Notebook for studying

[SmilesRising]

Hello!

 

In a couple of weeks I will start studying and I would need to get a notebook for it. There will be a couple of courses in programming, one with C# and a few courses that will involve photoshop / illustrator so I would need something that can handle it without any issues!

 

I'm not sure if i should go for something with a "real" gpu or if I will be fine without it, I've been looking at this one: https://www.inet.se/produkt/1966113/lenovo-ideapad-5-14-ryzen-7-16gb-512gb and it looks on paper like a solid choice but I would love to have your opinion on it!

 

Max budget of 1300-1400$  

 

Thanks in advance! 

[Bombastinator]

33 minutes ago, smiles rising said:

Hello!

 

In a couple of weeks I will start studying and I would need to get a notebook for it. There will be a couple of courses in programming, one with C# and a few courses that will involve photoshop / illustrator so I would need something that can handle it without any issues!

 

I'm not sure if i should go for something with a "real" gpu or if I will be fine without it, I've been looking at this one: https://www.inet.se/produkt/1966113/lenovo-ideapad-5-14-ryzen-7-16gb-512gb and it looks on paper like a solid choice but I would love to have your opinion on it!

 

Max budget of 1300-1400$  

 

Thanks in advance! 

You’ll likely be looking student projects designed to teach a concept and that can usually be done with smaller stuff.  Might do to find out what the minimum spec requirement for a given class is. 

[SmilesRising]

33 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

You’ll likely be looking student projects designed to teach a concept and that can usually be done with smaller stuff.  Might do to find out what the minimum spec requirement for a given class is. 

I don't have much info regarding specs, My thought was that any computer with decent specs should work. I do have a gaming PC at home with decent specs that should work if I need more "horse power".. 

[Bombastinator]

14 minutes ago, smiles rising said:

I don't have much info regarding specs, My thought was that any computer with decent specs should work. I do have a gaming PC at home with decent specs that should work if I need more "horse power".. 

well if you know what school you are going to the school will know who is teaching the class and the teacher will know what spec they are aiming for with their projects

[SmilesRising]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

well if you know what school you are going to the school will know who is teaching the class and the teacher will know what spec they are aiming for with their projects

the requirements were quite vague, "newer i5 and 8gb of RAM should do the trick".... so the lenovo should be just fine in terms of performance since it outperforms many i5 cpus

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, smiles rising said:

the requirements were quite vague, "newer i5 and 8gb of RAM should do the trick".... so the lenovo should be just fine in terms of performance since it outperforms many i5 cpus

I translate that as”potato, but shiney new potato” sounds like a discrete gpu is not required, especially with a machine with a decent iGP.

[Darkseth]

6 hours ago, smiles rising said:

Hello!

 

In a couple of weeks I will start studying and I would need to get a notebook for it. There will be a couple of courses in programming, one with C# and a few courses that will involve photoshop / illustrator so I would need something that can handle it without any issues!

 

I'm not sure if i should go for something with a "real" gpu or if I will be fine without it, I've been looking at this one: https://www.inet.se/produkt/1966113/lenovo-ideapad-5-14-ryzen-7-16gb-512gb and it looks on paper like a solid choice but I would love to have your opinion on it!

 

Max budget of 1300-1400$  

 

Thanks in advance! 

You never "need" big hardware for studying. No Uni can expect you having a $2000+ workstation. Most people can do fine with 7 year old Laptops, or $500 models, in terms of Hardware performance.

 

However, if you have a higher budget, you might as well use it for stuff like build quality, Better screen, speakers, etc.

 

Ideapad 5 with Ryzen 5000 series is decent, it should be full aluminum. Take a look into the Ideapad 5 PRO 14". it comes with a 16:10 Display instead 16:9 (more lines of code, more content at the same time), 400 nits brightness, 100% sRGB, 90 Hz and a sharp 2880x1800 Resolution. Should be maybe 100-200 dollar more.

Or around 1000 dollar, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro with the same Panel, but more build quality.

Notebookcheck has it tested today: https://www.notebookcheck.com/Lenovo-Yoga-Slim-7-Pro-14ACH5-im-Test-14-Zoll-Kraftpaket-mit-guten-Akkulaufzeiten.552278.0.html

But it's german, however if you're familiar with Notebookcheck, you can get some informations about battery life, heat output etc.

 

HP Envy 14 (1920x1200 Screen, Tiger Lake-U, 400 nits Display) is also a good choice, if the Price is right. There's a really good Review from Just Josh on Youtube, also from other Laptops.

This is one of the only Laptops, where the Intel Tiger Lake Chip doesn't throttle, even unplugged. It maintains 3,8 Ghz under Benchmarks, and can beat many Intel 6-Core CPUs.

Also, 16:10 aspectratio is always great.

 

Not offering a 16:10 aspect ratio, but you could look into the latest (or previous) Models of the Thinkpad T series or more compact, X series (Intel 11th Gen at least, or AMD Ryzen 4000 or 5000).

Their strength is a sturdy build, repairable, good support, and good Linux support in case you need that.

 

But my personal recommendation is: M1 Macbook Air (Upgrade the base model to 16gb Ram, and SSD as you need 256 or 512). it's THE Perfect student Laptop, as long all your Applications run under MacOS.

High performance, very long battery life AND battery efficiency, and all the time Silent because there is no Fan. Great Display, great form factor, great resale value, great speakers, best Trackpad int he Industry, great everything that is not Upgrading and repairing.

C# should be no issue, depending what IDE, Plugins etc you gonna use. Jetbrains Rider works under Rosetta, their IDEs for many other languages has been updated to Apple Silicon already. Rider should follow.

Visual Studio is Rosetta only too atm, but they are working on a native version: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/developing-on-a-m1-mac-with-visual-studio-for-mac/

Visual Studio Code is native already: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_54#_apple-silicon

Adobe Stuff runs great too, the major Applications running natively already too.

[SmilesRising]

10 hours ago, Darkseth said:

You never "need" big hardware for studying. No Uni can expect you having a $2000+ workstation. Most people can do fine with 7 year old Laptops, or $500 models, in terms of Hardware performance.

 

However, if you have a higher budget, you might as well use it for stuff like build quality, Better screen, speakers, etc.

 

Ideapad 5 with Ryzen 5000 series is decent, it should be full aluminum. Take a look into the Ideapad 5 PRO 14". it comes with a 16:10 Display instead 16:9 (more lines of code, more content at the same time), 400 nits brightness, 100% sRGB, 90 Hz and a sharp 2880x1800 Resolution. Should be maybe 100-200 dollar more.

Or around 1000 dollar, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro with the same Panel, but more build quality.

Notebookcheck has it tested today: https://www.notebookcheck.com/Lenovo-Yoga-Slim-7-Pro-14ACH5-im-Test-14-Zoll-Kraftpaket-mit-guten-Akkulaufzeiten.552278.0.html

But it's german, however if you're familiar with Notebookcheck, you can get some informations about battery life, heat output etc.

 

HP Envy 14 (1920x1200 Screen, Tiger Lake-U, 400 nits Display) is also a good choice, if the Price is right. There's a really good Review from Just Josh on Youtube, also from other Laptops.

This is one of the only Laptops, where the Intel Tiger Lake Chip doesn't throttle, even unplugged. It maintains 3,8 Ghz under Benchmarks, and can beat many Intel 6-Core CPUs.

Also, 16:10 aspectratio is always great.

 

Not offering a 16:10 aspect ratio, but you could look into the latest (or previous) Models of the Thinkpad T series or more compact, X series (Intel 11th Gen at least, or AMD Ryzen 4000 or 5000).

Their strength is a sturdy build, repairable, good support, and good Linux support in case you need that.

 

But my personal recommendation is: M1 Macbook Air (Upgrade the base model to 16gb Ram, and SSD as you need 256 or 512). it's THE Perfect student Laptop, as long all your Applications run under MacOS.

High performance, very long battery life AND battery efficiency, and all the time Silent because there is no Fan. Great Display, great form factor, great resale value, great speakers, best Trackpad int he Industry, great everything that is not Upgrading and repairing.

C# should be no issue, depending what IDE, Plugins etc you gonna use. Jetbrains Rider works under Rosetta, their IDEs for many other languages has been updated to Apple Silicon already. Rider should follow.

Visual Studio is Rosetta only too atm, but they are working on a native version: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/developing-on-a-m1-mac-with-visual-studio-for-mac/

Visual Studio Code is native already: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_54#_apple-silicon

Adobe Stuff runs great too, the major Applications running natively already too.

I've never been a fan of mac, used it a couple of times but it's not for me, I'm sure the M1 is a great chip but I'll go with windows for this  I will take a look at the ones you mentioned! 

[Darkseth]

Then, i'd add the Acer Swift X into the Mix: 

 

[Bombastinator]

For my part I would say most things with a Xe or vega11 iGP will do. M1 is also on that level or maybe a twitch higher, but it’s out of the running so it doesn’t matter.  6/12 maybe just for extra oomph. A really good 4/8 would likely do fine though.  Keyboard quality and ruggedness will matter because it’s a Uni computer. There are also specifics involving electronic note taking in classes I don’t know much about.  Apparently microsoft proper is the best of x86 at that. I don’t know what the microsoft stuff is called.  Surfacepro4 is supposed to have it. Other things might.

[SmilesRising]

11 hours ago, Darkseth said:

Then, i'd add the Acer Swift X into the Mix: 

 

thank you for all the help! I got the Ideapad 5 pro with the 5800h cpu, should be a nice computer!