<p>I've read a coupe threads out there regarding laptops for engineering students and I have come up with a couple questions of my own. A lot of people are suggesting that the laptop should have at least an i3, would you say this is a must have? Also I'm having trouble deciding what size screen I should get. I want to have a portable laptop so 12 to 15 inches is the ideal range. </p>
<p>Right now I have a budget of about $500 and have come across some laptops. Right now my top choice is the asus 1215n, the screen size is only 12.1 and has a dual core atom processor with nvidia ion. How will that processor fair with some of the intensive programs?</p>
<p>Any other suggestions on laptops would be great. Thanks for the help.</p>
<p>As your sole computer, the Atom won’t cut it. It’s sufficiently slow that you’ll be wishing you had more processing power for anything but the basics.</p>
<p>I’d recommend the netbook though; just get a desktop to go along with it. A $350 desktop + $300 netbook will go much further than a $1000 laptop. A $500 laptop will most likely feel very insufficient for your needs.</p>
<p>$350 desktop? if you already have a decent desktop that you can upgrade, maybe… I’d say $300 for a netbook and $600 for a Shuttle barebone dressed up + $100 for an LCD :-)</p>
<p>Yeah I have an older gaming desktop with a Q6660, but Im not really sure if I want to bring that with me. If I go with the netbook I will bring a larger monitor. Still weighing options.</p>
<p>To be honest, you really will not need an i3. I’m a computer engineering major and I work with something weaker and I can dual boot Windows and Ubuntu with no issues. Homework or labs you do for class will rarely ever need a powerful processor (Maybe you want to play video games? In that case maybe you want at least an i3 i guess?). If you do end up needing to run lots of simulations for a long duration, your university probably has a high-performance computer lab for use anyway. Basically, if there is a task you can’t do on your own laptop, your school should have a lab where you can do that task.</p>
<p>When buying a PC, you want to make sure it has some room for expandability or upgrades that you can perform later on to greatly improve the performance of your computer instead of having to chuck it and buy a new one. Most people call it future proofing. That i3 is pretty much the standard now for mid level notebooks so i’d just go with it. Pentium is low budget and old. Core 2 processors are acceptable, but a rapidly aging technology. You want to make sure you can get the most out of your computer so buy one with the most up to date processor you can find. Look for Sandy Bridge in the specs next to the i3 on the processor line. Those were released about 6 months ago and have much better performance than the last gen Core I series processors.</p>