<p>Are there any current OSU Engineers who can suggest a good laptop to buy for an incoming freshman engineer? I am not sure whether to buy a powerful mobile workstation, if thats necessary, or a lower end normal computer. Thanks!</p>
<p>Can anyone help me out? Thanks.</p>
<p>I have no answer but i have the same question. I know mac’s are frowned upon in engineering.</p>
<p>Our daughter is entering her junior year in CSE, and so far I’ve not seen anything which would levy significant requirements on the computer she used. We bought her a fairly beefy Dell desktop-replacement laptop, but I don’t think she has yet needed the extra horsepower. (In other words, we bought a $2,400 laptop when a $1,200 laptop would have been good enough thus far.)</p>
<p>She’s had to program in C/C++ (remotely connect to a Unix machine), Java (locally use Eclipse), and MatLab (locally installed). Eclipse can be a bit of a memory hog so I’d recommend going with 8Gb RAM. I’d assume for other engineering disciplines there would be similarly memory-heavy simulation or modeling programs (like AutoCAD), so even outside of CSE I’d shoot for a fair amount of RAM.</p>
<p>If it’s within your budget, I’d also recommend going with SSD (solid-state drive). A student computer has a rough life and anything without moving parts is more likely to survive it. But this can add several hundred dollars to the price of the laptop --if that’s too much, I’d buy an external drive (or online backup service) which would make it easier to deal with a hard drive death.</p>
<p>That doesn’t narrow down the range of manufacturers much, though. You can get 8Gb+SSD from anyone. To decide between the alternatives, I’d remind folks: the keyboard, touchpad, and screen are 90% of the user experience. I’d recommend having your student try out various laptops (at an electronics store like Best Buy) and give preference to the one which they like the best. Which keyboard can they type most quickly on? Which touchpad works best? Which screen is easiest to see in bright light?</p>
<p>Also: Consider the tradeoff of weight (easier to haul around) versus screen real estate (can see more stuff at once). We went with a middle-of-the-road 15" screen (17" = too big and heavy, 13" = not enough text visible at once). But others might choose a different size based on their own preferences.</p>
<p>Here’s a link for the minimum requirements: [Suggested</a> Minimum Personal Computer Features | Engineering Education Innovation Center](<a href=“http://eeic.osu.edu/class-technology/suggested-minimum-computer-features]Suggested”>http://eeic.osu.edu/class-technology/suggested-minimum-computer-features)</p>
<p>Four years ago we bought an HP Elitebook for DS (chemical engineering) and it is still going strong. He had a few minor issues early on (sticking key and scratchy sounding speakers) but we got the three year manufacturer warranty that provided onsite repair and they took care of the issues very quickly.</p>