Help Me Select a Laptop for College

[Sumedh Tadimeti]

Hello, 

I am in the market to buy a laptop for college next year. My university, for engineering majors, requires students to buy one of the 5 prescribed computers. Out of those 5 I have narrowed it down the two, but cannot select between them. The two are listed below. Price is a factor, but more importantly I want a laptop that can last long and perform well. Please help me out! I don’t want a computer that is only good looking on paper, but one that will actually get the job done. 

Dell Precision 5520  
Intel Core i7-7820HQ quad core 2.90GHz turbo to 3.90 GHz 
Windows 10 Pro
15.6” 1920x1080
16 GB DDRA RAM
M.2 PCIe 256GB SSD Class 40 
6-cell (97Wh) battery

OR


New MacBook Pro with Touchbar ($2,179)
Intel Core i5 Dual Core 3.1GHz turbo 3.5 GHz ( I was told by an Apple representative that the i5 on the Mac will be better than the i7 on the Dell, but I am skeptical)
MacOS AND Windows 10 
16GB SDRAM
256 Flash Storage 
USB C Ports
P.S I heard Macs last for a long time

Please give me advice on where to invest. I was told I will use software such as LabView, Matlab, and SolidWorks. Thanks for all the input!

[Thermal_]

Just a question, Texas A&M?

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 minutes ago, Sumedh Tadimeti said:

Apple representative that the i5 on the Mac will be better than the i7 on the Dell,

very wrong, windows is faster in most programs and that chip is about 2x the speed.

 

Do you like osx?

 

Id get the dell, but change the config a bit

 

Get the cheaper i7

 

Get the better screen

 

 

[Pendragon]

5 minutes ago, Sumedh Tadimeti said:

Please give me advice on where to invest. I was told I will use software such as LabView, Matlab, and SolidWorks. Thanks for all the input!

Quadro. Solidworks doesn't even run on GTX or OpenCL cards. So not much of an option.

 

also I have colleagues who went to Texas A&M and the approved devices are only "recommended". Do not be afraid to buy other laptops outside the "recommended" specs. 

 

However, as you will be running solid works, I do suggest a Quadro card. 

 

https://www.gentechpc.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MSI-WS63-7RK-280US-B

^ i'd say this if your budget as some more room to spare. at $2300 i know there are much better laptops to get for gaming, but this is only of the only Pascal Quadro cards that are out in a thin and light form factor. 

 

[Pendragon]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id get the dell, but change the config a bit

3

but solid works. all the precision 5520 shit still has a last gen maxwell quadro card. fuck that. 

 

As far as I know only the Precision 7520, Precision 7720 and the MSI WS series have the new Pascal Quadros. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

but solid works. all the precision 5520 shit still has a last gen maxwell quadro card. fuck that. 

 

As far as I know only the Precision 7520, Precision 7720 and the MSI WS series have the new Pascal Quadros. 

for what you will probably be doing the performance will be more than enough.

 

A 7520 will be faster, and much more upgradeable, but much thicker

 

7720 just gives you a full power mxm card for the fastest gpu's.

 

I have a old m6600 so I have worked with these a big. Those 17's are pretty heavy.

[Pendragon]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

A 7520 will be faster, and much more upgradeable, but much thicker

 

isn't it the exact same P3000? Upgradable yes. 

 

WAIT. I just read this: https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-WS63-workstation-to-be-refreshed-with-unannounced-Quadro-GPU-this-July.224812.0.html

^ lets wait on the WS63VR. If it comes with the P5000 Max Q it will be legit. 

[leg bouncer]

The Macbook will last far longer than the Dell, construction and component wise. But seeing you're going full utility mode and not planning to game, I believe getting the Dell would be better for your special case, in terms of raw performance and utility for you, and in case you ever need to fix anything, since fixing anything in the MBP is really hard without the correct tools and care.

 

I'd still go for the MacBook, if you consider longevity a big factor. I've had my 13 inch retina MBP (2014) model since it was available and let me tell you it still performs like the first day. Construction is the best quality and support, specially in the US is awesome. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

isn't it the exact same P3000? Upgradable yes. 

The 5520 is the m1200 only

 

The 7520 can go upto the m2200.

 

The 7720 can go up to a p5000

[Pendragon]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

The 7520 can go upto the m2200.

1

Then its MUCH slower than the P3000 found in the WS63

 

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

The 7720 can go up to a p5000

That's based on the 1070 chip. The real titan 1080 Quadro hasn't shown up yet (maybe it never will). 

 

I'm guessing the WS63 will jam the P4000 or P5000 in the next revision. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, kettu said:

The Macbook will last far longer than the Dell, construction and component wise. But seeing you're going full utility mode and not planning to game, I believe getting the Dell would be better for your special case, in terms of raw performance and utility for you, and in case you ever need to fix anything, since fixing anything in the MBP is really hard without the correct tools and care.

 

I'd still go for the MacBook, if you consider longevity a big factor. I've had my 13 inch retina MBP (2014) model since it was available and let me tell you it still performs like the first day. Construction is the best quality and support, specially in the US is awesome. 

that mostly applys to cheap windows laptops. The buiness grade dells(latitude and precision) and thinkpads are built very well and will last a while. they are often built better and feature things like water restant keyboards, drop restant frames, water seals

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

Then its MUCH slower than the P3000 found in the WS63

but the ws63 is missing a lot of buiness grade laptop stuff. No touchstick, no docking connector, much worse support(dell has onsite support for those laptops), better build, no ecc support.

[leg bouncer]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

that mostly applys to cheap windows laptops. The buiness grade dells(latitude and precision) and thinkpads are built very well and will last a while. they are often built better and feature things like water restant keyboards, drop restant frames, water seals

I still don't believe Dell has a better construction quality and longevity PLUS retains it's value over time as well as the Macbook if he plans or need to sell it later, but I agree with you on that and I was mistaken about the quality, I'm not an apple fanboy even if I sound like one, I'm just giving my opinion on what I would* do and the things I believe he should consider when buying his laptop.

 

EDIT: would* not should.

[Thermal_]

If this is for A&M, I was a freshman in the engineering department last year, and I'm going to be a peer teacher for engr 111/112 next semester. You can purchase any computer you want as long as it can run that software. Freshman year its only matlab and labvie. So if you already have a laptop and want to use that for the first year or two or have another laptop you would rather buy you can do that. 

[Pendragon]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

but the ws63 is missing a lot of buiness grade laptop stuff. No touchstick, no docking connector, much worse support(dell has onsite support for those laptops), better build, no ecc support.

Yes ofc. But you gain tons of performance AND msi does have a dedicated WS support team. Not as good as the traditional business grade support but still better than their consumer side. 

 

Also MUCH worse battery life if we're counting. 

 

But, MUCH MUCH better performance. the M2200M is a 965m in disguise. Whereas a P3000 would be a 1060. 

 

Maybe Dell will put the P3000 on their Dell 7520 series or Thinkpad P51 or Zbook 15. Any of the 15in business workstations. 

 

1 minute ago, kettu said:

better construction quality and longevity

then you clearly haven't used business grade laptops before. these things aren't built pretty, they are built to keep working no matter wtf happens to them. i dropped my W530 down a flight of stairs back in the day while running something and it just kept running. Hit the floor. The place where it hit the plastic/magnesium hybrid alloy broke, but the laptop was undamaged. I drop my macbook pro and the HDMI and usb ports need resoldering. 

 

2 minutes ago, kettu said:

PLUS retains it's value over time

no one said anything about retaining value. 

[noobs guid to marsterrace]

5 minutes ago, kettu said:

The Macbook will last far longer than the Dell, construction and component wise. But seeing you're going full utility mode and not planning to game, I believe getting the Dell would be better for your special case, in terms of raw performance and utility for you, and in case you ever need to fix anything, since fixing anything in the MBP is really hard without the correct tools and care.

 

I'd still go for the MacBook, if you consider longevity a big factor. I've had my 13 inch retina MBP (2014) model since it was available and let me tell you it still performs like the first day. Construction is the best quality and support, specially in the US is awesome. 

the mac will run hotter and perform worse and you don't have to be a genius to figure that out just look the i7 in the dell has a top speed of 3.9 GH and the mac has a top speed of 3.5 and the mac is using an older cpu than the dell. while on I phones apple can tune their os to run on shit hard were on intel cpu they dont have that fredom

 

the computer im writing this on is a low-end Lenovo ThinkPad from also from 2014 and its fine for school work. 

[leg bouncer]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

Yes ofc. But you gain tons of performance AND msi does have a dedicated WS support team. Not as good as the traditional business grade support but still better than their consumer side. 

 

Also MUCH worse battery life if we're counting. 

 

But, MUCH MUCH better performance. the M2200M is a 965m in disguise. Whereas a P3000 would be a 1060. 

 

Maybe Dell will put the P3000 on their Dell 7520 series or Thinkpad P51 or Zbook 15. Any of the 15in business workstations. 

 

then you clearly haven't used business grade laptops before. these things aren't built pretty, they are built to keep working no matter wtf happens to them. i dropped my W530 down a flight of stairs back in the day while running something and it just kept running. Hit the floor. The place where it hit the plastic/magnesium hybrid alloy broke, but the laptop was undamaged. I drop my macbook pro and the HDMI and usb ports need resoldering. 

 

no one said anything about retaining value. 

As I've said before, that was my opinion and what I think he should consider when investing on something that expensive. I've never had a 'business grade' laptop before, but my dad does have the i5 version of the Dell and even he admits the quality on the Macbook is better. I'm not saying the Dell is bad, really not at all, I'm just saying I'm pretty sure the Macbook is better in that matter. 

 

But yeah, everyone just assumes I'm an Apple fanboy now and clearly this place doesn't like those at all (neither do I, but neither do I like any brand fanboy). I guess I should've known you can't give your opinion about Apple without people assuming you're wrong in everything you say, lol. Ultimately, he will decide on his best interest, you guys are just turning this into another 'Apple sucks' thread, hehe.

[leg bouncer]

14 minutes ago, Thermal_ said:

If this is for A&M, I was a freshman in the engineering department last year, and I'm going to be a peer teacher for engr 111/112 next semester. You can purchase any computer you want as long as it can run that software. Freshman year its only matlab and labvie. So if you already have a laptop and want to use that for the first year or two or have another laptop you would rather buy you can do that. 

I really hope OP reads this, as I'm sure there are better options than the ones he lists for that kind of price.

[Pendragon]

11 minutes ago, kettu said:

But yeah, everyone just assumes I'm an Apple fanboy now and clearly this place doesn't like those at all (neither do I, but neither do I like any brand fanboy). I guess I should've known you can't give your opinion about Apple without people assuming you're wrong in everything you say, lol. Ultimately, he will decide on his best interest, you guys are just turning this into another 'Apple sucks' thread, hehe.

i own a macbook. lols. just saying. 

 

and if you haven't used a business laptop before, how would that qualify you to speak about the comparison between a macbook pro and a business grade laptop? hmm? i use my zbook 15 as a daily driver and had my macbook pro has a part of my daily routine for 4 years. i'm just stating facts here. business laptops are BUILT better than macbook pros. they are built to run. does it feel as "premium"? no. does it feel good in the hands? not as good as aluminum. but they contain a shit ton of features like as @Electronics Wizardy mentioned: "they are often built better and feature things like water restant keyboards, drop restant frames, water seals". These features will save your ass when you're working and you spill something on your laptop. If you spill something on a macbook pro it's pretty much dead. good job. 

 

also, you should know the dell listed by the OP is not a business grade laptop. It's dell's high end consumer line converted to one model on their business line. it's essentially an xps15. 

 

also you haven't even looked at the OP's engineering major. you can't run solidworks on OSX, can't run heavy autocad on duo-cores.

11 minutes ago, kettu said:

you can't give your opinion about Apple without people assuming you're wrong in everything you say, lol.

you can give an opinion about it. and you are right in some regards. macbooks will hold retail value much better compared to windows. you just can't give an opinion about a comparison you've never used. i'm not talking about oh i touched it and it doesn't feel as good as the macbook aluminum. i'm talking about using it daily. 

[Sumedh Tadimeti]

It looks like the Dell is a winner. 

 

[Pendragon]

9 minutes ago, Sumedh Tadimeti said:

It looks like the Dell is a winner. 

 

please note that the Dell uses the rather old Maxwell chips.