Engineering Student Laptop/Tablet Advice?

Ldaniesaurs on 24/01/2016 - 23:10
Last edited 24/01/2016 - 23:17

Hello,
There seems to be a lot of laptop threads and deals I have been looking at recently but none seem to match what I am after.

I'm starting university this year (Engineering) and I have been looking for a laptop that is under $1000 AUD. Originally I wanted a 2-in-1 laptop but the price/performance for most of these didn't seem that good, including the Dell refurbished Latitude models and Inspiron ones.

I am mainly going to use it for note taking/reading pdf and any coursework activities or programs that will need to be done while my 2 hour trip to uni or just when I'm in class or in the library. One of them being Solidworks which seemed to require a dGPU which no 2in1 laptop seems to have and also other CPU intense programs like Matlab(?). It has to be light/thin but also has to be meet my expectations (mainly no lag at all).

The three options I'm looking into right now is either a used or refurbished high end gaming laptop under $1000 (Found a beast Asus ROG for $735 with eBay 10% off), a refurbished Surface Pro 3 ($800) specifically for annotating and notetaking (however it only has the 128gb ssd and 4gb ram which seems abit low to me, although we have access to Computer labs where I can do more intense work in) or I can wait and save for a thin workstation (~$2000)

If we are talking about specs I am looking for
Quadcore processor
8GB Ram
256GB SSD
Under 2.4Kgs
Around GTX 850M gfx or alternatively a laptop used just for notetaking and basic designs in Solidworks
1080p Display
Decent battery

A tablet/laptop does seem useful as I have all my books in pdf form but it's ~$1400+ for a Surface Pro 3 i5 256gb SSD 8gb ram (ideally what I want)

Hopefully someone can give me some insight as I have no clue what to expect in terms of actually using the programs.

Computing

Comments

  • Unictu on 24/01/2016 - 23:42
    +1

    At work we equip Lenovo ThinkPad Mobile Workstation for all design engineers (Solidworks , Matlab, etc.).
    Used to be Thinkstation PC but we are switching to Thinkpad latest P Series.

    They are quite pricey brand new but there could be 2nd option (W541) out there.
    http://www3.lenovo.com/au/en/laptops/thinkpad/w-series/W541/…

    Trust me I'm an Engineer ;)

  • cDNA on 24/01/2016 - 23:56
    +6

    Yikes….you sure have been doing a lot of reading.

    MATLAB and Solidworks do not take a huge toll on your CPU, especially when used by a novice. I don't know which uni you are going to, but you won't be doing anything complex with solidworks or matlab in your first 2 years. Just hold off buying a laptop until you get settled in. You won't need it if you go to a half decent university. You'll be doing maths most of the time in first year and reading about AS1100 standards.
    I did 7 years of uni (engineering for 4 of those years) and I never needed a laptop.

    All that "intense" work you keep talking about is not important. You have to learn the subtle details about professional drawings and how important individual parts are in a system. You sound very eager, just chill out and get a laptop later on if you really need one. Join a society and meet some people doing other engineering disciplines too.

    I use to tutor undergrad electrical, mechanical and mechatronics engineers.

    • daniesaurs on 25/01/2016 - 00:04

      This is good advice, I feel that I should just stop stressing myself and just wait a bit. But knowing there's an opportunity for a bargain before uni started really got me into gear haha.

      I'm going to Monash and for me the whole of first semester is pretty much maths, computing, apps and design (core subjects) which I won't be needing any intensive power yet for I reckon. Although all my books are in pdf so I'm not sure whether it's worth spending for a portable-esque device, I have a laptop already but it's old and outdated and weighs too much to be carried on transport.

      • UncommonName on 25/01/2016 - 01:52
        +1

        Listen to cDNA, and get a decent 11.6" with SSD support. Lightness will help you to take it everywhere you want.

        BSc, MSc and currently PhD (all in engg.) candidate here. So don't trust me! ;)

        • daniesaurs on 25/01/2016 - 10:50

          What sort of processor should I look for if it's to do the most basic of tasks? I've since found that dual cores under 2ghz might not be for me but the battery life trade off might be worth it if it can handle tasks.

        • UncommonName on 25/01/2016 - 17:13
          +1

          @Exiledsin: There were deals last year for quad core atom processor, put in a 240GB SSD and upgrade the ram to 4GB. A mini workhorse under 400$! I'm looking for such deal ever since.

          And for heavy duty tasks, just get a desktop at home. Here is what I did, bought an ex-lease (govt) lenovo core2duo/2GB/160GB HDD from Gumtree for 60$. Upgraded the RAM to 8GB and addded a SSD. Now the PC boots up in 5 seconds and let me run high performance softwares like you. I'm pretty much sure nowadays you'll find i-series processor CPU's for around 80$.

        • daniesaurs on 25/01/2016 - 19:20

          I have not looked at ex-lease laptops closely yet and that seems like a good thing to look into. Thank you! I am able to easily upgrade RAM and replace drives but I was not sure about the CPU.

        • UncommonName on 25/01/2016 - 19:26

          @Exiledsin: any i-series quad core would be more than enough. We have auction house here in Canberra that does ex-lease stuffs. Maybe look into your city if they have something similar?

          The ex-lease stuff are barely used, most govt employees just use it for email, office applications. My one was 3 years old when I got it and it was more than decent looking.

          Don't worry about processor, Intel ones do not degrade speed over time, at least for first 10 years. BTW, by CPU I mean the whole box, not just processor.

          And lastly, it may seem to be cheapskatish, but when you put everything together and machine starts each day in 5 seconds, you experience some sort of micro-orgasm! ;)

      • AssamLaksa on 25/01/2016 - 03:08

        cDNA gave some real solid advice right there. I'm from Monash (doing engineering as well) and I can tell you that your first year will be spent writing reports more than anything else haha. Definitely won't be needing something too high-end at this stage yet, so I would recommend saving that money and invest in a better one come 3rd and 4th year, cause that's when you'll really need it :)

        • daniesaurs on 25/01/2016 - 10:56

          I am going to start uni before buying any laptop at all, I might not even need it but I do have my books electronically and a tablet/laptop of a some sort would be nice. That's when some relatively usable andb irt cheap ozbargain deal might come in handy haha.

      • elusive on 25/01/2016 - 09:56

        As others have said - get a better idea of actual performance requirements of any heavy software before dishing out on a dGPU. Worst case, you might need to wait a bit longer for rendering on an iGPU, which isn't too bad these days. But as long as you have access to a desktop you don't really need that much power on a laptop, especially on a limited budget.

        From there, you're focusing on note-taking. Here I'd actually recommend something with touch + digitiser pen. It's really useful if you plan to be writing mathematical equations and don't want to bring an additional paper pad, or prefer the organisation of files on a computer. I did computer science, and typing the maths there was already a pain - engineering probably has far more!

        • daniesaurs on 25/01/2016 - 10:44

          Are there any recommended Windows pen tablets/laptops that aren't too expensive but don't have performance issues with daily tasks? It's hard with a lower budget if I'm to save up for a better machine.

  • iridiumstem on 25/01/2016 - 03:24

    I personally think that if you need some kind of high performance, don't go for surface pro 3. Throttling can be very annoying.

    • daniesaurs on 25/01/2016 - 10:48

      Are there any cheaper than Surface Pro with better performance? Especially with a pen?

      • iridiumstem on 25/01/2016 - 12:52

        Some of the lenovo yoga laptops with pen did look like they'd be better with performance (lower resolution, clamshell design which is likely be better with heat). I cannot give you a specific model, because I've stopped looking into prices after getting a SP3.

        That said, I've meant it compared to the mobile workstations. Anything CPU intensive would be hard to do with SP3. Mine (4GB, 128GB) starts to panic with youtube if I use it similar to how I use my desktop. If you want something that's purely for note taking, SP3 does sound like an overkill in my opinion (also, you could go for something that is lighter, i.e. Core M devices or even Cherry trail devices). Current gen Core M devices are likely to be better than SP3 though, considering how strong they are with heat (judging from how SP4 i3 version has fairly high benchmark score as well, though I've not compared it to SP3 benchmark).

        • daniesaurs on 25/01/2016 - 13:15

          SP3 for Youtube lags? I really want a device that can handle what I do on my desktop such as rigorous amounts of web browsing/messaging and multitasking. The Yoga looks nice under 700$ (used) with Digitizer and i5 CPU.

          EDIT: It is Intel i5 4210U @ 1.70GHz - 2.40GHz, will this fare well under load?

        • iridiumstem on 25/01/2016 - 18:45
          +1

          @Exiledsin: I think the problem is due to how hard it is to reduce temperature on Surface Pro 3. Issues were apparently solved with 4 but it's above your budget.

          If you want a laptop that can do fair bit of a hard work, clamshell that you can clean out would be your best bet.

          That said I am not too certainly how decent yoga laptops would be. They looked alright but laptops are hard to judge without actually owning one imo. Especially if you consider putting it through a heavy load since heat dissipation is a factor.

  • frondono on 25/01/2016 - 09:14

    have you had a look at dell precision? i think the quadro cards are best for all the cad stuff

    • daniesaurs on 25/01/2016 - 10:47

      I have seen M2800 and M3800 which interested me but they are around ~2000 which is well beyond my price point at the moment. I'm going to follow the advice of waiting a few years first.

  • kywst on 25/01/2016 - 16:10

    Can always look to the cloud for additional compute resources.

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