Laptop for School

[MaxTGG6]

Im trying to get a laptop for school (Going for Computer Engineering) around 1000 (preferably under) but I hate searching for laptops because of how information is inconsistent (primarily for battery life). One primary concern is battery life but its hard to find a laptop that is convenient with good battery life and also has good specs in the price range. Currently the two I am looking at are these:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-victus-15-6-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-12650h-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3050-ti-512gb-ssd-mica-silver/6502943.p?skuId=6502943

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-legion-5-15-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-7-5800h-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3050-ti-8gb-memory-512gb-ssd-phantom-blue/6455136.p?acampID=0&cmp=RMX&irclickid=1G6zkP0SaxyNROdwa626QSlRUkD1D90l1yHjQU0&irgwc=1&loc=Narrativ&mpid=376373&ref=198&skuId=6455136

I am currently leaning towards the lenovo due to price but the only 16 gb ram one I could find was way more expensive so will probably just upgrade later if needed but that's a pain in the a**.

[rikitikitavi]

On 7/14/2022 at 10:09 PM, MaxTGG6 said:

One primary concern is battery life but its hard to find a laptop that is convenient with good battery life and also has good specs in the price range

M1 MacBook Air.

Check refurbished for a 16GB version (safer bet)

[Darkseth]

If you want Batterylife as your #1 primary must have, Gaming Notebooks are literealy the last category you should be looking for.

They usually have the worst batterylife, simply because they Fokus on the most powerfull Hardware, that consumes alot of Power, big Cooling System, and not always the biggest Battery. Because they are meant to be used plugged in.
Also, they are thicc and heavy. And cheaper entry level Gaming Notebooks come with not very good screens (They Focus on high refresh Rate for Gamers).

 

Me also: School/Uni Laptop: Macbook Air M1 base model is just fine. 16gb Ram if you can afford it, it's worth. especially, if you need to use a Windows 11 ARM VM, because that can fill up the Ram fast.

 

It's smaller, but easier to carry around. And if you leave the house with 80-100% Battery, you probably won't be able to kill the battery within 1 single School Day.

While on the Gaming Notebook, you don't have 2,5 Kg (MB Air is around 1,3 Kg), but you also HAVE to carry the Charging Brick along with you, that's another 0,5-1 Kg. And it takes space.

 

Even if you used Windows 11 in a VM on the Macbook, you most likely won't kill the batterylife in a single School Day / Uni Day.

 

And on top comes eternal silence with it. You will never hear it. No Fans, nothing. And it stays cool.

 

 

So basicly: Because of that batterylife, high performance, perfect Silence, great Trackpad + display + speakers + build quality...
I'll have to say: Just get a M1 Macbook Air, it's THE perfect school/uni Laptop for almost anybody - as long most your Software runs on MacOS, and you might occasionally have to use a Win11 VM.

If you almost always need to use Windows Applications that don't have a MacOS Version, i'd look for a Windows alternative.

 

Or if it's your only Computer, and you absolutely need to have a Device that's capable of Gaming.

[MartinTheActor]

For my recent teacher training I had a Lenovo ideapad 3. It consistently got me through the whole day of lectures, and teaching on a single charge. It had upgradable RAM and swappable nvme SSD to expand storage. Sure it's a low power CPU but it got me through my studies very well. 

I'm now enjoying the Framework, and being brutally honest I'm loving it. Though it's a physically smaller screen I teach freelance so am out and about doing workshops and when I'm not I'm writing in a cafe or such. I'm getting between 7 hours to 9 hours of battery life from a full charge. I'm generally writing, researching, and occasional video call. For $1000 you could get an 11th gen model and spec it fairly well. I'd actually advise not getting the SSD or RAM from Framework as it's cheaper to buy elsewhere. Though am interested in how much of an efficiency improvement might come with 12gen intel. Benefit of the framework is that people are reporting good performance with an eGPU if that's something you're interested in. 

So, while I can see why the M1 is being suggested, I'd recommend the Framework which is a similar pricepoint. I would agree with others though, gaming laptops are a PITA for that price range and not as convenient imo.