Laptop for college

[TheBlackWidower]

1. What is your budget? Around $1200, it would be great if money can be saved.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 13-15 inches

3. What screen resolution do you want? Above 1080p.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? I can carry a load buy not much over 2k. I have a lot in my bag.

5. How much battery life do you need? 5-6 hours+

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games.
The quality is not a main priority so around medium settings(960m preferably); I will be playing CS:GO, Civ 5 and EU 4 mainly though I want 60 FPS in those titles.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) I am a college student and I am in a engineering class. Mainly running coding programs, youtube, netflix and games when I have time.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? Preferably at the price a combo of a HDD and SSD

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Preferably reputable sites.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 3.5 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? None

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. I My Preferred companies are anyone but Asus and Apple. Apple is out of my price point the mac book air is (honestly) not a very powerful laptop and I have had bad experience with Asus products

13. What country do you live in? United States

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I would like a SSD if possible.

 

[TheBlackWidower]

Fair enough.I'll drop csgo but games like Civ 5 and eu4 or still on the game list. I still want to play those. If I can get decent FPS and atleast 720p. I'm set for gaming. For school work, for engineering did u use a lot of formula like stuff or not? First year was basic things like can u build a PC, make simple coding etc. Next year I'm in the dark. Any help appreciated and thanks to all for narrowing down my needs

For those two games you don't need 60fps, 30 is more than enough (especially civ 5), so any skylake chip should work even without a dgpu (like surface pro 4 and a dozen laptops)

As for academic stuff, each school is different, and I'm in "real" engineering, i.e. mechanical+electrical, which is quite a bit more demanding in terms of computing needs (CAD is heavy in graphics, matlab needs single core, ansys/mcad stuff needs multicore, etc). That's why I recommended a proper desktop. If you're just comp-sci, don't worry about CPU performance too much, a core M or i3 is more than enough for your coursework, and an i3 is enough for gaming when you throw in a 940m or 950m

Dont get me wrong a i3 is more than enough but we are talking about a 1200$ laptop. I3's are in 300-400$ laptops not laptops over a 1000$ dollars(most). If i am paying over a grand i expect atleast a U series i5. A 940 or 950m is fine with me, but I would like 60fps on those games, but I can handle 30. A surface IS a good option though they are quite pricey for the hardware. A two in one is nice but do I need it for engineering? I dont think so but you have experience so I am not sure.

 

[basroil]

Dont get me wrong a i3 is more than enough but we are talking about a 1200$ laptop. I3's are in 300-400$ laptops not laptops over a 1000$ dollars(most). If i am paying over a grand i expect atleast a U series i5. A 940 or 950m is fine with me, but I would like 60fps on those games, but I can handle 30. A surface IS a good option though they are quite pricey for the hardware. A two in one is nice but do I need it for engineering? I dont think so but you have experience so I am not sure.

i3 laptops are in the $450-1200 range depending on what else they have, in the 300-400 range you will ONLY find used machines with i3 (unless clearance sales for older chips) or new machines with the Core M or Pentium/Celeron (or AMD). Laptops are NOT desktops, and thus their price is often more than the sum of the parts (especially when you add weight and size restrictions). The list of 4 machines I gave you are the only newish models that will fit your original requirements, but they are all the same annoying 15.6" screen size (too large to carry comfortably, too small for desktop use) and ~2kg weight.

As for the Surface Pro 3/4 is NOT expensive for what you get, specifically because of the touch/pen and small size. I absolutely love mine, and it makes note-taking incredibly easy. It is not a gaming powerhouse though. If you've never used one for a while though, you don't know what you're missing.

 

[TheBlackWidower]

Dont get me wrong a i3 is more than enough but we are talking about a 1200$ laptop. I3's are in 300-400$ laptops not laptops over a 1000$ dollars(most). If i am paying over a grand i expect atleast a U series i5. A 940 or 950m is fine with me, but I would like 60fps on those games, but I can handle 30. A surface IS a good option though they are quite pricey for the hardware. A two in one is nice but do I need it for engineering? I dont think so but you have experience so I am not sure.

i3 laptops are in the $450-1200 range depending on what else they have, in the 300-400 range you will ONLY find used machines with i3 (unless clearance sales for older chips) or new machines with the Core M or Pentium/Celeron (or AMD). Laptops are NOT desktops, and thus their price is often more than the sum of the parts (especially when you add weight and size restrictions). The list of 4 machines I gave you are the only newish models that will fit your original requirements, but they are all the same annoying 15.6" screen size (too large to carry comfortably, too small for desktop use) and ~2kg weight.

As for the Surface Pro 3/4 is NOT expensive for what you get, specifically because of the touch/pen and small size. I absolutely love mine, and it makes note-taking incredibly easy. It is not a gaming powerhouse though. If you've never used one for a while though, you don't know what you're missing.

A i3 i simply not future proof enough imo. and I want atleast 256gb of storage. Strategy games(Except Xcom2) dont really need a MLG system. The surface pro series dose have i5's and 256gb storage but that will run me around 1300$ and add 150 bucks for the pen and keyboard and you have a very expensive laptop that dose it job exceptionally well. If I had the money I would get a surface pro 4 but it is simply not cheap enough for the price and performance I want. I know you said what you need and want are two different things but I want the best for my money I am looking at the xps 15/13 and it looks good. The inspiron 13/17 7000 also has a touch display and pen support so that might be the way to go as it is cheaper. Though that has intergrated graphics. I am also not buying this right now but in the couple of months to come, I just want to get options down.

 

[basroil]

A i3 i simply not future proof enough imo.

There's a very small difference between the i3, i5, and i7 when it comes to mobile (http/www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2015/02/11/intel-nuc-kit-nuc5i3ryk-review/3) even Intel knows it and that's why their chip prices are nearly the same

 

[TheBlackWidower]

A i3 i simply not future proof enough imo.

There's a very small difference between the i3, i5, and i7 when it comes to mobile (http/www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2015/02/11/intel-nuc-kit-nuc5i3ryk-review/3) even Intel knows it and that's why their chip prices are nearly the same

But nowadays 4gb of ram and a i3 is well outdated to say the least. Sure the touch screen two in oneness is great but if I got a inspiron 13 7000 with the hdd and a i7 w/ 8gb of ram it would net me 850. If I pick up a 512GB SSD that is 150$. 20$ for the stylus and its far below my budget at 1020$. I dont see the value in the surface when its facing such competition.

 

[TheBlackWidower]

My brother has been able to run tomb raider at 720p high 45 FPS. I also am wondering if I need a d Gpu as I have a 270x at home with a 4670k at 4.2 GHz. I'm stuck between the Razer blade stealth with 512 GB ssd after a upgrade from the base model at 1k or the Dell xps 13 with a 256gb ssd.I also have to take into account that the blade is much thinner (as much as the macbook 2015) and slightly lighter than the xps at 0.1 lb less. But the xps has the infinity display and the blade has bezels bigger than my 2012 laptop. The blade has USb 3.1 type c and has support for everything that has.

I am not sure. I could even go with the inspiron 13 7000 at a grand with a 512gb ssd and save 2k. What should I do?