The best laptops for teachers can be a mix of multiple things, largely dependent on the type of courses you’re teaching and what your focus is. Fundamentally, we’re looking for something good at juggling documents and grading homework. These are also often related to our best laptops for college, as students and teachers have similar needs.
Our number one pick for teachers is none other than the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) thanks to its phenomenal balance of having a sleek, lithe design, gorgeous display, staggering performance, and a great keyboard that’s perfect for getting work done without being slowed down by a poor typing experience. It’s built with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, Intel Arc integrated GPU, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a 14-inch, FHD OLED touchscreen.
But if you have money to spare, our absolutely best pick is the MacBook Air 13-inch M3. It is undeniably perfect for the needs of your average teacher, yielding a perfect typing experience, powerful processor, and gorgeous display. Best of all, its thin and light, and features a beautiful aluminum exterior that feels sturdy and resilient. The model we reviewed is built, an M3 8-core processor, 10-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage, and a 13.6-inch 2,560 x 1,664-pixel resolution display.
The quick list
1. Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M)
Best overall laptop for teachers
With powerful Intel Core i7 power alongside a stunning OLED panel with nearly 16 hours of battery life and an amazingly light and thin chassis, you will not be disappointed investing in our favorite laptop for teachers, especially if you need a clicky keyboard that won’t exhaust you.
2. Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i
Best budget laptop for teachers
The Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook is an excellent choice for those on the lookout for an affordable laptop that can handle your basic working needs without all of the fancy bells and whistles, making it perfect for most teachers.
3. MacBook Air 13-inch M3
Best high-end laptop for teachers
The MacBook Air is absolutely the best choice for teachers if you can afford it, yielding phenomenal battery life, swift processing speeds, a gorgeous display, a typefeel that cannot be beaten, and plenty of amazing macOS software.
Best overall laptop for teachers
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The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) is our number one pick for teachers, not just because it’s beautiful, but because it hits a compelling price point while also being more than strong enough for a majority of teachers to get their work done. With solid specs including an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, Intel Arc integrated graphics, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a 14-inch FHD OLED touchscreen, there’s nothing to be disappointed about in this machine.
We also highly prioritize battery life for working folks, and teachers are not exempted from the necessity of having a machine that can last a full day and then some. Thankfully, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED exceeds all expectations on this front, with longevity that lasted 15 hours and 52 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery life test, which involves continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits.
And if you’re someone who wants to enjoy streaming content, this OLED screen is stunning, covering 79.8% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Unfortunately, it’s not very bright, clocking in only 339 nits of brightness, which is nowhere near enough to see clearly when direct sunlight is being shone on it. However, it’s more than bright enough to handle well-lit rooms.
Alongside this, it features incredible built-in audio that had our reviewer banging her head, alongside a comfortable keyboard that will keep you energized throughout your day, with 1.4mm key travel and a pleasant click-to-pressure ratio.
But let us not forget about portability: Getting your laptop to class is as important as what’s inside it, and it is exceptionally light at only 3 pounds, with a thickness of 0.6-inches, keeping it thin enough to squeeze into most backpacks without issue.
See our full Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425M) review.
Best budget laptop for teachers
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If you’re a teacher in need of something that can get your work done, but don’t want to completely resort to the bottom of the barrel and invest in a laptop that’s only $100 to $200 (which will pretty much result in a slow monstrosity that will likely frustrate more than anything else). Instead, there’s a bare minimum you should expect to pay for something that’s still capable of performing the bare minimum tasks you need without making you pull your hair out.
Enter the $499 Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus, an affordable productivity laptop that fulfills what you’ll need to write and browse the web, while also having enough oomph that it runs decently well. It’s built with Intel Core i3-1315U processor, integrated Intel UHD graphics, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of eMMC storage space. It has a 14-inch, IPS touchscreen at 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution. It’s built with an aluminum lid and plastic body, and considering it’s a 2-in-1 laptop capable of flipping, alongside featuring a touchscreen, it’s perfect for those who want to use it to double as a tablet.
Its port selection looks like a USB Type-C and a Kensington lock on the right, while there’s a microSD card reader, 3.5 combo audio port, a USB Type-A port, and another USB Type-C port on the left.
Unsurprisingly, the IdeaPad Flex 5i’s display isn’t much to write home about, which is to be expected of a laptop at this price point. Its 46.5% of DCI-P3 color gamut coverage is low and results in a rather lackluster screen, while its 306 nits of brightness make it less than ideal in sunny environments.
Perhaps most importantly, its chiclet-style keyboard yields an excellent typing experience, as it’s bouncy and satisfying to use, which is vital considering the main appeal of this laptop is that it can perform basic work tasks and browsing. On the Geekbench 6 synthetic overall performance benchmark, we saw the Flex 5i hit a multi-core score of 5,384, which is pretty solid for a Chromebook at this price, surpassing the 5,259 Chromebook average.
See our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus review.
Best high-end laptop for teachers
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While the MacBook Air 13-inch M3 is technically on the lower end of Apple‘s MacBook line-up, there’s no hiding the fact that teachers don’t get paid quite enough to splurge on a MacBook Pro, so we’re treating the MacBook Air 13-inch M3 as the best high-end laptop for most teachers.
The model we reviewed cost $1,499 and is built with an M3 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 512GB of SSD storage, 16GB of RAM, and a 13.6-inch, 2,560 x 1,664-pixel resolution display. It features 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, a MagSafe charging port, and a headphone jack. What’s especially excellent about MacBook is that its aluminum exterior is sturdy yet light, making it perfect for taking on-the-go, without it feeling flimsy.
The MacBook Air M3’s display is pretty colorful and especially bright, managing a 77.8% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut. We typically find around 80% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut is recommended for a solidly colorful display, so the MacBook is absolutely within that range. Its brightness is pretty great in typical MacBook fashion, as you’ll want something capable of handling rooms caked in sunlight, and at 476 nits of brightness, this should be capable of just that. And of coruse, MacBook’s speakers are top-of-the-line, and unless you want to listen quietly with headphones, you’ll love its audio.
And don’t even get us started on its keyboard. If you’ve never used a MacBook’s keyboard before, you’re missing out in ways you wouldn’t believe. It features a phenomenal bounciness with its wide keys that allow you to write comfortably for hours on end.
But what about its performance? Its Geekbench 6 multi-core score hits as high as 12,087, while it transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in as little as 6 minutes and 32 seconds. And its read/write speed of 3,030/3,058MBps is absolutely astounding, yielding phenomenal performance overall.
We cannot move on from talking about MacBook without addressing its battery life, however. The MacBook Air 13 M3 lasts 15 hours and 13 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery life test, which involves continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits. This is phenomenal, as we typically commend laptops that can last more than 10 hours, so getting 5 hours longer is incredible.
See our full MacBook Air 13-inch M3 review.
How to choose the best laptop for teachers
When deciding what makes the best laptops for teachers, we’re looking for machines capable of performing the basic tasks that you’ll need to create assignment, grade work, and utilize important software suites like Microsoft 365. This is why our number one pick is the simple yet excellent productivity laptop, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, with a phenomenal keyboard, great processing performance, solid storage space, RAM, and as an extra cherry on top, a gorgeous OLED screen for those who want to enjoy streaming content in their free time.
Of course, if you’d prefer something more affordable without completely sacrificing quality, a Chromebook like the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i is an absolutely excellent pick. We want something that can ensure it will last you a decently long time while traveling, as having your laptop die while on-the-go is an absolute nightmare. This means we want at least 8 hours of longevity for a full work day, but in reality we’re looking for closer to 10 hours of battery life, and two of the laptops on our list hit as high as 15 hours of battery life to ensure you can work without worry.
Another important facet of a laptop for teachers is an excellent keyboard. You’ll likely be grading and writing up assignments constantly, and being comfortable with the machine you’re using is at the top of the priority list.
How we test laptops for teachers
We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before we send it to our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers, and heat management.
In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamut of the laptop’s display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 6 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop with converting a 4K video to 1080p resolution and duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file.
We don’t believe it’s necessary for a laptop for teachers to feature a discrete GPU (unless you’re in a specialized field or want to play games on the side), so for all of the laptops in this list, we run synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark Firestrike and 3DMark Time Spy to analyze the performance of integrated graphics. Then, we play Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm with medium settings at 1080p and 4K resolution.
We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. Gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered longer than 5 hours deserve praise.
These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop’s materials to the feel of its touchpad.
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We are 100 percent independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades and continues to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.
Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.
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