in a laptop so you don’t end up spending on stuff you won’t even need. That’s where we come in. We break things down without all the technical word vomit so you can quickly find the best machine for your lifestyle. From featherlight models that disappear in your bag to laptops with marathon battery life, we’ve got you covered. Why you should trust PCWorld for laptop recommendations and advice: It’s in our name! PCWorld prides itself on laptop experience and expertise. We’ve been covering PCs since 1983, and we now review more than 70 laptops every year. All of the picks below have been personally tested and vetted by our experts, who’ve applied not only performance benchmarks but also rigorous usability standards. We’re also committed to reviewing PC laptops at every price point to help you find a machine that matches your budget. Acer Swift 16 AI – Best overall Pros Sleek, sturdy design Sharp OLED screen Pleasantly tactile keyboard Good battery life Cons AI features still lacking Some keyboard keys too cramped Too many pre-loaded apps Best Prices Today: Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Who should buy the Acer Swift 16 AI? If you’re looking for a great college laptop, the Acer Swift 16 AI is easy to recommend. It’s light enough to carry around campus at just over three pounds, and the 16-inch 2880×1800 OLED screen looks amazing whether you’re typing up notes or watching Netflix after a full day of exams. It comes with an Intel Core 7 chip, Intel Arc graphics, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD, so it’s fast enough for schoolwork or research. Battery life is pretty darn good, too. It lasted around 17 hours in our testing, and you can charge it quickly using one of the two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports. Acer Swift 16 AI: Further considerations The OLED screen is the real highlight here. It’s bright, colorful, and clear. The keyboard also feels really good for long typing sessions, and even though the touchpad’s a bit smaller than most, it still works fine for the day-to-day stuff. If you’re after something lightweight and reliable, the Acer Swift 16 AI is one of the best around. Read our full Acer Swift 16 AI review Acer Aspire Go 15 (2025) – Best budget laptop for students Pros Great value Solid display Generous RAM and storage for the price Reasonable webcam and mic Cons Slow Intel N-series CPU No fingerprint reader or facial recognition Middling battery life No keyboard backlight Best Prices Today: Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Who should buy the Acer Aspire Go 15 (2025)? If you’re on a tight budget and just need a laptop for research and writing essays, the Acer Aspire Go 15 (2025) is easy to recommend. It’s nothing fancy, but you shouldn’t have any problems streaming lectures or writing papers. It comes with solid basics for the price — an Intel Core i3 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. That’s enough to handle most of your school work without any problems. The 15.6-inch 1080p screen is also spacious with good viewing angles, which is nice for both work and Netflix binges. Acer Aspire Go 15 (2025): Further considerations This laptop keeps it simple — no touchscreen, no backlit keys. But it runs smoothly thanks to the generous amount of RAM and storage. Read our full Acer Aspire Go 15 (2025) review HP OmniBook 5 14 – Best battery life Pros Enjoyable keyboard Attractive 1200p OLED display Incredible battery life Ships with small GaN charger Cons Though attractive, build quality doesn’t stand out Connectivity is limited So-so performance Best Prices Today: Retailer Price…

Microsoft’s suite of PowerToys utilities has gained a handy additional tool: CursorWrap, which “wraps” your cursor from one edge to another, while a separate update makes the Command Palette utility even more potent. If you grew up in the 1980s, you already understand what CursorWrap does. Imagine you’re in the arcade playing a game of Asteroids. You fly your spaceship towards the right side of the screen, dodging giant space rocks, and, as you exit, poof! It warps to the left-hand side. CursorWrap does the same thing. Why should you care? Well, if you’re using multiple monitors — or just a big, widescreen display — you may not want to drag your cursor from one side of the screen(s) to the other. CursorWrap essentially is a mousing shortcut. Microsoft January’s update to PowerToys also includes some other improvements, but the biggest seems to be a big update to Command Palette, the tool Microsoft added just before Build 2025 alongside Windows Edit. Microsoft now positions Command Palette as the sequel or evolution of Windows Run, a command-line interface that was still receiving updates as recently as last December, but may eventually be deprecated, if the company’s positioning is any indication. Command Palette allows you to search for files or the Web, search for an app in WinGet, use the calculator, and more. But what you couldn’t do was control PowerToys itself! Now you can choose options for FancyZones, adjust Advanced Paste, and more. The update also gives you additional customization options such as the look and feel and even the ranking of items. The January 2026 update of PowerToys also gives more command-line controls to various PowerToys applications like Peek.

In early December of last year, OpenAI mentioned the possibility of adding advertisements to ChatGPT. Now, the AI company has confirmed that it’ll soon start testing display ads in the AI chatbot. To start, sponsored ads will appear at the bottom of ChatGPT responses when relevant products and/or services are mentioned in an ongoing conversation with the chatbot. The ads will be separated from the “organic” response, and you’ll be able to see more details about why that particular ad was displayed, as well as choose to reject it if you wish. Open AI OpenAI will begin testing the display of ads for adult ChatGPT users in the United States in the coming weeks. The ads will be shown to free users as well as ChatGPT Go subscribers. The company believes that including ads in ChatGPT will make their AI tools available to more users with fewer usage restrictions.

I block ads (despite the hypocrisy) and you probably do too if you’re tech-literate enough to read PCWorld on the regular. So maybe you’re familiar with the minor drama between Google Chrome and the incredibly popular uBlock Origin, which is also a solo developer’s passion project. That notoriety has led to a small irony: a scammer impersonating said developer with a fake ad blocker. The “NexShield Smart Ad Blocker” was, at one point, available on the Chrome Web Store, allowing it to be downloaded and installed on Chromium-based browsers like Chrome and Edge. It has since been removed, and its promotional page is down along with associated advertisements that ran on search engines, including Google. But it was apparently promoted as “created by Raymond Hill.” Hill is somewhat notable as the solo developer behind uBlock Origin, who refused to comply with Google’s Manifest V3 extension changes, saying that it would hamstring the functionality of ad-blocking systems. The original uBlock Origin is still available on Firefox and other non-Chromium browsers, while those of us still using the most popular standard will have to make do with the less-effective uBlock Origin Lite. NexShield apparently cloned most of the code in the Lite version and falsely attributed the development to Hill. NexShield was discovered as malware by security vendor Huntress (via BleepingComputer), who says the extension used an interesting vector of attack. Hidden inside the background.js file is a system that sends user tracking info back to the creators. To avoid being immediately spotted, the extension doesn’t actually start working for an hour. Once it’s active, the extension overloads the browser by executing a loop of one billion (with a “b”) actions, over and over. This rapidly exhausts system resources, causing tabs and eventually the whole browser to crash. Once the user restarts the browser, they get messages that there are issues that need to be fixed (hence the “ClickFix” and “CrashFix” monikers assigned by some security researchers). When that happens, a code is automatically copied, then the user is instructed to paste the malicious command into the Windows Run tool: “Open Win + R, Press Ctrl + V, Press Enter.” That bit of trickery installs ModeloRAT, a nasty payload that includes a remote access trojan with the ability to install additional tools, spy on the user, modify the Windows registry, and all manner of other unsavory acts. According to Huntress, this system is the work of threat actor “KongTuke,” which is specifically targeting high-value corporate networks.