Engineering students need laptops that are capable of running all different software. The software will depend on the field of study. Electrical, civil, mechanical, software, chemical, aerospace, and aeronautical engineers use different software.
All engineers should have laptops with a RAM of 8GB to prevent the lag situation with any software. 3D/2D engineers should have laptops with an Intel Core i5/AMS Ryzen 5 chips and above. The following list will give you an insight on the best laptops for engineering students:
Dell XPS 13 9360
This laptop is suitable for electrical, computer, software, civil, mechanical, and aeronautical engineering students. It is considered the best windows premium ultra-books. It has a core of 13 processors with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD. The setup is up to core i7 ITB SSD 16GB RAM.
The laptop is good if you are running 3D CAD/CAE software. The main advantage of this laptop is its thinness, portability, form factor, and battery life. It has a touchscreen display and a fingerprint reader. The battery life is approximately 10 hours which is great for students especially when working on an engineering project.
Surface Book 3
The performance is more powerful than the surface pro but the design is the same. It is useful for civil, mechanical, electrical, computer, and chemical engineering students. The laptop can support a CPU up to 5 GHz which is the highest clock speed of all laptops. It can handle 99% of 3D engineering projects. It comes in two different display sizes 13 and 15.
The resolution is high compared to MacBook Pro (3000*2000) retina resolution. The battery life is approximately 6-8 hours. It can be attached to a docking station that means you can attach an external display such as a mouse, keyboard, etc. The RAM size can go from 16GB-32GB.
Surface Pro 7
This is the best portable laptop for engineering. It comes in core m3, core i5, and Core i7. Surface Pro 7 can run close to 99% of all the engineering software. The processor can range from 4GB-16GB and 1TB SSD. This laptop is great because of its form factor and battery life.
It allows uses to work around everywhere and anytime.
The 2-1 tablet mode can replace the use of notebooks, pens, textbooks, erasers for your school supplies. The Surface Pro can run 3D models in CAD software with an FPS using viewport. It is suitable for electrical, computer, chemical, civil, aerospace, software, and aeronautical engineering students and engineers.
Macbook Pro
MacBook Pro is great for mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, software, and computer engineering students and engineers. Every MacBook supports Windows 10 and you can switch between OXS and Windows 10. For a 2D engineer, any MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM is good, a 3D engineer, a 13” MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM is recommended. Many love this laptop because of its rock-solid bullet proud design.
The charger has a magnet-like port that can is easily unplugged. The battery life is 10 hours plus at least. It is portable (3lb) and has the best touchpad and keyboards on the market. For any software that is not compatible you can use Windows or Parallels. Macs are good if you are more of a programmer than a 2D/3D designer. The 15-16 models with a dGPU are preferred if you want to run bigger models. The resolution can range from 13-16 retina.
