Help me choose a laptop for college

[Jieno666]

In one years time, I will be going to college and moving into a dorm away from my PC. Because of this, I will need a semi-light laptop that I can carry around campus and take back to my dorm so I can study or game. My dad (who is paying for the laptop) wants to buy me a $2000 mac book pro but I dislike mac OS and want a gaming laptop. I'm torn on which to choose, as I know the mac book has amazing build quality and can last me my whole college career, but I can't game on it and with that money, I believe I can buy something of equal quality and longevity. I'm not totally opposed to getting a mac but do you guys have any suggestions on laptops with equal or even greater quality than a mac book that I can game on? 

 

Some notes:

-I'm going to be running programs like autodesk, solid edge, after effects, and photoshop   

-budget around $2000

 

Laptops I'm looking at:

-Acer triton 500

-GS65 STEALTH-296

-HP OMEN 15-dc1052nr

P.S.- Try to provide reasons on why the laptop is good so I have some selling points against apple

[DrMacintosh]

Get a 13" Ultrabook with a Thunderbolt 3 port and an eGPU. 

 

You are a student first, not a gamer. So you'll need portability and battery life above all else. 15" laptops are extremely cumbersome in a College setting and gaming laptops tend to die rather quickly thanks to their overpowered CPUs. It's because of this that I don't believe a student should realistically buy a gaming laptop. 

 

I recommend an XPS 13" with this config:

• 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8565U Processor (8MB Cache, up to 4.6 GHz, 4 cores)
• Windows 10 Home 64-bit English
• Intel® UHD Graphics 620 with shared graphics memory
• 16GB LPDDR3 2133MHz
• 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive
• $1300

I would personally choose a Mac, however because of autodesk I would recommend sticking with a Windows laptop. 

[birdflyer]

Have you considered the razor laptop 1 or 2 fully specked out?

[Mike21]

Razor blade is a prety good choice but after adobe update Macbook runs way better than from any windows laptop.

[Jurrunio]

37 minutes ago, Mike21 said:

Razor blade is a prety good choice

2 hours ago, birdflyer said:

Have you considered the razor laptop 1 or 2 fully specked out?

reliability?

 

3 hours ago, Jieno666 said:

I dislike mac OS

you could use boot camp and run windows on Mac so this isn't much of a limitation imo, the hardware and price are.

 

3 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8565U Processor (8MB Cache, up to 4.6 GHz, 4 cores)

what about the i5 model? Not like they differ much in performance, both hit TDP before their max rated frequencies.

[To Be Technical]

For you I would definitely recommend the Razer Blade 15". I think it meets all your needs. It's thin and portable, it has all the I/O you will need — much better than the MacBook Pro's. It has all the power you would need for gaming and a screen fast enough to keep up with it. The storage included is a good size, and you can upgrade it with a spare 2.5" slot. The build quality is excellent and it can also last you your whole college career. The price to performance ratio is also a lot more impressive than the MacBook Pro. I would recommend this model:

 

Processor | 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-9750H 6 Core (2.6GHz/4.5GHz)

Graphics | NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 2060 (6GB GDDR6 VRAM)

Display | 15.6" Full HD 144Hz, 100% sRGB, 4.9mm bezel, factory calibrated

Storage | 512GB SSD (NVMe) + empty 2.5" (SATA, 7mm max. thickness)

Memory | 16GB Dual-Channel (8GB x 2) DDR4 2667MHz

I/O | USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB-A) x3, Thunderbolt™ 3 (USB-C), Gigabit Ethernet, headphone jack

 

View it on Razer's website here: https://www.razer.com/gb-en/gaming-laptops/razer-blade/shop#rtx2060--fhd-144hz-9thgen--512plus-blk

 

Hope this helps!

Edited September 3, 2019 by LogicalDrm
Removed some no-no thingys

[Divamage]

there are 3 things to remember, 1. are you a gamer , 2. how much can you spend on you new laptop, 3. what college work will you be doing and what will it require?

[Wellingtonzed]

A decent laptop is a Zephyrus G. It has a large 76WHR battery with 512ssd gtx 1660ti and Ryzen 7 3750h with a lower TDP(power draw) than its intel counterparts. Basic browsing and word docs it'll last you 5-6 hours and gaming its solid. Keep in mind its thermals arn't the best, merely ok and Asus reliability is questionable... But a point is made. I bought a Zephyrus G and was in the exact situation you are. I woudnt recommend carrying this thing around as while YES it is very thin its still kinda heavy. Not to mention it turned out the first one i got had a hardware problem as i sent it for a Ram upgrade so i got a second one just within warranty. Asus reliability is worth keeping in mind. 

[Jieno666]

On 9/3/2019 at 12:16 AM, birdflyer said:

Have you considered the razor laptop 1 or 2 fully specked out?

ive seen so many bad reviews on the razer on how they have bad build quality and bad customer service 

[Jieno666]

18 hours ago, miku126 said:

there are 3 things to remember, 1. are you a gamer , 2. how much can you spend on you new laptop, 3. what college work will you be doing and what will it require?

1) Ive played games my whole life so I cant really see myself doing anything but game on my free time. I dont play campaign games and only cooperative shooters like fortnite or CSGO. My main concern is that if something like fortnite 2 comes out I wont be able to play it on a non gaming laptop with over 60 fps. 

 

2) I dont want the price to go over 2000

 

3) engineering and it would require autodesk 

[Jieno666]

19 hours ago, To Be Technical said:

For you I would definitely recommend the Razer Blade 15". I think it meets all your needs. It's thin and portable, it has all the I/O you will need — much better than the MacBook Pro's. It has all the power you would need for gaming and a screen fast enough to keep up with it. The storage included is a good size, and you can upgrade it with a spare 2.5" slot. The build quality is excellent and it can also last you your whole college career. The price to performance ratio is also a lot more impressive than the MacBook Pro. I would recommend this model:

 

Processor | 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-9750H 6 Core (2.6GHz/4.5GHz)

Graphics | NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 2060 (6GB GDDR6 VRAM)

Display | 15.6" Full HD 144Hz, 100% sRGB, 4.9mm bezel, factory calibrated

Storage | 512GB SSD (NVMe) + empty 2.5" (SATA, 7mm max. thickness)

Memory | 16GB Dual-Channel (8GB x 2) DDR4 2667MHz

I/O | USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB-A) x3, Thunderbolt™ 3 (USB-C), Gigabit Ethernet, headphone jack

 

View it on Razer's website here: https://www.razer.com/gb-en/gaming-laptops/razer-blade/shop#rtx2060--fhd-144hz-9thgen--512plus-blk

 

Hope this helps!

Im definitely a razer fanboy but ive heard so many negative reviews on it about bad build quality and bad customer service so im a bit meh.  

[Jieno666]

7 hours ago, Wellingtonzed said:

A decent laptop is a Zephyrus G. It has a large 76WHR battery with 512ssd gtx 1660ti and Ryzen 7 3750h with a lower TDP(power draw) than its intel counterparts. Basic browsing and word docs it'll last you 5-6 hours and gaming its solid. Keep in mind its thermals arn't the best, merely ok and Asus reliability is questionable... But a point is made. I bought a Zephyrus G and was in the exact situation you are. I woudnt recommend carrying this thing around as while YES it is very thin its still kinda heavy. Not to mention it turned out the first one i got had a hardware problem as i sent it for a Ram upgrade so i got a second one just within warranty. Asus reliability is worth keeping in mind. 

Assuming that you're in the same situation as me, have you been to college? Would you say you have time to game during freetime? And as for the weight of the laptop cant you just buy a laptop bag and carry it in that? I see weight being such a deciding factor in buying a laptop but I cant imagine a 5 pound laptop in a bag being that big of a burden. 

[Wellingtonzed]

oh well, actually this year is my first time at university. As for free time, well you might have a bit to relax over the weekends and stuff. As for weight, i just mentioned it cause having a heavier device might make it more unwieldly and likely to drop it thats all so keep it in mind. otherwise I just stick it in my backpack, preferably in the middle zipper bag so it has SOME cushioning just in case i drop my bag or something. 

 

Otherwise, The Zeph G has done fine by me. Also its notably cheaper than all the other laptops you mentioned. Heres a review Linus did. 

Its Ok on the thermal. And again bear in mind Asus reliability might wanna go for some sort of warranty just in case. Its unlikely to be defective or anything but still never hurts especially since youll be relying on it and travelling and whatnot. its about 1000USD and I got one for 1300CAD (Canadian). Depends on where you look.

[To Be Technical]

On 9/4/2019 at 6:50 AM, Jieno666 said:

Im definitely a razer fanboy but ive heard so many negative reviews on it about bad build quality and bad customer service so im a bit meh.  

Customer services possibly but the laptop generally has positive reviews. There are a few caveats obviously but people seem to like it.