A RAMageddon guide to back-to-school laptop shopping

“内存末日”下的返校季笔记本选购指南

It’s a terrible time to buy a laptop (sorry), but if you gotta do it, here are some to consider. 现在并不是购买笔记本电脑的好时机（抱歉），但如果你不得不买，以下是一些值得考虑的选择。

If you’re a student looking for an affordable laptop, I have bad news and I have good news. The bad news is that computer prices are out of whack due to the ongoing RAM and storage crunch, making some a little pricier than they used to be and others wildly more expensive. 如果你是一名正在寻找经济实惠型笔记本电脑的学生，我有一个坏消息和一个好消息。坏消息是，由于持续的内存和存储芯片短缺，电脑价格已经失控，导致一些机型比以往更贵，而另一些则贵得离谱。

The good news? Despite that, there are still many great options, including the selection we’ve tested and highlighted below. 好消息是什么？尽管如此，市面上仍有许多不错的选择，包括我们测试并列在下方的精选机型。

Before you go for the cheapest option you can still find, consider biting the bullet on a more powerful laptop, especially if you’re buying for a college student. Prices are likely to continue rising well into next year — especially since all the memory being made through 2027 is already allocated. You can get a mostly tolerable laptop for under $500 and a good one for around $700, but spending more to get something like a MacBook Air gets you better build quality and enough performance headroom to last through four years of college and well beyond. 在你选择能找到的最便宜的机型之前，请考虑咬牙购买一台性能更强的笔记本电脑，尤其是如果你是为大学生购买的话。价格很可能会持续上涨到明年——特别是考虑到直到 2027 年生产的所有内存产能都已被预订一空。你可以花不到 500 美元买到一台勉强能用的笔记本，花 700 美元左右买到一台不错的，但多花点钱购买像 MacBook Air 这样的产品，能为你带来更好的做工质量和充足的性能冗余，足以支撑四年的大学生活甚至更久。

(Many Verge writers and editors are still using M1 MacBook Airs from 2020). But even the modest options below (new or refurbished) should easily be good for more than a few years. The key is to avoid something that feels slow or janky on day one, if you can. It’ll only get worse from there. （许多《The Verge》的作者和编辑至今仍在使用 2020 年款的 M1 MacBook Air）。但即使是下面列出的入门级选项（无论是全新的还是翻新的），也完全可以轻松使用几年。关键在于，如果可以的话，尽量避免购买那些第一天用起来就感觉缓慢或卡顿的设备，因为情况只会越来越糟。

If your school or curriculum recommends certain laptops or minimum specs, then you already know what to aim for. If not, our rule of thumb is to go with a Mac running Apple silicon or a Windows laptop running Intel or AMD chips released in the last few years. (For Windows machines, don’t go any older than 2022 or 2023 — Intel’s 13th-gen “Raptor Lake” or AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series.) Snapdragon X chips are also great options unless you’re a college student who needs to run specialized software not compatible with Windows on Arm (or if you want to play games). 如果你的学校或课程对笔记本电脑有特定的推荐或最低配置要求，那么你已经知道该买什么样的了。如果没有，我们的经验法则是：选择搭载 Apple Silicon 芯片的 Mac，或者搭载近几年发布的 Intel 或 AMD 芯片的 Windows 笔记本。（对于 Windows 机器，不要选择 2022 或 2023 年之前的型号——即 Intel 第 13 代“Raptor Lake”或 AMD Ryzen 7000 系列之前的）。骁龙 X 芯片也是不错的选择，除非你是需要运行与 Windows on Arm 不兼容的专业软件的大学生（或者你想玩游戏）。

But try to get 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage or more if you can — especially for college students. Eight GB of RAM is workable on macOS with the MacBook Neo, but Windows laptops struggle a bit with it. And for the most budget-conscious or anyone shopping for younger kids, a quality Chromebook is still great. 如果可以的话，尽量选择 16GB 内存和 512GB 或更大的存储空间——这对大学生尤为重要。8GB 内存对于搭载 MacBook Neo 的 macOS 系统来说尚可应付，但 Windows 笔记本在 8GB 内存下会有些吃力。对于预算极其有限的人，或者为低龄儿童选购电脑的用户来说，一台高质量的 Chromebook 依然是非常棒的选择。

A RAMageddon guide to back-to-school laptop shopping

“内存末日”下的返校季笔记本选购指南

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