Question Looking for Mechanical Engineering Student Laptop Recommendations

exidis

Prominent
Nov 13, 2017
1
0
510
Hello everyone!

I am starting college soon and the time has come to choose a laptop.

I, as the title says, am an incoming Mechanical Engineering student, and I am looking for a quality laptop to reduce dependence on university computing.

Essentially, the laptop will need to be able to handle any modeling, CAD, or other engineering software I throw at it and ideally last all four years of college.

My budget is fairly robust, but I would like to stay under $2000, closer to the $1500 range. However, I would rather have a better machine than save a few dollars.


Core Needs:
Budget
$1000-$2000, flexible​
Screen Size
13"-15"​
Screen Resolution
1080p or better​
Portability
Lighter is better, but weight is not an issue​
Battery Life
6+ hours of medium usage​
Storage
512GB SSD or better​
RAM
16GB, preferably​

Wish List:
  • Rigid body (metal, carbon fiber, etc.)
  • Able to play somewhat demanding video games (Overwatch would be a good reference point)
  • The more storage, the better, as I would like to store media on this machine as well
Additional Information:
  • If it is relevant, I live in the US
  • I do not need an optical drive
These is the recommended specs provided by the Engineering Department:

CPUIntel i3/i5/i7 processor
Minimum RAM8 GB
Recommended RAMAt least 16GB
Optical DriveOptional
Minimum Storage256 GB
Recommended Storage512 GB or Larger Solid State Drive (SSD)
Operating SystemWindows 10 (64-bit)

macOS 10.14 “Mojave”
Wireless802.11ac
Warranty3-year

The following link contains the laptops sold by my school for my degree under the recommendation of the Engineering Department.

https://shop.ncsu.edu/ePOS/form=robots/catalog.html&this_category=521&store=432&design=mbl

I realize this does reveal some personal information about myself, but I believe it is important to be able to review these laptops and the specific hardware on them in order to make an informed recommendation.

I believe that I can get a more than adequate laptop with my budget, but, given my somewhat limited knowledge, I thought it best to ask for recommendations from this helpful community before making a mistake and wasting time and money.

Thank you all in advance for you help in the matter. I am extremely grateful.
 
Last edited:

Sagar_20

Distinguished
AUTOCAD 2019 recommends a 4GB GPU with 106 GB/s memory bandwidth

So basically any entry level gaming laptop would work but GTX 1050 Ti or 1650 will be the best.

If you can afford, get the Dell XPS 15.

No 13 inch laptop seems to meet your needs except Apple Macbook Pro 13 but it cannot run video games like that.

Dell XPS 15 - 9570