By Robin Owens 13 days ago, Hardware
What are the best laptops for engineering students to buy this year?
The requirements for laptops for engineering students and professionals are rather high, as they are supposed to cope with complex and demanding tasks.
A laptop has to be capable of supporting the most sophisticated applications, used by the students. The finest graphics is a basic demand too. Besides, it should be flexible to some extent, to ensure after-studying entertainment.
As you can see, high requirements narrow down the broad selection of laptops available nowadays. Besides, the price of the laptop becomes a determinative factor. The students usually have a limited budget, so the task gets more complicated. It is necessary to choose a decent laptop, corresponding to the highest engineering requirements, with a price meeting a limited budget.
Below you will find an article that is bound to help you solve this issue. We have picked 7 best laptops for engineering students and now present them to your attention.
CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H | GPU: Nvidia RTX2060 | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 512GB | Display: 15.6-inch | Weight: 4.1 pound
⊕ Compact and lightweight design
⊕ Amazing gaming performance
⊕ Capacious battery
⊕ Variety of features for gaming
⊖ Not the best keyboard
⊖ Storage may not be enough
Another device we recommend as a good laptop for computer engineering students is MSI GS65 Stealth Thin. In fact, it is a gaming laptop, designed with NVIDIA's Max-Q technology, which allows it to be thin, lightweight, yet amazingly powerful. The excellent performance is guaranteed by impressively efficient Intel processor and supported by a durable battery.
Though you may find laptops with a slightly better build quality, we can overlook this fact. Especially, considering that MSI GS65 is provided with the Max-Q system, and has a more attractive price than the competitors. If your budget is not too tight, you may have a look at Origin PC EVO15-S, which is more expensive but offers larger storage and better build quality.
CPU: Intel Core i7 | GPU: Radeon Pro 5300M | RAM: 16GB | Storage: 512GB | Display: 16-inch | Weight: 4.2 pound
⊕ Powerful
⊕ Wide range of settings
⊕ Excellent display
⊖ Price above average
⊖ Poor choice of ports
⊖ Minor keyboard issues
Looking for a decent laptop for college engineering, it is impossible to skip MacBook Pro released in 2019. This 16-inch laptop is a strong representative of an Ultrabook class, provided with a lot of attractive features, which make it the best in its category.
The weight and dimensions of the new model of MacBook Pro are not largely different from its predecessor. The internal part has been updated, as well as the keyboard, which now feels softer when typing, still having a serious business look. Moreover, when it comes to versatility and portability, Apple also offers a compelling student tablet option: the iPad Air. This powerful tablet serves as an excellent alternative when you don't want to carry the entire laptop with you. The iPad Air boasts impressive performance, a stunning display, and a wide range of educational apps that can aid in note-taking, research, and other academic tasks. Its lightweight design and compatibility with Apple Pencil make it an ideal companion for college students seeking a flexible and portable solution.
CPU: Core i7-8565U | GPU: Intel HD Graphics | RAM: 16GB | Storage: 512GB | Display: 13.3-inch | Weight: 2.7 pound
⊕ Affordable
⊕ Long-lasting battery
⊕ Almost borderless design
⊕ HDMI, USB-A, USB-C ports
⊖ Cramped keyboard
⊖ Lack of Thunderbolt 3 port
Asus ZenBook 13 tops our list of the best laptops for engineering students. It has amazing specifications for quite a reasonable price. Provided with a mighty Core i5 processor, the laptop is compact and lightweight. Although the keys are placed rather tight on the keyboard, this is a minor disadvantage, compared with all the advantages.
The laptop has been proved to correspond to the highest US military standards (MIL-STD 810G), so we don’t have any doubts about its superior protection from the environmental factors. On the corps, you will see a gold strip, which marks the blue color scheme and looks like a loudspeaker grille but it isn’t. Asus ZenBook 13 has inbuilt speakers by Harman/Kardon, located on the underside.
CPU: Intel Core i7-1065G7 | GPU: Intel Iris Graphics | RAM: 16GB | Storage: 1000GB | Display: 13.4-inch | Weight: 2.8 pound
⊕ Trendy design
⊕ Enhanced touchpad
⊕ Perfect 16:10 screen
⊕ Minimized display borders
⊖ Long-lasting battery
⊖ High price
⊖ Poor choice of ports
Dell XPS 13 is the newest laptop, which looks trendy and is powerful enough to place it among the best laptops for engineering students. It is slim and lightweight, which appeals to many users. The build is durable enough to survive a busy students’ life.
Dell XPS 13 perfectly fits into the ultraportable category, measuring 0.58x11.6x7.8 inches and weighing only 2,8 pounds, though not being the smallest one. For users, who are looking for an outstanding Windows laptop with great specifications and compact size, this one by Dell will be a perfect option.
CPU: Core i7-1065G7 | GPU: Intel Iris Plus graphics | RAM: 16GB | Storage: 512GB | Display: 15.6-inch | Weight: 2.44 pound
⊕ Extremely lightweight
⊕ Thunderbolt 3
⊕ Bright 16:10 screen
⊕ Good battery
⊖ Expensive
⊖ One may feel a lack of storage
In the list of decent engineering laptops, we can’t but mention LG Gram. This laptop has a super-capacious battery and many innovative features. For instance, it is provided with a fingerprint reader, which enhances security.
The webcam placed above the screen, and a Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port, make this model more attractive, compared to its predecessor. LG claims that the corps of nanocarbon magnesium, which corresponds to US military standards, is the most durable among the competitors.
CPU: Intel Core i5 | GPU: Intel HD Graphics | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 512GB | Display: 14-inch | Weight: 3.0 pound
⊕ Compact design
⊕ Super thin borders
⊕ Great variety of ports
⊕ Touchpad may be used as a number pad
⊖ Not excellent screen
⊖ A bit of bloatware
Asus ZenBook 14 is one more representative of the ultraportable group of laptops. Its display has the thinnest borders you can imagine, and the overall laptop size is impressively small. The advanced and trendy design of this laptop appeals to many users.
Asus ZenBook 14 is provided with a powerful processor, which guarantees the greatest performance, and a decent choice of ports. With the specifications it has, Asus ZenBook 14 could be an excellent laptop for computer engineering students.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7-4800H | GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2060 | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 512GB | Display: 15.6-inch | Weight: 5.2 pound
⊕ Perfect gaming performance
⊕ May be upgraded easily
⊕ Top-quality accurate screen
⊖ Some parts feel too flexible
⊖ Lack of multi-zone RGB lighting
In fact, this laptop was designed as a gaming one, but we recommend to consider Asus TUF VR as a decent laptop for college engineering too. It has an enhanced keyboard, which feels comfortable even during the longest gaming sessions. Besides, Asus claims that this keyboard is durable enough to survive 20 million presses.
The overall advanced design of the laptop allows you to clean its parts easily form any dust or dirt. Asus TUF VR is very thin, compared to other gaming laptops, but it doesn’t overheat while gaming, which is another great feature. Considering its excellent display and amazing performance, we definitely recommend Asus TUF VR as one of the best laptops for engineering students.
| Image | Name | Features | |
|---|---|---|---|
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MSI GF65 Thin
Our Choice |
CHECK PRICE → | |
 |
MacBook Pro
Professional |
CHECK PRICE → | |
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ASUS ZenBook 13
Budget |
CHECK PRICE → |
The capacity of a laptop is greatly determined by its CPU. That is the reason why good engineering laptops have to be provided with the most powerful processors to be quick enough and support all the demanding programs for computer engineering. We recommend you to take the 6th generation Intel Core i7 processor as a minimum not to waste time waiting. Although, if you need a laptop for Photoshop or 2D engineering, Core i3 will be great for your needs.
The software, used for computer engineering, has the highest technical requirements. A graphics card should be advanced enough. We recommend not less than 2GB DDR3. If possible, take a DDR5 graphics card like the NVIDIA GTX series to ensure the best performance.
The minimal RAM should be 8GB. But if you can afford 12GB or even 16GB, the result will be definitely worth it.
Choosing the display, pay attention to its size and screen resolution.
Size
Though the size of the display doesn’t seriously affect the overall performance of engineering laptops, a larger model allows you to see your work on a bigger screen. On the other hand, with a larger display, your laptop won’t be that compact. We recommend you select a 14- or 15-inch display as a compromise. You can get a good laptop under 1000 dollars with such resolution.
Resolution
As opposed to the size, the resolution of a laptop for college engineering has great importance. We don’t recommend choosing a laptop with less than 1920x1080 (Full HD) if you want to stay productive. If you can afford it, a 2K or 4K screen would be even better. This approach is also relevant if you need the best laptop for graphic design.
There is no need to explain the importance of having enough storage on a laptop, especially if you are working with engineering programs, like Catia, AutoCAD, or ANSYS. Currently, laptops are provided with SSD, which is quick and up-to-date. Although, if you feel that you won’t be satisfied with 128GB or 256GB of storage, you should select an HDD with 7200 RPM. Besides, there are hybrid hard drives, offering 128GB SSD plus 1TB HDD. In fact, the storage is not the most significant feature of a laptop for college students, but the larger it is, the better.
Usually, computer engineers are mobile and move from one place to another. That’s why they like their laptops to be lightweight and compact. However, the battery is also important, so you should get a good laptop with long battery life. We recommend a battery life of 6 hours as a minimum to feel safe even without a charging station.
We have picked and reviewed 7 best laptops for engineering students available on the market. Each of them is great and highly recommended. But what you choose in the end should also consider your personal needs, depending on the type of work you usually do. Make a list of the features that you would like to have on your laptop, and make an informed decision, taking into account all the information you have.
It is not obligatory. A basic Ryzen laptop will be quite enough. You will find special computers for engineering in the labs of your school, if you need to do some complex tasks, like 3D modeling. Anyway, having the possibility to run all the necessary software on your own device is great.
MacBook Pro is a decent laptop with 8GB of RAM, supporting all the engineering programs at the highest speed. A lot of users also claim that Windows works better on a MacBook Pro, than on the majority of laptops, designed for Windows. Another advantage is the superior build quality of MacBook Pro and better support.
HP has made a great combination of a powerful processor with outstanding graphics in its latest 2-in-1 laptop. It is a powerful device, which may be considered as one of the best laptops for AutoCAD nowadays.
For most users, 8GB is more than enough. For CAD/CAM work 8GB RAM is a minimum.
