Need help with choosing a laptop for college (freshman in the fall)

[pikawubz]

I'm looking for a new laptop for college (Cybersecurity major, going to be a freshman in the fall) that will be able to last me the entire 4 years, but I'm not sure what I should be looking for spec wise.

Things that I'm probably going to be doing on a regular basis:

• Programming in multiple languages
• Running a lot of Chrome tabs, with some of them being videos/streams (my Chrome profile also has a good amount of extensions) and Discord
• Writing papers
• PowerPoints
• Virtual machines (not sure if this will be something I have to do for school)

Things that I want to do occasionally - According to some people, I won't even have the time to do ANY of this stuff because of the workload professors dump on you lol

• Play the following games at 1080p resolution, in order of how much I care to play them
  • Rocket League (Performance is fine, High Quality would be nice)
  • Minecraft (yeah i know cringe game. 16 chunk render distance, no shaders, modpacks sometimes)
  • osu! (240fps+, minimal input lag)
  • PUBG (Medium is fine, high would be nice)
  • CS:GO (Medium is fine)
• Stream said games to Twitch at 720p (30fps is fine, 60fps would be nice)
• Edit videos either in Davinci Resolve/Hitfilm Express or Premiere, depends if I can get a student discount on Adobe
• Music production/messing around in FL Studio

I'm somewhat convinced that I'm going to need at least a i7-7700HQ or i5-8300H, 16GB of RAM and a GTX 1060 to do this stuff, but I have a gut feeling that may be overkill for what I truly need.

 

Also, apparently good battery life is a major concern when it comes to picking a college laptop, and I haven't found anything apart from the Inspiron 7567 that has good battery life and the specs that I think will work for me. Is battery life really that important in college?

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[DarkEnergy]

30 minutes ago, pikawubz said:

I'm looking for a new laptop for college (Cybersecurity major, going to be a freshman in the fall) that will be able to last me the entire 4 years, but I'm not sure what I should be looking for spec wise.

Things that I'm probably going to be doing on a regular basis:

• Programming in multiple languages
• Running a lot of Chrome tabs, with some of them being videos/streams (my Chrome profile also has a good amount of extensions) and Discord
• Writing papers
• PowerPoints
• Virtual machines (not sure if this will be something I have to do for school)

Things that I want to do occasionally - According to some people, I won't even have the time to do ANY of this stuff because of the workload professors dump on you lol

• Play the following games at 1080p resolution, in order of how much I care to play them
  • Rocket League (Performance is fine, High Quality would be nice)
  • Minecraft (yeah i know cringe game. 16 chunk render distance, no shaders, modpacks sometimes)
  • osu! (240fps+, minimal input lag)
  • PUBG (Medium is fine, high would be nice)
  • CS:GO (Medium is fine)
• Stream said games to Twitch at 720p (30fps is fine, 60fps would be nice)
• Edit videos either in Davinci Resolve/Hitfilm Express or Premiere, depends if I can get a student discount on Adobe
• Music production/messing around in FL Studio

I'm somewhat convinced that I'm going to need at least a i7-7700HQ or i5-8300H, 16GB of RAM and a GTX 1060 to do this stuff, but I have a gut feeling that may be overkill for what I truly need.

 

Also, apparently good battery life is a major concern when it comes to picking a college laptop, and I haven't found anything apart from the Inspiron 7567 that has good battery life and the specs that I think will work for me. Is battery life really that important in college?

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

Good battery life won't be found on any machine you're looking for. I don't have any laptop ideas but I'd like to point out that this laptop would weight a ton and cost a lot of money (especially one that plays pubg on medium or high WHILE streaming). Almost all colleges have outlets so battery life isn't THAT important but is nice. 

[TLCH723]

If you concern about battery life and dont want to carry an adapter, get a macbook. You can easily found one on campus.

 

What is your budget?

 

I would get the newer 8th gen CPU the hex-cores, or more, as for cyber-security may require you to run more than one vm at a time.

[pikawubz]

Oh shoot, I forgot to add my budget - it's $1100 or less. And weight isn't a huge concern, I used to carry 3 binders, a textbook, and a laptop all in my backpack in high school. My shoulders have kinda gotten used to it lol. Just nothing that will legit break my back would be great.

 

Again the games and the streaming of games is just something that would be nice, it's not a necessity at all. Like I said apparently the college workload is BRUTAL, where I legit won't get any time to do what I want. Might get myself a desktop for that in the future for game streams and the like.

[genexis_x]

4 hours ago, pikawubz said:

PUBG (Medium is fine, high would be nice)

Then you need 1050/1050TI

4 hours ago, pikawubz said:

Is battery life really that important in college?

If you can find power outlet easily then, no

[Tarun10]

8 hours ago, pikawubz said:

Oh shoot, I forgot to add my budget - it's $1100 or less. And weight isn't a huge concern, I used to carry 3 binders, a textbook, and a laptop all in my backpack in high school. My shoulders have kinda gotten used to it lol. Just nothing that will legit break my back would be great.

 

Again the games and the streaming of games is just something that would be nice, it's not a necessity at all. Like I said apparently the college workload is BRUTAL, where I legit won't get any time to do what I want. Might get myself a desktop for that in the future for game streams and the like.

If you want it to last for 4 years better get something with really good build quality. What about the Acer Predator Helios 300???? It has a 1060 for under 1100$ and its got decent thermals. Don't know how much battery life you can get???? I think you should get a newer 8th gen Processor and a GTX 1050TI if you feel you won't game or stream much.

[genexis_x]

3 hours ago, Tarun10 said:

really good build quality

Acer Predator Helios 300

decent thermals

It has OKish overall quality and mediocre cooling. What are you talking about.

[TLCH723]

Maybe the Dell G5/G7 with coupons.

 

On a side note, I think you should wait until you actually started before you buy the laptop. Your college may have computer labs that you can use/borrow. Also they probably have some laptops that they recommend

[cLIFFORDTBRD]

Just a little tip for you on products like adobe premier and such, you should ask your college if they provide licenses for some software. I just found out mine does regardless of your major. P.S. I am a freshman too so I know how ya feel.

In terms of laptops, what I did was just get a good ultrabook, and I bring my desktop for others tasks like gaming and streaming.

If you are interested in ultrabooks, I recommend the huawei matebook x pro, its the cheapest of the high-end ultrabooks right now.

The 1000$ version has a 13.9'' screen at 3k 3:2 ratio, 10 finger touchscreen, an 8th generation 4 core 8 thread CPU, integrated graphics, but the 1400$ version has dedicated graphics

My final tip is on microsoft.com they offer a discount for students, and despite what you might think, they offer non Microsoft brand pc's

[Tarun10]

On ‎6‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 7:45 PM, ZM Fong said:

It has OKish overall quality and mediocre cooling. What are you talking about.

I meant compared to other options on the market like the Inspiron

[RimsOnAToaster]

On 6/21/2018 at 12:27 PM, TLCH723 said:

 

On a side note, I think you should wait until you actually started before you buy the laptop. Your college may have computer labs that you can use/borrow. Also they probably have some laptops that they recommend

@pikawubz Or even better, your school might give you access to G Suite, which means you'll have 4 years of U N L I M I T E D  S T O R A G E via google drive. My recommendation for anybody who wants to study computer science, software engineering, or any other programming-intensive major in college is to get 2 computers: a chromebook for notes, classwork, homework, and other basic usage scenarios and a desktop for all of the fun stuff you want to do. If you're really adventurous, you could install linux on the chromebook and use that to program with on the go and connect to your desktop with remote access when you need to.

 

If you can see value in a two-computer solution, I would recommend the Acer Chromebook Flip (C302CA) at $470 from Amazon and building the desktop of your dreams with the remaining $630.

[TLCH723]

13 hours ago, RimsOnAToaster said:

@pikawubz Or even better, your school might give you access to G Suite, which means you'll have 4 years of U N L I M I T E D  S T O R A G E via google drive. My recommendation for anybody who wants to study computer science, software engineering, or any other programming-intensive major in college is to get 2 computers: a chromebook for notes, classwork, homework, and other basic usage scenarios and a desktop for all of the fun stuff you want to do. If you're really adventurous, you could install linux on the chromebook and use that to program with on the go and connect to your desktop with remote access when you need to.

 

If you can see value in a two-computer solution, I would recommend the Acer Chromebook Flip (C302CA) at $470 from Amazon and building the desktop of your dreams with the remaining $630.

I would advice against this. Some professors do require you to bring your computer to class if your college dont have enough lab space. Thus, your laptop needs to be able to run the software that required. Furthermore, you can follow the professor in class if you use a regular laptop rather than copy down the steps and do it at home. And if you run into any errors just bring the laptop, instead of emailing screenshots