Need Help from Computer guys
- Thread starter Drew0311
- Start date
Do you have internal IT or do you use outside? We don’t have any issue with ours at work, mainly marketing that uses them, the rest are pcs. Never had a problem with any I’ve had over the years at home either. Software can be buggy as F.
Yep have a 2012 that I’ve used since. Recently upgraded to a 2015 mbp for some newer features and couldn’t be happier. I am far from a fanboi, actually hated on apple products for years when I was younger. But I took a leap of faith when my wife wanted one and can’t complain now. Love em.
100% go with a MacBook Air if you’re set on apple. I’m an iPhone developer and the new MacBook airs can easily handle engineering tasks… so for your daughter’s studies it’ll be fine. Also, people have mentioned to “wait for the apple event to happen”. Apple typically doesn’t announce any hardware items at that WWDC event in June, it’s all software. And if they did announce a new computer, it won’t be anything groundbreaking from what they did last year/2 years ago. It also probably won’t be available until the Sep-Nov time frame.
Your best cost breakpoint is 3rd processor down from the top. Like insulation in a home, you can never have too much memory. Even if MS software is required for a class you can run a virtual to accommodate that. Instead, I'd stay focused on data formats over software used because there's plenty of standardized acceptable formats. Lifecycle of laptops is around 3 years. After that, obsolescence is strategized by manufactures on everything. If it were me (and I've had my own consultancy for over 30 years), I'd keep as much data in the cloud as possible and never buy another MS product (ie software for your Apple). That way, you can use whatever computer you like and never be 'down'. And one last thing: computers are full of environmentally bad stuff. Please think about donating the laptop at the end of lifecycle to a local benefactor (eg school, library, hospital, ...) and write off the value. Good luck!
Resurrecting/hijacking this for advice. My son is going into Materials Engineering and we have been looking and looking. I bought a Dell 7620 2 in 1 that has a discrete graphics card, but according to this site it's barely better than the integrated graphics cards. https://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/
I had a budget of $2,500ish going in, but not sure spending the extra $1,000 is worth it. He really wants the laptop to have the ability to use a pen and take notes, so I was going toward the Surface or 2 in 1. The Dell gets the 4 year warranty and as far as I know the Microsoft doesn't. So seems like Dell is the way to go here. Plus Dell is giving $200 rebate over $1,399.
My son loves to game, but my wife doesn't want him gaming on his school laptop. So he is talking about building a gaming PC down the road with his own money. So that said I'm guessing that buying one of the Dell 2 in 1 with the integrated Iris graphics card would be fine. (All should have 16 GB RAM, 512 SSD HD, and i7 core so the engineering recommendations would be covered.) How often will he need the processing for 32 virtual modelling in Materials Engineering? According to the website I can't find that he will. And if he does, I'm wondering if he would need to do it on a laptop, or he could use his PC or use the labs.
I had a budget of $2,500ish going in, but not sure spending the extra $1,000 is worth it. He really wants the laptop to have the ability to use a pen and take notes, so I was going toward the Surface or 2 in 1. The Dell gets the 4 year warranty and as far as I know the Microsoft doesn't. So seems like Dell is the way to go here. Plus Dell is giving $200 rebate over $1,399.
My son loves to game, but my wife doesn't want him gaming on his school laptop. So he is talking about building a gaming PC down the road with his own money. So that said I'm guessing that buying one of the Dell 2 in 1 with the integrated Iris graphics card would be fine. (All should have 16 GB RAM, 512 SSD HD, and i7 core so the engineering recommendations would be covered.) How often will he need the processing for 32 virtual modelling in Materials Engineering? According to the website I can't find that he will. And if he does, I'm wondering if he would need to do it on a laptop, or he could use his PC or use the labs.
Honestly, if he is building a gaming desktop, use that for all the hard work, and get something compact with good battery for taking notes and doing powerpoints. My son is computer science, I went Friday and got him the new M2 Macbook Pro, it is way overkill for what he needs. But I do know that engineering students are told to get windows based laptops. I doubt they will be installing much software locally so I am still skeptical they need this much horsepower.
Agree with this. Go light for class work. There are plenty of computer labs around if he needs processing power during the day. Screen sizes and clarity are probably more important than processors. If he ever gets into 3D modeling, then put that money into a gaming rig that'll handle that well. But based on the engineering interns and new hires we've had, they still don't get too complex with 3D modeling to warrant a supercomputer.
If he ends up with 3D modeling, most programs are available for students to install on their machines, so having a computer at home that can do it is great. But there are plenty of other programs that he'll use that don't take extreme graphics that a 2in1 will handle well.
100% this. Have a decent PC at home to do all the real work on (which will also get said work done substantially faster than a laptop) and something light and effective to take around campus. Depending on how tech-savvy, one could also set up RDP connections from the laptop to the desktop to still do real work remotely.
My son graduated from ME two years ago. I bought him the recommended Dell at the bookstore for Engineering students as a freshman. It had lots of power, but as he got older he complained about the size and weight of it. He bought something lighter and less powerful for daily use. I think he used the computer labs on campus for most of his project work. They were faster than the laptop anyway. Then used the cheep laptop for homework, notes, and such.
