Which laptop brand is the best for a student?

[Ocean Spray]

I've heard way too many great things about Lenovo to switch now!

 

[spirit]

I agree with above. But the slowest thing in a laptop is either its CPU or its HDD. A 5600 green small form factor hard drive will be super slow. The hard drive is the biggest bottleneck in almost all computers. SSDs make it significantly better, but still a limitation.

Spend your money on hardware, CPU and HDD in particular, use Open Source software and save up for RAM and Windows later if needed.

^ Exactly - laptops are 99 times out of 100 bottlenecked by slow hard drives and poor CPUs, you want to spend the most you can and get the best hardware you can afford.

I've heard way too many great things about Lenovo to switch now!

Then go ahead and get one, they're good laptops. Make sure you get a ThinkPad though, not sure if the IdeaPads are quite as good.