Computer Recommendation

I know I have seen other posts on this but not finding them easily. Would love to hear from current student what type of laptop they use at UF. My son may or may not major in engineering. I see the requirements list on the UF website but I want make/model of good experiences. Thanks.

First the laptops.

For my senior industrial engineering daughter, she got a new ASUS ZenBook this December.

*ASUS ZenBook 13 Ultra-Slim Laptop, 13.3” Full HD, 8th gen Intel i5-8250U Processor, 8GB RAM, 256GB M.2 SSD, Backlit keyboard, Fingerprint Reader, Windows 10, Grey, UX330UA-AH55 *

Last summer, we got a Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 for my freshman aerospace engineering son.

Dell - Inspiron 2-in-1 13.3" Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 12GB Memory - 256GB Solid State Drive - Gray

Both are light and easy to carry around campus. They have docking stations/monitor/keyboards in their apartments to use with the laptop. Both Laptops come with USB “C” ports. Neither has a dedicated video card, but for school they work fine. If your son wants to play video intensive games, he may need one that comes with a dedicated video card. (My son has a desktop PC that he uses for gaming).

Good Luck!

My daughter is an incoming freshman in engineering and she was in the market to upgrade her laptop about six months ago. Coincidentally, I bought her the same one that @Gator88NE names above.

Dell - Inspiron 2-in-1 13.3" Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 12GB Memory - 256GB Solid State Drive

I researched what UF and UCF listed for engineering and have had good experiences with Dell. My two cents is that these days you want to focus on the getting as much RAM as is affordable and the newest, fastest processor – again, budgets are budgets. Overall memory is less important because so much is stored in the cloud. I went with the solid state drive because it boots up so much faster. I use a similar Dell for my business and the quick boot up time is incredibly helpful. You can save money by skipping the touchscreen (I rarely use mine) but my daughter likes the smart pen feature (made her buy it with her own cash.)

My hope is that it will last her 4 years but who knows what memory sucking apps will be invented in the next few years.

Good luck.

By the way, they will have text books and reading that’s available on-line. The 2-in-1 feature can be really useful.

My daughter will be a sophomore next year majoring in mechanical engineering. Last year, we bought her a Surface Book 2. I know we spent a lot of time going around and around on the right laptop with the right requirements to run Solid Works and whatever else and that’s what we end up buying. I hope that helps!

Is a cd/dvd drive really necessary for the computer? So many of these 2in1 computers don’t have them. The college of engineering website’s generic recommendation states that any type of cd/dvd drive is recommended. CD and dvd formats seem to be a bit outdated.

@livingis2me Don’t really need one. Almost all software needed can be downloaded. Neither of my kids (both engineers) ever needed one).

If they do, it’s easy enough to order a portable PC DVD/Burner from Amazon for about $25 (connects via USB port).

In fact, I recently updated by old desktop PC by moving it to a new PC case, and I didn’t bother installing a CD/DVD player. They really are no longer needed. USB drives (and downloading software) has replaced them in almost all cases.

EDIT: I should also add that they will “remote” into UF’s workstations to run high end software (this stuff cost several thousand dollars). They don’t need high power machines to run auto cad, MATLAB, etc.

@Gator88NE Thanks!