Laptop for a Math/CS Freshman

[Tech_Math_Dual]

Hello everybody, 

I am going to be a Math/CS freshman at college this fall and need a laptop that has great battery life and has at minimum an i5 11th gen processor, 16 GB ddr4 ram, graphics I believe needs to be gtx 1060 or probably better, and at least 516 SSD (they say storage but SSD is my preferred option for obvious reason). Please let me know your thoughts because right now I am considering the F17 tuf gaming laptop and I wanted to know if anyone has experience with it or knows of cheaper one that works just as well. Thanks in advance. 

[Bombastinator]

54 minutes ago, Tech_Math_Dual said:

Hello everybody, 

I am going to be a Math/CS freshman at college this fall and need a laptop that has great battery life and has at minimum an i5 11th gen processor, 16 GB ddr4 ram, graphics I believe needs to be gtx 1060 or probably better, and at least 516 SSD (they say storage but SSD is my preferred option for obvious reason). Please let me know your thoughts because right now I am considering the F17 tuf gaming laptop and I wanted to know if anyone has experience with it or knows of cheaper one that works just as well. Thanks in advance. 

The goto laptop for college students is a Mac because build quality is a big need because students don’t take care of their shit and tend to throw laptops in backpacks and take them to class.  Will a Mac work?

[adm0n]

Just from personal experience, you don't want a 17" laptop, if you're going to carry it to collage. In fact, I wouldn't get anything that weighs over 2kg, as you'll hate yourself for that in the long run.

 

I'd also prioritize battery life over performance, so I'd go with the lowest power possible GPU. If you can live with an iGPU, that would probably be for the best.

 

On notebookcheck.net there is a great buyers guide. Just inputting what is important for you, two recommendations are

• Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 21CQ002LGE
  • iGPU
  • >10h battery life in light workloads
  • ~1.3kg
• Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 14 G8
  • RTX 4050
  • ~10h battery life
  • ~1.5kg

There are a billion choices though and you'll have to make your own mind up around what you want. I'd check out the buyers guide on notebookcheck and go from there.

[Tech_Math_Dual]

5 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The goto laptop for college students is a Mac because build quality is a big need because students don’t take care of their shit and tend to throw laptops in backpacks and take them to class.  Will a Mac work?

Unfortunately it won’t work. Because I am doing a Math/CS major I asked the college, since that is what I was originally thinking would be best, and they said you needed the listed specs. 

[Tech_Math_Dual]

5 hours ago, adm0n said:

Just from personal experience, you don't want a 17" laptop, if you're going to carry it to collage. In fact, I wouldn't get anything that weighs over 2kg, as you'll hate yourself for that in the long run.

 

I'd also prioritize battery life over performance, so I'd go with the lowest power possible GPU. If you can live with an iGPU, that would probably be for the best.

 

On notebookcheck.net there is a great buyers guide. Just inputting what is important for you, two recommendations are

• Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 21CQ002LGE
  • iGPU
  • >10h battery life in light workloads
  • ~1.3kg
• Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 14 G8
  • RTX 4050
  • ~10h battery life
  • ~1.5kg

There are a billion choices though and you'll have to make your own mind up around what you want. I'd check out the buyers guide on notebookcheck and go from there.

Thanks, I will look more into this and make sure it will work with the requirements. I am pretty sure though an iGPU won’t work but I could be wrong. 

[adm0n]

8 hours ago, Tech_Math_Dual said:

Thanks, I will look more into this and make sure it will work with the requirements. I am pretty sure though an iGPU won’t work but I could be wrong. 

Then I hope you find something great.

[Bombastinator]

Did you ask the prof or some secretary or something? The listed specs include specifically i5 which makes no sense at all.  X86 is possible but i5?  Also the iGPU dGPU thing should be checked out.  Wanting some cuda cores could make sense, but the description is just weird.  

[Tech_Math_Dual]

12 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Did you ask the prof or some secretary or something? The listed specs include specifically i5 which makes no sense at all.  X86 is possible but i5?  Also the iGPU dGPU thing should be checked out.  Wanting some cuda cores could make sense, but the description is just weird.  

All I did was contact the IT department and redirected me to a site and said that being a stem major I would need something similar to what a professor is required to have as specs (which was what the website contained). Just for my own understanding why does i5 not make sense? I am good with tech but trying to get better and just curious. 

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Tech_Math_Dual said:

All I did was contact the IT department and redirected me to a site and said that being a stem major I would need something similar to what a professor is required to have as specs (which was what the website contained). Just for my own understanding why does i5 not make sense? I am good with tech but trying to get better and just curious. 

So a referral to a vague referral to a different thing that may be out of date.  It’s possible you’ll need AMD64 for the x86 stuff.  A laptop 4050 should be more or less a 3060 should be more or less a 2070 should be more or less a 1080, which is sort of a standard.  A regular m1 likely wouldn’t cut that power level but a max might.

 

why is i5 weird?  Because it’s midrange.  Anything that runs on an i5 will run on an i3 just slower, or an i7 just faster.  Like 90% of the students will have macs if it’s a US college.  Modern macs don’t run x86 though.

 

I suggest actually talking to one of the professors you will be taking a class from and asking him/her what is needed for their class.  Your description of where the information came from has the feel of bureaucratic telephone about it.  It may not be accurate.  You might want to get the info from the horse’s mouth as t’were

[Tech_Math_Dual]

On 6/6/2023 at 11:13 AM, Tech_Math_Dual said:

Hello everybody, 

I am going to be a Math/CS freshman at college this fall and need a laptop that has great battery life and has at minimum an i5 11th gen processor, 16 GB ddr4 ram, graphics I believe needs to be gtx 1060 or probably better, and at least 516 SSD (they say storage but SSD is my preferred option for obvious reason). Please let me know your thoughts because right now I am considering the F17 tuf gaming laptop and I wanted to know if anyone has experience with it or knows of cheaper one that works just as well. Thanks in advance. 

For anyone curious, I needed finding an A17 tuf gaming laptop for a good price ($1,100) and it seems to be working well and I definitely recommend it. Thanks to everyone for the help, I appreciate it.