LF recommendation for CS major.

[migrvne]

Hey all. 

Im looking for a good, fast, well built laptop that I can do anything and everything I need for my computer science classes I start in the fall. 

I have a desktop I built for gaming and such, but I need something other than my iPad that I can write code on. 

Not looking for some cheap Windows machine that is going start breaking in a few weeks, but I’m also not looking for something that is going to break the bank. 

Budget i would say is less than $2000. 

Thanks. 

[jerubedo]

As a CS graduate myself I'd recommend this laptop:

 

https://store.asus.com/us/item/201807AM250000003/A26128-ASUS-ZenBook-Pro-15-UX550GE-XB71T-15.6"-UHD-4K%2C-Intel-Core-i7%2C-16GB-RAM%2C-512GB-PCIe-x4-SSD%2C-NVIDIA-GTX-1050-Ti-%2C-Win-10-Pro

 

It hits all the checkboxes for programming: i7 high clocked CPU (great for brute force test programs or bubble sorting testing with huge datasets), 16GB RAM, and a fast boot SSD along with a decent GPU (1050 Ti). It also features a 4k monitor. It should do it all for you.

 

I personally stay away from Dell now. I've owned 11 laptops from them total (not all by choice, some were provided brand new from work) and 6 of them had eventual critical failures from shoddy hardware assembly and/or inferior parts. Their tech support is horrible to deal with if you need to get a specific hardware component replaced. I switched over to Asus as my main laptop provider and so far 5 out of 5 laptops are still running strong and have only been hampered by the age of their hardware, not failures.

[genexis_x]

6 hours ago, migrvne said:

Not looking for some cheap Windows machine that is going start breaking in a few weeks

Premium business laptops (Lenovo Thinkpad T, Dell Latitude 7000, HP Elitebook 800/1000) or 'true' mobile workstations (Lenovo Thinkpad P non-s, Dell Precision 7000, HP Zbook non-u)