Laptop recommendation for a student

[Piecake]

I originally posted on /r/SuggestALaptop/ but I'm just looking for more options

• Total budget and country of purchase: US ~$1,500 somewhat flexible

• Do you prefer a 2 in 1 form factor, good battery life or best specifications for the money? Pick or include any that apply. Price/performance is not important, battery life is important, ~6hrs+ preferably

• How important is weight and thinness to you? Weight is important,under 5 lbs is a must, less than 4 lbs would be preferred.

• Which OS do you require? Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, Linux. Windows

• Do you have a preferred screen size? If indifferent, put N/A. 13-15 inch is fine. 17 inch is too big.

• Are you doing any CAD/video editing/photo editing/gaming? List which programs/games you desire to run. No, not on the laptop. I have a desktop for resource intensive programs

• If you're gaming, do you have certain games you want to play? At what settings and FPS do you want? I game occasionally, but mostly older non graphically intense games such as civ5, LoL, mount and blade, ftl.

• Any specific requirements such as good keyboard, reliable build quality, touch-screen, finger-print reader, optical drive or good input devices (keyboard/touchpad)? tactile, not obnoxiously loud keyboard is important because I plan to use it in lectures. Touch screen is a not important, I doubt I'll ever use it. Who uses optical drives in <current year>?

• Leave any finishing thoughts here that you may feel are necessary and beneficial to the discussion. I can wait until January 29th(or a bit afterwards tbh). Aesthetics are also a nontrivial factor, I'd rather not have something that looks too gamery. Because aesthetics can be subjective, some laptops that I think look nice are white xps 13, mercury white razer blade, matebook x pro, thinkpad x1 carbon. Unfortunately, x1 carbon and xps 13 dont have a dgpu option, razer has questionable qc and is expensive af, matebook also has a long list of known issues  that I'd rather not deal with.

 

[markr54632]

Kinda of confused by your list. Are you looking for dgpu? 

 

2018 xps has a long list of problems as well.

[SupaKomputa]

HP envy x360 with ryzen 2700u.

no dgpu, but its sleek, ultrabook class with powerful enough apu.

a small compromise for the form factor.

[markr54632]

Ux533fd might be worth looking into. Too new for reviews, but if it builds on the older model, you should expect pretty middle of the road thermals, build quality, and performance.

[Piecake]

35 minutes ago, markr54632 said:

Kinda of confused by your list. Are you looking for dgpu? 

 

2018 xps has a long list of problems as well.

Yes

[Piecake]

19 minutes ago, markr54632 said:

Ux533fd might be worth looking into. Too new for reviews, but if it builds on the older model, you should expect pretty middle of the road thermals, build quality, and performance.

Interesting, probably gonna wait for reviews but that seems to fit my needs really well, thanks!

[genexis_x]

There are many options TBH (I may missed out some of them)

 

High sRGB with dGPU:

*Lenovo Thinkpad T480s - WQHD, 8350U+MX150

*Lenovo Thinkpad T480 - WQHD, 8350U+MX150, optional 96Wh

*Lenovo Thinkpad T580/P52s - UHD, 8350U+MX150/P500, optional 104Wh

Asus UX533FD

*HP Spectre x360 15

Huawei MateBook X Pro

*Lenovo Ideapad 720s 14

Asus UX461FN/UN

Asus UX430UN

Asus UX331FN/UN

HP Envy 13

 

Low sRGB with dGPU:

*Lenovo Thinkpad A485 - 2500U, 4+4/8+8GB RAM, 96Wh

*Lenovo Ideapad 530s 14 (optional high sRGB WQHD IPS)

*HP Envy x360 15

*Acer Swift 3 SF314-54G

Acer Swift 3  SF314-55G, SF314-52G, SF315-52G

*Lenovo Flex 6 / Flex 14

*Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G-5067

 

*upgradable RAM

 

Note that Vega 8/11 iGPU is also a decent dGPU replacement 

[markr54632]

Yoga 730 and ideapad 720s might be worth looking into as well.

[genexis_x]

13 minutes ago, markr54632 said:

Yoga 730

Not sure he wants GTX GPU or not (15 inch model), older Yoga 720 15 is better IMO due to bigger battery

[Piecake]

14 minutes ago, GeneXiS_X said:

There are many options TBH (I may missed out some of them)

 

High sRGB with dGPU:

*Lenovo Thinkpad T480s - WQHD, 8350U+MX150

*Lenovo Thinkpad T480 - WQHD, 8350U+MX150, optional 96Wh

*Lenovo Thinkpad T580/P52s - UHD, 8350U+MX150/P500, optional 104Wh

Asus UX533FD

*HP Spectre x360 15

Huawei MateBook X Pro

*Lenovo Ideapad 720s 14

Asus UX461FN/UN

Asus UX430UN

Asus UX331FN/UN

HP Envy 13

 

Low sRGB with dGPU:

*Lenovo Thinkpad A485 - 2500U, 4+4/8+8GB RAM, 96Wh

*Lenovo Ideapad 530s 14 (optional high sRGB WQHD IPS)

*HP Envy x360 15

*Acer Swift 3 SF314-54G

Acer Swift 3  SF314-55G, SF314-52G, SF315-52G

*Lenovo Flex 6 / Flex 14

*Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G-5067

 

*upgradable RAM

 

Note that Vega 8/11 iGPU is also a decent dGPU replacement 

Wow that's a pretty exhaustive list o.o I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find what I want there

 

 

Thanks everyone!

[markr54632]

8 hours ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Not sure he wants GTX GPU or not (15 inch model), older Yoga 720 15 is better IMO due to bigger battery

True, and battery life doesnt exactly fit the bill, but I was pretty impressed with build quality, and thermals were far from the worst I've seen in this category.

[genexis_x]

49 minutes ago, markr54632 said:

True, and battery life doesnt exactly fit the bill, but I was pretty impressed with build quality, and thermals were far from the worst I've seen in this category.

And still underrated model

[updlester]

try the gs65? 

[markr54632]

1 hour ago, updlester said:

try the gs65? 

That model has horrible thermals, horrible qc, and customer service is about on par with razer and dell.

[Timhortons]

Dell precision 3530, opt cheapest cpu, Ubuntu, no ms office, yes quaddro, and some others like the fhd lcd. 850 dollars.