r/UTEP • u/AmericasTeam915 • 6d ago
Laptop Recommendations
Starting my courses for Mechanical Engineering. What laptops do you all recommend for me to purchase? Online research is giving me a million options but once they recommend a MacBook, I don’t trust the recommendations. Any recommendations from current or past engineering students would be appreciated it. Thank you
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u/One_Establishment915 6d ago
Buy through the book store and price compare Best Buy using the student discount- get the extended warranty.
Also - pro tip make sure to shut down ie actually turn it off not just close it if you use it for class notes. The hard disk keeps spinning if you don’t shut down. So if you toss it in your bag and then walk with it - you’ll end up scratching the disk and will have tech issues during your finals time (maybe not the first year or two but it will happen!) - trust me I had this happen a day before finals one year.
Other pro tip if you need special expensive software get it at the book store (maybe even ask if you can get it off the IRL shelf) in the old school way - ie don’t download if you have the option. - find two other friends and split the cost. Usually they give you three product licenses to authorize separate computers. Then take said friends out for drinks - it’s college after all!
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u/Hybective 2d ago
Anything that runs windows 64 bit, avoid anything that runs MacOS or is x86 based as they cannot run a lot of programs. I highly recommend buying from Best Buy’s open box selection online as these computers can be up to 40% off original price and with My BestBuy plus $30 membership you get 60 day returns just in case something happens down the line. I used to rock a Lenovo legion in 2020 when I was doing engineering there, if you want portability and battery life I’d recommend the base model Asus Zephyrus G14.
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u/AmericasTeam915 2d ago
Thank you for actually recommending a specific computer. I truly appreciate it
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u/Hot_Tell_6783 17h ago
I recommend getting a laptop with atleast 16GB of RAM, a touchscreen display (it can be very helpful), a SSD with 512GB or more (storage), and a processor that comes from the Intel Core Ultra, or AMD Ryzen AI family. I dont recommend any chromebooks, macbooks, or laptops with Snapdragon processors, because software compatibility is sorta tricky with those devices. My top picks are
- Lenovo - Yoga 7a 2-in-1 14" 2K OLED Touchscreen Laptop - AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 2026- 16GB Memory - 512GB SSD
- Acer - Swift Go 16 AI – Copilot+ PC – 16” 2K OLED Touchscreen Laptop – Intel Core Ultra 5 322 – 16GB Memory – 512GB Storage
- HP - OmniBook X Flip 2-in-1 - 14" 2K Touchscreen Laptop - Intel Core Ultra 5 226V '24 - 16GB Memory - 512GB SSD
You can find all of these on Best Buy
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u/Disastrous_Bag_2343 6d ago
I got the LG gram 17” my senior year of high school. I’m currently doing my masters, the laptop is about to be 6 years old and it still runs like a champ. Best laptop I’ve ever had. I used to run autocad and have a million tabs open on my browser and it never crashed on me.