Hey everyone,
I’ve graduated high school now, and I’m in the process of looking for a laptop for college. I will be studying mechanical engineering, and I’m hoping to get an affordable laptop that will still have the following features (as recommended by the college):
Intel Core i5 or i7 processor
8GB RAM
250 GB hard disk or larger
DVD±RW combo drive
In addition, I think a good graphics card would be ideal, since I may be working with some 3D programs during my four years. Beyond that, I’m pretty open. By affordable, I mean $1500 or less. Any suggestions based off of this? Thanks!
Check the school’s bookstore. They usually have this sorted out where they have laptops available to purchase that fit the requirements.
Investigate the Mac and maybe install Boot camp.
You could also try the Surface Pro 3 tablet. Do NOT get anything that has Windows RT on it. My roommate had a tablet computer with Windows RT and he couldn’t run very many programs on it because it only accepted ARM based software, which none of the engineering programs were.
If you’re going into mechE and plan on using solidworks you’re probably going to want a windows machine (Mac with bootcamp or parallels might work, but I haven’t had first hand experience with that so I can’t say for sure).
There are some pretty nice options out there; personally I’d recommend lenovo.
If you are near one, I am a firm believer in Microcenter for advice and great deals. http://www.microcenter.com
Thank you all for your suggestions!
@cameraphone, I would like to get a PC over a Mac for the reason stated above. While bootcamp may work, I don’t want to mess or gamble with it too much. I do like Mac’s a lot, since my family has one now, but is rather stick with the PC for ease of compatibility with the programs.
The school has discounted Dell Latitudes that would work well. Again, they are on the higher end of the range though. I think they’re even $1600 with the discount.
@saif235, I actually found the Lenovo Thinkpad already. My school’s tech department can supposedly repair those models if needed, which is convenient. I really like it, but it is a bit on the high range (near $1500, if not more than that). Do you have any other Lenovo recommendations?
Use the promo code SAV15THINKPAD. I needed a new laptop and snagged an X1 Carbon with a 5200u, 256 SSD, and 8 GB Ram for less than $1200.
I recommend Asus ROG G75VW. It costs ~$1,200. The downfalls are battery life and huge size. However, you can customize the battery and size from different gaming laptop companies. Here are the specs:
-16 GB DDR3 RAM
-2.6 GHz Core i7-4720HQ
-1024 GB
Those both look like great options. Thank you!
@YogSothoth , do you happen to know how an Intel HD Graphics 5500 graphics card would work for demanding mechanical engineering programs? Otherwise, that laptop is much more affordable than the others I’ve had. Thanks!
Can I piggyback on this thread? The college my kid will go to recommends getting a dedicated video card.
Does that mean laptops with “Intel HD Graphics 5500” are out? As I understamd it, that’s integrated video, right?
@YogSothoth X1 Carbon seems very cool. How does it handle graphic intense programs and what’s the battery life like? Do you like the display?
@rkepp12 and @scholarme: The X1 Carbon has an integrated GPU so it will not be sufficient if you will need to render lots of things on it. The battery life is very good, though. I can get 9 hours on one charge.
I probably should have been clearer. I didn’t mean that you should get an X1 Carbon, it won’t be adequate for autoCAD, solidworks, etc. But I believe the promocode works on all Thinkpads. Don’t panic if it doesn’t seem to do anything, though. One day it didn’t work and then the next day it did for me, so keep trying.
If you want a Thinkpad, you guys should look at the W550s. It’s still fairly thin and very light for its class. It has a very, very good battery life (we’re talking 10+ hours, and you can spend extra to get a massive battery that will last 17 hours). It’s designed for engineers and will do what you need. And, of course, you get the standard Thinkpad pros: an excellent build quality (you won’t have to baby it), a great keyboard, and the wonderful pointer stick.
The base price is about $1200, and you don’t need to upgrade it much to get a very good laptop. Just make sure you have at least 8 GB of RAM.
There are a few downsides - it’s 15 inches, but afaik you won’t find a smaller laptop with powerful enough graphics. You will also not be able to play video games on it (but that might be a pro in the eyes of the parent). The GPU architecture is designed for engineering software, not for video games.
We were looking at the W550s and my kid was concerned that there was no option for an SSD instead of the regular HD.
Otoh the battery life seems a lot better than on the gaming laptops (alienware, omen, etc)
Edot: just dpuble checked - it does let you upgrade to SSD! Will take another look
Ack! Sorry about the typos!
While I’m at it, any opinions on the Alienware 13, Omen 15t, and the Envy 15t-k200?
Also, they often ket you pick between Win 8.1 and downgradeable to Win 7. Which one is more compatible with college engineering programs?
@YogSothoth Thank you so much for the clarification. That makes much more sense. My goal is to get the best laptop (that will get the job done for most of the programs I could encounter) for the lowest price. With that said, I don’t want to sacrifice quality, especially if there are certain specifications that I will need to run mechanical engineering programs.
Another question, if I may: it sounds like this laptop is VERY geared towards engineering activities. Will it still be effective if I try to do things like stream videos (maybe Netflix, YouTube) on my free time? I feel like it might be able to, given all the power it has, but I don’t want to assume.
scholarme: It might be cheaper to buy a regular HD and upgrade the laptop with a SSD after the fact. The prices for SSD have really dropped. Lenovo has great videos that show what is involved in replacing any component. For most of their products, it not that difficult. It is definitely a worthwhile upgrade.
The same goes for memory unless the memory is soldered to the motherboard.
The same is usually not true for the video card. If it does not come with a discrete video card then you cannot add it. If it has one then it might be possible to upgrade it.
What I like about the Think Pads is the build quality and that they are designed to be repairable. You do have to be careful that you check to see if the memory can be upgraded. Some of the models such as the Twist, Helix and maybe the X1 Carbon have the memory soldered on the motherboard.
@rkepp12 Yes, of course. It’s a square-rectangle thing. Not all laptops that can do “normal” college laptop things can run engineering programs, but all laptops that can run engineering programs can easily handle normal college laptop things.
@scholarme There are two classes of laptops with powerful graphics: Gaming laptops and Professional (also known as Workstation) laptops. You can tell if you look at the graphics card. If it has a graphics card called Geforce, GT, GTS, or GTX and then a code (eg GTX 960M), then it is built for gaming. If it has a graphics card called Quadro and then a code (eg Quadro K620M), it is geared towards engineering, video processing, architecture, etc.
Thinkpad’s W series are Workstation laptops. Other laptops in this class are Dell’s Precision series and HP’s ZBook series. The laptops you’re looking at are Gaming laptops. The difference is that the Quadro cards have special driver integration with many modelling programs used by engineers (3DS Max, Maya, Solidworks, etc.). There is a chance that you will NOT be able to use some features of these programs at all, or they will run at very slow frame rates, if you get a gaming laptop.
All the different laptops will have slightly different specs, battery life, build quality, screen resolution, weight and size and the differences are way too vast do go over in one post - you should read reviews and consider what you care most about. Do you want to sacrifice power for battery life? For weight? For a computer that runs quiet and cool? As an undergrad you probably don’t need the max amount of power, though, so it might be worth sacrificing power for little quality of life things.
All the programs should work fine on Windows 8.
@YogSothoth thanks so much! That is really very helpful!
Thank you all for your feedback!!
Here’s what I decided on: Given that I’ve found the mobile workstations to be unnecessary, I decided I will likely go with the Lenovo Thinkpad T450s. Customizing it on the Lenovo website to have an 8GB memory and a 2.9 GHz i5 processor (and with the promo code that @YogSothoth recommended), it will cost around $800.
I’m also entertaining the idea of possibly having a desktop computer for my dorm room, that may be able to handle the “heavy lifting” a little bit better. Any suggestions?
For a desktop you might want to build your own, especially as an engineer presumably you might find it to be a fun and educational project. Check out newegg.com there’s a video tutorial on their home page about how build your own.
Personally I wouldn’t jump the gun. Wait and see how your laptop does first before overthinking things. BTW 8GB RAM sounds a but skinny for windows, although memory is easy to upgrade later.
@anomander Thanks for the input! That’s actually what I’m planning to do.
What size memory would you suggest? I believe I can go up to 16GB RAM when I order the laptop, but it would cost an extra $150 (maybe more, I don’t remember without looking at the website). The college’s website recommends 8GB as well, but if that’s not enough in practice, perhaps I’ll try to upgrade.
I like a minimum of 16GB if you’ll be using the laptop for anything more serious than surfing the web and writing papers. $150 for 8GB more sounds pretty steep. I recommend you look at the technical specs for the machine to see how memory slots it has, and how many will be filled with the 8GB you’re getting. If you’ll have a free slot, then hike over to crucial.com and see how much 8GB and 16GB sticks for your particular machine are. That way you might be able to save a few bucks by adding the extra memory later if you need it.
I don’t know what sort of programs you’ll be using as an engineer. Some programs benefit from more main RAM, some are cpu intensive (e.g. compilers), and some are video intensive and could use more video RAM (rendering programs and the like). If you know what you’ll be using you can do a little research on the programs and tailor your laptop a little better.
At work I use a Lenovo w520 w/16GB which is considered a bare minimum. Most of my colleagues who do more heavy duty work have upgraded to 32GB. But we tend to run several business programs simultaneously so quite possibly my opinions are skewed towards the higher end.