Right now, our pick for the best overall laptop for engineering students is the Dell XPS 15. See the above list if you are interested in looking at other models and our other top laptops for engineering students.
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Dell's announcement to buy storage giant EMC for $67 billion solidifies the largest deal in the history of the IT business, creating a channel behemoth set to dominate the enterprise IT market. The landmark deal transforms the onetime PC maker, created in Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell's dorm room, into a $90 billion computing force. The deal will enable Dell, the No. 2 server maker, to leverage EMC's dominance in the storage market, setting up the Round Rock, Texas-based company to take on rivals Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and Oracle as well as upstarts such as Nutanix.
The deal, in which Dell will offer EMC shareholders $33.15 per share, includes EMC subsidiary VMware as a tracking stock that amounts to about $9 per share. Partners are calling the EMC acquisition by Dell a "dream deal," with the belief that it will energize sales for partners, up data center IQs and boost bottom lines.
CRN is covering the deal from all sides. Check here for the latest news surrounding this blockbuster, as well as analysis and exclusive takes from Dell and EMC's biggest competitors.
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Alienware and Dell are set to boost gaming solutions with more performance, portability, display technologies, and community benefits.
This year at Computex 2019, Alienware and Dell will deliver on this and more, the companies said in a statement.
The new Alienware m15 and m17 as well as the Dell G3 15 are among Dell’s first gaming laptops to showcase a brand-new design and processors that supercharge the PC gaming experience. Two Alienware branded headsets, several new display technologies, a new esports investment in education, blue light reduction, and custom home installation, are some of the tools and solutions to enhance gaming.
Vice President, and General Manager of Alienware, G Series, and XPS at Dell, Frank Azor, said: “Gamers across the globe have high expectations from Alienware and Dell when it comes to our gaming products and without a doubt our latest announcements will exceed even the highest of expectations out there.
“To get to this point it has taken over two decades of uncompromising commitment to gamers, the collaboration of an incredibly talented and devoted team, and an ever-expanding group of top-tier partners.”
Alienware introduces a totally redesigned Alienware m15 and m17 that is leaner, more advanced and more powerful than its predecessor. With a starting weight under 4.7lbs and 5.8lbs respectively, Alienware is proud to release its thinnest 15” and 17” gaming laptops to date. Not only do they introduce Alienware’s new Legend industrial design, announced earlier this year at Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, United States, the new Alienware m15 and m17 also introduce innovation culminating from everything the Alienware design team has learned over the years – giving them a clean slate to design around anticipated issues and enabling them to reach new heights in sophistication.
The Alienware m15 and m17 are engineered for gamers who prioritise mobility without compromise to performance by offering Intel processors and NVIDA GeForce GPUs. Numerous display technologies enhance gameplay with the m15 being the world’s first 15” laptop to feature Tobii eyetracking, and the m17 being the world’s first laptop to feature Eyesafe display designed to lower blue light emissions, while maintaining vivid colour integrity.
Listening closely to the gaming community and catering to the needs of different gamers, Alienware is excited to launch the next generation of wired gaming headsets – the Alienware 7.1 Gaming Headset and Alienware Stereo Gaming Headset.
The new range of headsets feature hand-picked 50mm high resolution drivers that have been custom tuned to provide amazing audio clarity. The specially sculpted, deeper audio chambers amplify the resonance and the memory foam ear pads provide a high level of noise isolation. All this is packaged into a sleek, iconic Alienware Legend Design with non-exposed extenders, and a retractable boom microphone that help create a beautiful seamless outline.
“We have to ensure our next generation is equipped with the skills to thrive in a digital world and need as much talent as possible to meet the needs of our future workforce,” Senior Higher Education Strategist, Dell Technologies, Jeanne Weber, said.
If you're an engineering student (or will soon become one!), it's vital to remember that not all laptops are created equal. While having the best laptop or tablet of some description has become a practical necessity for every student worldwide, many learners can get by on a cheap, low-powered Chromebook capable of word processing and web browsing. If you're in a STEM field, that likely isn't the case.
EDITOR'S NOTE: NOVEMBER 2022
We've shuffled the order a bit this month; the Google Pixelbook Go is still the best Chromebook available for any student, but it's been shunted down a few levels in our ranking due to its relatively high price. We've also still got the newest M2 MacBook Air - a fairly pricey option but the definitive choice of MacBook for anyone looking to buy an Apple laptop right now.
Elsewhere on this list, you'll see that we're championing discrete graphics cards, too; for any engineering undergrad looking to run complex software, access to an RTX-powered laptop is a huge boon.
Collin Probst, B2B Hardware Editor
After all, engineering students use programs like CAD and MATLAB are resource-intensive, demanding a more powerful laptop to run effectively. A more budget notebook or Chromebook won't necessarily fit the bill, but it's important to consider value versus performance when working with an often-limited student budget.
That’s already a hard balance to find, especially when you also have to consider battery life, portability, and display. The best laptops for engineering students should be able to last a whole day of study on a single charge and shouldn't be so bulky that they become a chore to lug between classes.
Fortunately, we've tested many student laptops over the years, so we know which will suit different disciplines without breaking the bank. We gathered the best laptops for engineering students here; some are great value, while some cost a bit more but tout a powerful graphics card. We’ve also included our price comparison tool to help you find the best cheap laptop deal.
A laptop great for engineering students has a few areas that need to be a focus that might not matter as much for a laptop designed for journalism or business students, for example.
Engineering students' laptops must operate high-powered applications in many windows. This could be a CAD window, a large mapping service, and a large Excel sheet, all open and running simultaneously.
Because of this, the demand for high-end graphics cards, powerful processors, and increased RAM are higher than in the average laptop. Where most laptops focus on a lightweight frame, long battery life or other specifications, these laptops need to be able to perform advanced operations with ease even if it means that they don't have all day battery life.
So, what exactly makes for the best laptops for engineering students? Since you're likely to be using complex programs like AutoCAD, MATLAB, and SolidWorks, you will need a laptop with sufficient power to run them smoothly and effectively.
We recommend a laptop with the latest Intel Core i5 or Core i7 chips as a minimum, and at the very least, 16GB of RAM – though 32GB is even better. Many of the programs engineering students rely on (like the ones we listed above) are also graphically intensive, performing tasks such as 3D modeling and video rendering. This means that it can be helpful to have a laptop with a dedicated graphics card - rather than an integrated one powered by the processor.
This is why the best gaming laptops can double as ideal choices for engineering students since they offer that kind of graphical oomph for games that can be easily repurposed for running demanding software. The fact that they can also run the latest triple-A titles for unwinding after a hard day's studying is just an added bonus.
A large screen with a good resolution is also advisable, but this comes down to personal preference. The bigger your laptop display, the more information can potentially be crammed onto it at once - but remember, a smaller laptop is easier to slip into a bag and carry around all day. Consider the weight and size before buying, especially if you know you will be darting around campus a lot.
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It's hard to deny that the Dell XPS 15 remains not just one of the best laptops for engineers but one of the best laptops on the market right now, full stop. Next-gen components are wrapped in a sleek and lightweight chassis, packing a gloriously bright and colorful display (our review model uses a 3.5K OLED panel that blew us away).
With a highly comfortable keyboard, solid speakers, and a wide, responsive trackpad, Dell has undeniably produced one of the most effective combatants against Apple's shiny new M2 MacBooks - and that's a good thing because the higher-spec models of the XPS 15 aren't exactly cheap.
Including an RTX 3050 Ti means that while it's not an absolute powerhouse, the XPS 15 will hugely outperform laptops running on integrated graphics regarding GPU-accelerated software. And it's proven itself capable of holding its own against the larger Dell XPS 17 (2021) during testing. Plus, the deep learning capabilities of the RTX line are a nifty addition too.
Read our full Dell XPS 15 review.
It might be marketed as a gaming laptop, but the HP Victus 15's simple design (free from the gaudy 'gamer aesthetic' of many powerful laptops) and RTX-equipped models make it a solid choice for any engineering student who will be running graphically-demanding programs.
It's also remarkably cheap for a laptop with a discrete GPU, likely to please any budding engineer on a budget. During testing, it performed below other gaming laptops in our standard benchmarks, but not by a huge margin, which is great news. We also found that it takes air circulation seriously, boasting a dual-fan setup and a large air vent at the bottom.
A bright 15.6-inch FHD display and generally robust build quality mean that while this isn't the most lightweight laptop in the business, it's comfortable pulling double duty as both a desktop replacement and a tool for on-the-go work. It's also a good choice for the environmentally conscious, with a chassis made partially from post-consumer-recycled plastic and eco-friendly water-based paint.
Read our full HP Victus 15 review.
The Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) isn't just one of the best laptops Apple has ever made, it's one of the best laptops for engineering students. While it might not pack a powerful AI-assisted GPU, Apple's own silicon represents serious competition in the lightweight laptop space.
Thanks to the revolutionary ARM-based Apple M2 chip - an update from the previous M1 chip - that powers the new MacBook Air, this is a stunning achievement: a thin and light laptop that offers great performance while also offering incredible battery life. During our time with the MacBook Air, the laptop performed incredibly well, whether we were playing around with GarageBand or editing 4K home movies in iMovie.
Easily managing over 11 hours on a single charge, this is a laptop you can easily carry around with you in the office or outdoors. Its screen is gorgeous, and the new-and-improved keyboard means you can happily work away for hours.
Read our full MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review.
The Asus Zephyrus G14 may be designed like a gaming laptop, but it’s proven itself a more than capable all-around laptop. Whether you are serious about gaming or need a powerful laptop for productivity or content creation, this Asus laptop delivers incredible performance, amazing battery life, a fast screen, and a thin and light chassis that makes it super portable.
In all of our CPU-heavy testing workloads, this laptop absolutely smashed it. Plus, thanks to the RTX 2060 Max-Q included here, it kills it in games too, giving us a 3DMark Time Spy score of 5,872 and allowing us to play Metro Exodus on Ultra settings with a decent 38 fps frame rate.
It’s not the cheapest option, but you have to pay a premium for quality. And, if you’re an AMD fan, you’ll certainly appreciate the processor under its hood.
Read our full Asus Zephyrus G14 review.
The HP Spectre x360 (2021) 2-in-1 laptop had a big refresh, and the boost in specs, with 11th-generation Intel Core processors and Intel Iris Xe graphics, along with the impeccable 2-in-1 design and pristine gem-cut chassis, means that this version is at the top of our best laptops for programmers list.
The HP Spectre line has always consisted of stunning devices. So, when we say that the Spectre x360 takes things to another level, that should mean something. Not only is this one of the most beautiful laptops on the market right now – with its gem-cut design and sleek profile, but it’s tough on the inside.
During our tests, we found that it also comes with an impressively long battery life, which means that you’re getting one of the best laptops on the market, hands down. As such, it’s also one of the best laptops for engineering students.
Read our full HP Spectre x360 (2021) review.
The Google Pixelbook Go is the best Chromebook money can buy right now without much room for debate. But it's also a fantastic laptop for engineering students.
Coming with a more affordable price tag than its predecessor, the Pixelbook Go still packs plenty of the premium features the original Pixelbook came with, including amazing battery life and one of the best, quietest keyboards we've used on a laptop. Sure, it doesn't use Windows 10 - instead, it runs Chrome OS - but you can also install Linux on this thing, making it an even more versatile laptop.
It features some impressive specs for a Chromebook, which ensures that Chrome OS positively flies on this device and puts its general workload performance on par with many of the more expensive Windows laptops and MacBooks. One key thing to consider here is the lack of discrete graphics, which means that GPU-accelerated software might take longer to run.
Read our full Google Pixelbook Go review.
A great pick for students looking to take on a wide range of workloads, from design work to content creation, the Surface Laptop 4 is perhaps the best Surface device Microsoft has ever produced, coming in a broad range of configurations to suit every student. You can choose between a 13.5- or 15-inch screen as per your preference, and models packing both Intel and AMD processors are available depending on whether you pledge fealty to Team Blue or Team Red.
The Surface Laptop 4 is generally just a lovely product; the keyboard and trackpad are spacious and responsive, and the touchscreen supports the Surface Pen for creative endeavors. Our only real criticism is the relative dearth of physical ports, with just one USB-C and one USB-A - that and the Alcantara fabric found on the palm rest of the 13.5-inch model looks very difficult to clean.
Read our full Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review.
For a 17-inch laptop, the Dell XPS 17 (2022) is impressively thin and light, especially when you consider the fact that it boasts powerful specs for that top-notch performance that engineering students require. On test, it easily tore through demanding tasks like video encoding and 3D renders.
This is the whole package if you're looking for a laptop with a big screen. It boasts a 17-inch display in FHD+ and UHD+ flavors, fantastic battery life that will last you the entire day, and a generally gorgeous design on top of everything else.
The higher-spec models aren't the cheapest laptops around, but they're not overpriced when you consider the performance. The 2022 model rocks either an RTX 3050 or 3060 GPU along with a 12th-gen Intel processor, delivering a speedy performance that should be able to handle anything you throw at it.
Read our full Dell XPS 17 (2022) review.
If money is no object for you - or you just want an amazing gaming laptop that you can use for running AutoCAD on the side - then the Razer Blade 15 is the connoisseur's choice of laptop. Yes, we're talking a price point in the thousands rather than the hundreds here, but you get a lot of power for your cash.
The Blade 15 comes equipped with a mighty RTX 3000-series graphics card, DDR5 memory, and a 12th-generation Alder Lake Intel CPU (opens in new tab). Our tests have shown that it can easily power through the most demanding workloads.
Of course, that iconic Razer Blade design hasn't changed much over the years; the exterior is durable brushed aluminum, with a precision glass trackpad and a gently illuminated RGB keyboard. The screen is excellent too, with various resolutions up to a glorious 4K panel with a 144Hz refresh rate and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut.
Read our full Razer Blade 15 (2022) review.
We've also featured the best laptops for programming.
Right now, our pick for the best overall laptop for engineering students is the Dell XPS 15. See the above list if you are interested in looking at other models and our other top laptops for engineering students.
Are MacBooks good for engineering students?
Apple MacBooks have always been a solid competitor in the world of laptops for engineers. With the latest jump to Apple's own silicon with the M1 and M2 chips, these laptops have gotten even more efficient and have gotten even better at multitasking while also powering through even the largest of programs and tasks.
As we explain further at the beginning of this article, Engineering students need a powerful laptop. These students need to be able to push their laptops far further than students in most other fields because of the programs they rely on. While both are vitally important to the student, a CAD or SolidWorks window pulls significantly more power than a text document or web search.
When choosing the best laptops for engineering students, start with considering your basic requirements. You'll want to consider the laptop's battery life. An all-day battery means you won't have to lug around a charger with you everywhere you go. But if you're mostly going to have your setup in one place, then a lower battery capacity will be fine too. If you work with a lot of space-consuming files, make sure to opt for a laptop with high storage, otherwise you'll have to carry an external hard drive around with you as well. Lastly, look out for the connectivity ports, security features, display, and pricing.
To test the best laptops for engineering students, we've looked at various aspects, such as their CPU, GPU, portability, storage, and design. We evaluated their overall performance and what kind of users they'd be best suited for. We analyzed their battery lives, security features, display, and checked if they included additional accessories. We also considered their connectivity ports, weight, and pricing, among other things.
Read more on how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar (opens in new tab).
Alumni spotlight | A new way to harvest solar energy
“A lot of people think of solar panels as being all there is to solar,” says Ron Van Dell, President and CEO of Austin-based SolarBridge Technologies. “They tend to think if panels were cheaper, then solar would be affordable. But, with the price of solar panels falling fast, what used to be the dominant cost is now less than half the total.” Of the rest, the most important part, according to Van Dell, is the power inverter that converts dc current generated by the panels to ac current for household use.
“In a typical solar array there are many panels connected in series,” explains Van Dell. This poses problems. “When one panel goes down, it can bring down all the others, much like a string of Christmas lights.” But not anymore. SolarBridge has created a system in which each panel is wired with its own small inverter at the solar panel factory.
As a result, each panel is able to perform its own power conversion, and one does not affect the other.
Other benefits are that the system can be added to heterogeneously and progressively over time. And, because the SolarBridge technology converts each individual panel to standard ac wiring, the system is much safer to install and maintain than the high-voltage, dc-wired systems now in widespread use.
Another major strength: SolarBridge ties users directly into the smart grid. “Everyone talks about the smart grid, but no one is quite sure what it means,” notes Van Dell. “To us it means providing a utility the ability to converse with a PV system up on the rooftop, in order to optimize overall grid performance. That’s what creates a smarter grid.”
SolarBridge’s Power Manager serves as the communications hub of the array, continuously monitoring the performance of every panel in the PV system. It communicates directly with other devices as well as the company’s Power Portal, a Web-based management system that enables users to monitor system performance 24/7 through Internet-connected computers and mobile devices.
Even on a damp and cloudy day, solar panels still churn out electricity at the new Michigan Tech Solar Photovoltaic Research Facility. Van Dell and SolarBridge provided the microinverters as well as its Power Manager/Power Portal for managing and monitoring the system. Dow Corning, of Midland, MI, and Hemlock Semiconductor, based in Hemlock, MI, donated PV panels from five different manufactures to the facility.
Van Dell predicts the facility will help drive solar power closer to widespread use. “This is a beginning platform for Michigan Tech,” he says, adding that he expects the program to draw investigators from many engineering disciplines, as well as business. “All kinds of skills are needed to advance the state of solar technology.” With an annual snowfall averaging 200-plus inches, Houghton, Michigan might not seem like the ideal spot to study photovoltaic systems. But SolarBridge tests their equipment in all kinds of conditions, from Antarctica to the American West. Snow can actually be a benefit, Van Dell said, since it reflects sunlight.
The facility will also provide opportunities for undergraduate work. Michigan Tech has a small weather station, and students in the undergraduate Alternative Fuels Group Enterprise team will correlate the solar cells’ output with local weather conditions.
More about Ron Van Dell
Ron Van Dell graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, with honors, from Michigan Technological University in 1979. He serves on Michigan Tech’s College of Engineering Advisory Board, and is a member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s Academy.
With more than 30 years of experience, Van Dell has an exceptional track record of leadership and success. Before joining SolarBridge Technologies, Van Dell served as president and CEO at Primarion, president and CEO at Legerity, general manager for Dell Computer’s Dimension product line, and vice president-general manager of the Communication Products Business at Harris Semiconductor (now Intersil Corporation). Van Dell has also held previous international management positions in the US and in Europe at Groupe Schneider, Square D Company and General Electric.
From 2004 Induction to the Department of Electrical Engineering Academy
Dellandrea notched an assist and two PIM in Friday's 5-4 loss to the Sharks.
Dellandrea set up the second of Jamie Benn's two goals in the game. Late in the second period, Dellandrea took a heavy hit from Logan Couture, but the 22-year-old was able to continue no worse for wear. Through 14 contests this season, Dellandrea has a goal, five assists, a plus-4 rating, 14 shots on net, 15 PIM, 20 hits and 12 blocked shots. He's seeing mainly middle-six minutes while adding a bit of grit to the Stars' lineup.