Hi there! Wasn’t completely sure where to post but I figured this would be the best place. So for all of high school I’ve pretty much been using a potato and sadly my potato is giving out on me. My school highly recommends having a solid laptop for CS majors since a lot of assignments and coursework pretty much needs a heavy duty laptop. The suggested specs are: core i5 or higher (I would prefer i7), windows OS, more than 6 GB of RAM, and at least 512 GB of storage (considering I’m double majoring I’m betting I’ll need at least 1 GB). My budget’s around $1000 which I can’t really increase since I’m buying this myself without parental support. I’ve been researching but everything seems to be either way over or way under my budget without the specs I want. I also dislike 13" screens since they almost always feel too small but 15.6" is too bulky to carry around, so 13.9" or 14" is ideal. Obviously since I’m a student battery life should be somewhat decent. Touch screen and slim (ish?) design is preferred, but I get if I have to sacrifice some to get the other specs I want in my budget.
Anyone have any suggestions? I would really appreciate recommendations and also tips on how to get a good deal haha.
I have bought several and come off business leases. Close to your specs and you can put in a larger hard drive if you know how… Hint (not hard to do if your handy).
16 g is min. Ram for cs.
Some gaming computers work nice but battery life suffers. If you can up your price a bit you will have much better options . Summer still here… Try to make some money
… Lol
Thank you for your suggestions! I was thinking of getting the Lenovo 920 with i7 and 16 GB (just got to squeeze my budget even tighter haha). I’m thinking of going up to 1300 for my budget. I’m still working right now so I’ve been calculating how much to spend for everything including future paychecks.
16Gb memory sounds good. You may save money if you use HDD as opposed to SSD (but will be heavier). Also, you probably need less disc space than you think if you take advantage of cloud storage.You can save money on screen size then add a larger desktop monitor for more video real estate.
If you go to Lenovo website you can find many options at ~$1k. You may also want to check the IT site of the university you’ll be attending to see what they provide: SW, applications, and cloud storage.
Sale ends soon. Newegg has a bunch of good deals right now.
14 inch laptops are definitely less common than 13.3.
16GB of RAM is cool but really nobody uses more than 8, but this one has 16.
512GB of SSD which I am sure you can upgrade for more later on.
$800 option w/ touchscreen… only downside is less storage and it’s a dual core i7 as opposed to a quad core, so if you are running anything processor heavy, might not be as great.
How’s a HP 14 inch monitor. 3.79 lbs. 2/1 laptop with digital pen with 8 gb ram with 1tb HD with touch display??? Battery life is 7-8 hours for $699.99?
My son got the Lenovo Flex 5 at Costco last summer: i7, 4K Ultra HD, 2 GB graphics, 16 GB memory, 1TB HD + 512 GB SSD. It was marked down $150 to $1000 this time last year. The only thing he did not like is the touchscreen but he could not find the combination of features w/o the touchscreen. The screen is 15.6, which is larger than you want, but again, trade-offs.
He has used it all year for programming and some summer research and it seems to be holding up well.
I think you’ll need to flex on your specs to stay in your budget. With cloud storage being so inexpensive, I doubt that you’ll need 512 GB of storage; you would probably do just fine with 256GB (maybe buy an external hard drive later if you really need to expand). I don’t think you need an i7; a Core i5 would be just fine. You probably would want the extra RAM, though - 8 GB is pretty easy to find; 16 GB might be harder on your budget.
I might have to stretch my budget a bit (At this point I’ve accepted I’ll probably need to go up for the specs I want). I’m mostly trying to make sure my laptop will last throughout college (I do some video editing and have some side projects that will be processor heavy). At this point I’m trying to go for under $1300 and the options are pretty overwhelming. I’m definitely used to 2 in 1s (my current laptop is a 2 in 1, just not very good) and being able to use a pen seems amazing since I also am an artist. @juillet You seem to be reading my mind because those are some of the main laptops I’ve been looking at! I’ve heard rave reviews over the Yoga 920 but it’s definitely somewhat more expensive for similar laptops at the same specs. I suppose at this point I’m just trying to figure out how much build quality matters. Any suggestions for which one tops out of your list? Thank you so much!
@CT1417 Looks like the Flex 6 just came out in a 14" screen! If I may ask, did your son notice any problems with battery life? I’ve heard some reviewers say that the Flexes don’t hold up well throughout a workday. One of the biggest problems with my own laptop right now is the unreliable battery life (like dying two-three hours after a charge) and I want to avoid more problems like that. Thank you for your suggestion! I appreciate it.
@ProfessorPlum168 I’m thinking of getting the XPS 13 or 15, but maybe the 2 in 1 versions (I’m also very indecisive so I’m trying to narrow down from a list of like 10 laptops right now). Would you say the quality is worth the cost? Thank you so much!
@knowstuff Costco’s awesome haha. Thank you for your suggestions! At this point I’m realizing that I might have to spend a little more for the specs I want. That HP laptop sounds great if I can find it with 16 GB of RAM.
@jimochimin – I probably should have spoken with my son before I posted here!
He confirmed that the battery fades after three hours. The other thing I had forgotten about, but have noticed myself, is that the laptop’s fans are louder than I think they should be.
So I then asked him if there is another model he wished he had purchased instead…but he did not have an immediate response. I am not sure why the battery life and fan noise complaints did not appear online, but I left the research to him.
Overall, the computer has functioned well, but he would not buy it again. It is a powerful computer for the size and price, so perhaps Lenovo sacrificed battery life? (I am a Mac desktop user and have never owned a laptop, so should not be offering advice!) He runs Linux on it and puts the computer through its paces while programming, so not a casual user.
@jimochimin I doubt if the 2 in 1 comes in the 15 inch size, the tablet would be too unwieldy. 13 would probably be awesome for 2 in 1. But for 13 you probably should hook it up to a big monitor at home/dorm - you probably need lots of real estate for coding and development.
Both the 13 and 15 inch XPS are pretty much the nearest thing to a MacBook in terms of aesthetics. I think it’s worth it. On my kid’s XPS (not on mine) he had a “battery swelling” problem that Dell fixed for free even though it was out of warranty. The swole battery lifts up the touchpad such that some functionality of the touchpad doesn’t work. That’s the only quality issue that I’ve seen in 2 years.
I think build quality matters a lot, because that helps determine the life of your computer. If you want something to last you through college, you’ll want to shell out a good chunk of change ($1000-1500, I think, although I think you should be reasonably able to keep it below $1300).
My work laptop is a Lenovo, and I highly recommend them. Despite being thin and very light, it’s built like a tank - I’ve dropped it, banged it into walls, etc. Still runs like it’s new. (My first computer in college was also a Lenovo, back when IBM still owned the ThinkPad line. I gave it to my aunt after I finished and bought a new one; I visited it 7 years later and it was still running.) I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which I highly recommend; but out of the more reasonably priced consumer machines I listed, the Lenovo Yoga 920 would be my top bet.I think it’s a little pricier because Lenovo’s build quality is very good, and the engineering on that ‘watchband hinge’ took a lot to get right without loosening up over time. It honestly doesn’t seem all that different in price from other computers with the same size and specs - it’s $1050 without any doorbusters and the base model comes with the same specs as the other computers I mentioned.
The Surface Laptop is also beautiful and has great build quality, but since it’s newer we don’t know what Microsoft’s build quality is going to be like. The Surfaces seem to hold up pretty well over time. It’s also smaller than you want. But this is the machine I plan to replace my personal computer (an HP Spectre x360) with, this year or next year. It’s worth mentioning that the config I posted is normally $1300.
I don’t know much about Asus computers (my husband had one in college; it lasted him a while). I’ve heard that the Zenbook is a good solid laptop - not spectacular, but not bad either. In case you’re a gamer or do other graphics-heavy stuff, the Zenbook actually has a discrete GPU; it’s not really a gaming laptop (for that, look at the Razer Blade; a lot of people at work have them now as their main work computer somehow, and they’re awesome but very expensive!) but it’ll run your games or video editing software a lot more smoothly.
@knowstuff I was honestly considering that for a while, but it seems like it’s a trend to solder the memory right into the motherboard nowadays and I definitely don’t have the skills for that :/. Most of the laptops I’ve been looking at don’t have the option for expandable memory or storage at all besides what comes with it.
just for FYI. The xps are nice machines also.