Question I need help to find a good laptop

[fried_piper]

Hello everyone, I am a student in IT, my old laptop (macbook pro from late 2015) is going to die soon... It did his job until now but I am looking for something better to fit my needings.
I would like a good laptop for university, coding and grapich design... and If possible gaming too?
I was looking at

OMEN 16-xd0002nl Notebook Gaming AMD Ryzen™ 7, 144 Hz e NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4060​

but not being an expert I decided to open a discussion over here to get your thoughts and suggestions,
thank you very much.

 

[CelicaGT]

Laptops are a difficult thing to recommend. I don't mean spec wise, I mean that every different model can have very different performance characteristics based on thermals or power budgets. There's also product support to consider, display quality, battery life etc. What I recommend is that you do a general search (Google, Duck Duck Go, Bing, whatever you prefer) for the SPECIFIC model you are looking at. Read reviews (Notebookcheck is fantastic, reputable, and very educational for the layperson), Reddit posts, poke around product forums to get a general picture of what that machine will bring to the table both good and bad. All we can offer here is anecdotal brand experience and general knowledge. There's more to a laptop than its specifications. Is that the 35W, 40W, 45W, 55W, 60W, 65W, 70W, or 75W version of the RTX3050? Is the cooling solution adequate for that 75W GPU? (You'd be surprised to find out how often it's not!) Is that RAM soldered in or accessible? Dual channel? Can I add internal storage? If I can add storage do I need an engineering degree to gain access? Does this display use PWM for dimming? What is the colour space and how accurate is this display? (Relevant, since you mention graphic design). Specific reviews or personal experience from users in a brand specific forum can answer these kinds of questions.

 

[Eximo]

Generally just start with region/currency and your budget.

Then your physical needs. Clearly you want a discrete GPU for gaming and a 15-16" laptop is adequate. Storage and memory, battery life, and other common laptop features are still on the table.

Honestly for serious graphic design I would go with an external monitor that you can calibrate. The laptop display could be reserved for on the go stuff and gaming. But if it is just light graphic design, then a decent IPS panel is likely sufficient.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hello everyone, I am a student in IT, my old laptop (macbook pro from late 2015) is going to die soon... It did his job until now but I am looking for something better to fit my needings.
I would like a good laptop for university, coding and grapich design... and If possible gaming too?
I was looking at

OMEN 16-xd0002nl Notebook Gaming AMD Ryzen™ 7, 144 Hz e NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4060​

but not being an expert I decided to open a discussion over here to get your thoughts and suggestions,
thank you very much.

Hey there,

Hmmm I don't think it's too hard at all to recommend something.

What is your bugdet? As with any purchase, budget talks. There are many possibly suitable laptops.

In terms of gaming, most laptops will have load fans and temps will get high. This is the design of laptops.

 

[fried_piper]

thanks to everyone who already commented, now I understand why I can’t pick a decent laptop… I have zero knowledge about all these components you mentioned above.

Generally just start with region/currency and your budget.

Then your physical needs. Clearly you want a discrete GPU for gaming and a 15-16" laptop is adequate. Storage and memory, battery life, and other common laptop features are still on the table.

Honestly for serious graphic design I would go with an external monitor that you can calibrate. The laptop display could be reserved for on the go stuff and gaming. But if it is just light graphic design, then a decent IPS panel is likely sufficient.

I currently live in Italy so I’d say european prices.

Hey there,

Hmmm I don't think it's too hard at all to recommend something.

What is your bugdet? As with any purchase, budget talks. There are many possibly suitable laptops.

In terms of gaming, most laptops will have load fans and temps will get high. This is the design of laptops.

About the budget, I don’t have a precise number but I would say around 1200/1500€ but I would look a bit higher if it’s worth the investment.

I’d say in general I don’t want it to be mainly for gaming but something professional for working with coding and grapich design but since I don’t have any console to play with I’d like to spend time gaming every once in a while (like warzone or such as).

 

[geofelt]

Some universities will have requirements for laptops.
Check first to see if that applies to you.
It is best to see/touch/try out a laptop in person if you can.
The quality and brightness of the screen makes a difference.
If you want to game, it should have a discrete graphics chip and excellent cooling.
Many gaming laptops will throttle due to heat while gaming.
Gaming laptops will be heavier, as a student, you may want to spend more on a lighter weight unit.

I find that Lenovo makes good units if they are available to you.
If you are comfortable updating hardware, you can save some money by buying a unit with minimal storage and ram and upgrading on your own.
Look at the Lenovo X1 carbon units which can include more than integrated graphics and are very light.
Expensive though.

 

[Eximo]

Hmm, perhaps a slightly older Dell Inspiron 7620 if you can find one priced well enough.

• Dell Inspiron 16 7620
• 16 inch 3K (3072 x 1920) 16:10 Wide View Angle Anti-Glare 300-nits Comfort View Plus Low Blue Light Non-Touch Display
• 12th Generation Intel Core i7-12700H 14-Core Processor 2.30GHz Up to 4.70GHz
• 32GB DDR5 RAM
• 512GB Solid State Drive
• 4GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050Ti Graphics
• Wifi 802.11AX
• BlueTooth 5
• 2 x USB 3.2
• 1 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) with Power Delivery and DisplayPort
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x SD Digital card reader
• 1 x Headphone/microphone combo jack
• FHD RGB Camera and Microphone
• Backlit Keyboard
• Windows 11 Pro 64-Bit

But otherwise, Dell, MSI (they have a significant business line), Lenovo, and the occasional ASUS all make decent workstation like laptops. Your best bang for the buck is going to be in gaming laptops though, but then you are likely to sacrifice a little on the display. Nothing wrong with a 144hz gaming display, just won't be ideal for color work.