what price am i looking at for laptop?

chadmanning222

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Mar 21, 2011
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i am doing my transfer requirements for college right now but plan on doing engineering as my major (haven't decided what field yet) . i need a computer for college to help with homework on the go. but what laptop should i be looking at? i have about $700 saved up but i don't if i should get one now or wait and save up for a good laptop for my engineering classes. any help is appreciated thanks.

edit: also a note that i have a powerful desktop at home. but i may not always be home.
 
Solution
You don't need a professional laptop for engineering classes with an Nvidia Quadro or anything. You can look at some gaming laptops that will cover your bases easily enough. A Quad-core i7 is ideal for CAD work, and dedicated graphics is a big plus for any 3D CAD or Solidworks if you're using that.

Here is a good list of gaming laptops you can refer to, to at least get an idea of what is out there for what price. I would definitely suggest saving a couple hundred more for something like the Asus N550JK or N550JX. You'll get a high quality IPS display, mid-range Nvidia dedicated graphics, and a quad-core i7 in the mid-$900's. It will do everything you'd need for any engineering classes, and whatever else you decided you wanted to...
For engineering, you should look for a bit higher range laptop unless you go with a used one. www.xoticpc.com has a good selection of laptop workstations, I like the Lenovo W models and you can get a W520 used for a decent price, those can be had with the i7 CPU which will help with high end programs.
 

Construkt

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Mar 14, 2014
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You don't need a professional laptop for engineering classes with an Nvidia Quadro or anything. You can look at some gaming laptops that will cover your bases easily enough. A Quad-core i7 is ideal for CAD work, and dedicated graphics is a big plus for any 3D CAD or Solidworks if you're using that.

Here is a good list of gaming laptops you can refer to, to at least get an idea of what is out there for what price. I would definitely suggest saving a couple hundred more for something like the Asus N550JK or N550JX. You'll get a high quality IPS display, mid-range Nvidia dedicated graphics, and a quad-core i7 in the mid-$900's. It will do everything you'd need for any engineering classes, and whatever else you decided you wanted to do.

If you decide to not go into a field that requires that level of performance, you could go more ultraportable, like a Dell XPS 13, or something extremely efficient and portable like that.
 
Solution