My son is looking at laptop options for college but is having difficulty deciding on which one he wants. He’s interested in SolidWorks and wants a laptop that will be able to run similar applications. I want to purchase an affordable laptop that will be able to last him throughout college and possibly into the start of his engineering career.
can anyone please respond to my question regarding laptop options? Is an I5 processor with 8GB RAM good enough or better to have 16GB ram to run solidworks? Any laptop type other than a MAC book or Surface laptop that you would recommend?
When my son was admitted to his university, they sent a memo, along with their packing list, saying that they realized that people would be buying laptops. Since each professor had specific recommendations, for laptops and software, depending on the major, they advised students to wait and check with the major office staffs before a major purchase.
Some majors have very specific software that only the university can upload for the students. Some of these computers will require a certain amount of memory.
Additionally at my university, as well as at all three of my children’s different universities, they gave a great discount on campus, because they are able to buy in bulk and can work with the manufacturers. (We’re talking about $500-$1000 in discount, minimum, depending on the manufacturers’ incentives.)
I would recommend that your son contact the department office, to which your son has been admitted, and ask their staff about laptop recommendations. You don’t want to buy a laptop, only to have to turn around and buy another one that is recommended by the school and that’s going to work with their recommended software. Sometimes they have a flyer, as they had, at one of my daughters’ schools.
Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I already purchased a laptop for him and it definitely should be good based on the specs (1TB solid state drive; 16 GB ram; AMD Ryzen 9 processor). I had the IT rep from our company give me advise on it.