Well, if 2-3 lbs actually does make a difference, then get a gym membership, find a trainer and grab some weights.
This is a bit of an ignorant statement. There’s a difference between being able to lift 2.5 lb extra and wanting to carry it around all day.
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As others have said, the college and/or department is likely to provide recommendations. Beyond that, it depends on how you plan to use the laptop and personal preferences. For example, are you mostly going to use the laptop to take notes in class? Are also going to use the laptop to do BME/CS assignments in your dorm, without an external monitor? What criteria do you value in a laptop? Is balancing cost a priority? I can describe the laptop I’d prefer (big screen, lots of RAM, touchpad with physically separate buttons, Bluetooth …); but it probably will not match well with your preferences.
No difference between the two. Both are a joke. Carrying around an 2.5 lbs? Serious? 
If you buy a laptop with a smaller screen because you can’t or don’t want to CARRY around an extra 2.5 lbs, then I truly fell bad that person. You’re either too weak and out of shape or you’re centenarian.
Reminds me of the movie Wall-E, where humans can’t do anything for themselves any longer. Buy the big screen laptop. And get in shape too. 
Spoken by one who I suspect hasn’t done it. 
I have only purchased large screen laptops for the last umpteen years. The added, even the total weight, is negligible IMO.
The 16” MacBook Pro is 4.3 lbs. The Dell 17” Inspiron laptop is 5.36 lbs. IMO it’s just about one’s perspective, not “ignorance.” We’re ONLY talking about toting a total of 5 lbs. around campus, whether college or work.
I just dropped off my D at the airport today with a 40-ish lb backpack to carry around the airport and then back to her college apartment. An extra 2.5 lbs is really nothing.
I didn’t use the word “ignorant.” I would say carrying your luggage and what you carry in your back pack every single day probably isn’t the best comparison though.
The “ignorant” quote can be attributed to our Forum Champion above.
Airports, middle and high school, carrying to friends houses to study, etc., location is irrelevant. My D’s have been toting around their heavy backpacks for years.
Last post here, please join me in celebrating the life of Lt. Michael Murphy by completing The Murph Challenge this (and every) Memorial Day:
The ignorant verbiage comes from the fact that you are apparently conflating the ability to lift 2.5 lbs extra with the desire to add to the load of things you carry around all day.
Of course essentially anyone would be able to carry 2.5 lbs. That doesn’t make it desirable. It should also be mentioned that regularly carrying more than 20% of your own body weight in a backpack can, over time, lead to back problems. Doing it briefly (while traveling, for example) is clearly different than doing it every day for school or work.
In short, keeping your baggage light may not be the difference between being able or unable to pick up and carry your bags, but it may be the difference between long term comfort and sore back/muscles.
I have a HS Class of 2021 kid going off to college in the Fall. Right now, today, various parents on the HS Class of 2021 Forum are offering suggestions for backpacks. Scroll down to the most recent posts about backpacks, if interested:
So, carrying around laptops, books, etc. on a college campus is a moot point, back problems or not. College kids are using them (backpacks).
Eye strain or back problems. Pick your poison. Personally, with all the remote learning and phone usage, an extra 2.5 lbs for a large screen laptop is what we’re getting for our D. She’ll be able to handle the extra 2.5 lbs, which is really a silly amount of weight to be discussing. IMO.
In actuality, my D will be using the 16" Apple laptop, which is 1.5 lbs more than the Air version. She appreciates the larger screen for the tradeoff of 1.5 extra lbs.
All I can tell you is that the people I know that do this for a living and aren’t simply basing their opinion on what they’re buying for their freshman daughter. ALL choose light and do their heavy lifting work, no pun intended, on a much more powerful desktop with far better screen real estate.
Withdrawn.
Would thoughts on this topic be different for ECE vs CS, or the same?
Same.
The bottom line is that for the heaviest lifting, again, no pun intended, a desktop is best. Laptops that can compete with desktop power will weigh 10ish pounds if you include the transformer. You have to do that because they suck battery life so fast. Then you’re stuck with a relatively tiny screen, even if it’s 17".
If I had to do it all over again, having bought an absolute power beast, I’d send my son with the laptop he already owned and then let him choose the one he wanted once he landed and learned more.
Once he did buy his own, he bought a MacBook Air. His issued work computer is a MackBook Pro and a Mac desktop. He’s a ME that does a ton of EE.
Hope that helps.
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I’m not sure where you got the number from. This 17" one from Dell weighs 5.5lb (15.6" version weighs about 1 lb less):
Other manufacturers have similar models weighing about the same.
Are either Solidworks Certified? Does that include, as I laid out, the weight of the transformer?
They may have gotten a scoche lighter, but in general a 32+ gig, 1T plus HD, Quadro or equivalent, 15”+ laptop is damn heavy. 
Also, the cards that are the best for gaming, aren’t generally the best for engineering.
Well the university’s recommendations were enlightening. For engineering, all PCs, though CS students can choose Macbook Pro but not Air. The only Dell on the list happened to be a Precision 5550, which made me laugh - maybe I should send him with the 5530 until it dies (he has a heart condition so running late to class with a heavy load would not be ideal for him, though 4-ish lbs isn’t too bad, and at least he probably won’t have hard-copy books, unlike high school). They also recommend several ThinkPads (3.75 to 6 lbs) and Surface Book (3.62-4.2). Hmm, maybe 5530’s weight doesn’t sound so bad.
Good to know
Running CAD software isn’t even among the most challenging for these machines. They can also be configured with 32GB RAM, 4TB SSD, or an even more powerful GPU (such as RTX 3080) without additional weight:
https://www.dell.com/en-us/member/shop/gaming-laptops/alienware-m15-r4-gaming-laptop/spd/alienware-m15-r4-laptop/wnm15r440h
As I’ve posted before, gaming laptops (or desktops) these days aren’t just for gaming any more. These GPUs are much more powerful than any INTEL/AMD/ARM CPUs and they’re used for all kinds of intensive computation.
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But the thing is, you can build a far more powerful, far more scalable solution in a desktop.
The higher cost of these machines (laptops or desktops) is primarily due to the GPU. It’s actually significantly more expensive to build yourself as you have to pay much more for that component yourself than a manufacturer like Dell.
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