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Laptop - Mechanical Engineering

Hello.

I am aiming to attend Uni to get degree in engineering, I am wondering if anyone can recommend a couple of good laptops that I can look into.

I currently have a late 2012 imac at home but don't mind going to windows as I understand some software is not totally compatible with mac os.

Thanks in advance
Thanks for the quick response, Ironically I was looking at the Dell XPS 13 before I posted this and done a lot of research on it.
Original post by medavidcook
Hello.

I am aiming to attend Uni to get degree in engineering, I am wondering if anyone can recommend a couple of good laptops that I can look into.

I currently have a late 2012 imac at home but don't mind going to windows as I understand some software is not totally compatible with mac os.

Thanks in advance


What are you planning on using it for? All that I ran on my own PC was Word, Excel and MathCAD; none of which requires much computing power. I used the department's computers for everything else.
I would recommend MacBook over any windows laptop if you can afford it tbh. Just because they have solid build and will last you the entire degree and also has good battery life. Most library desks don't have plugs so not having to charge makes life easier, especially during exam time. In terms of software, yes Solidworks will not run on OS X, you can go through the trouble to use boot camp but personally I didnt have to do that much CAD aside from the computer labs. When I needed to, I just went and used library computers. Everything else essential to the degree will run on mac.

I have an expensive gaming pc in my room and I built it thinking I was gonna do some hardcore FEA on it or something but so far I haven't need to use it for uni work, I just use it for league of legends


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The ultrabook i7s aren't a whole lot better than the ultrabook i5s, definitely not a couple hundred quids worth, and right now is a great time to go for last gen laptops with 6th generation processors as the 7th gens offer minimal improvement. Also 16GB of memory isn't going to give you a noticeable improvement unless you're running VMs.
Or you could get an i7 4C/8T laptop with a GTX 1060 for about the same as you'd pay for the razer alone. Ultraboooks just aren't value for money right now unless portability comes above everything but you still need some firepower.

As for memory usage, I've used matlab, fusion 360, and 30+ tabs on Chrome at the same time a few times and haven't had slow downs with 8GB. 16GB only really becomes an advantage at this point in time when you're working on absolutely massive media projects or playing very open world games like GTAV or Witcher 3. Heck, 4GB was enough for most uses until I needed VMs for my work.

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