New device or keep current for college?

[Evil Genius Jr.]

So I will be going to college this fall, studying either mechanical or electrical engineering with a computer engineering minor. These all require a lot of computing power, and as such I will be bringing my X99 based beast of a desktop. However I also need a laptop. Currently I have an original Surface Pro and absolutely love it, however battery life barely hits four hours on a good day, with the external battery keyboard, and 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room if I can't get to my desktop to do something intensive. 

 

So I have a couple options, replace my surface with a new nice ultrabook such as an XPS 13 or Macbook air (with windows), replace it with a new Surface 3 or Surface Pro 3, or buy a cheap laptop (HP Stream, possible a chromebook) with a long battery life and remote into my desktop. I also can stick with the Surface and hope the battery will last, possible get another external battery.

So what do you guys think my best option would be? Thanks!

[Fredrikmikael]

I would wait until the last possible moment to buy a new "device" at this time.

Alot of new hardware releases at this time, new GPU's from Nvidia and AMD (coming shortly), and the new Skylake processors from intel is approaching rapidly.

With Skylake you will get MUCH better integrated graphics and presumably lower power consumption(longer battery life).

[Giki]

Snip--

If you're staying on campus I would just stream your desktop to a cheap laptop so if it gets stolen/broken you can just get another and move on...

I doubt they will want you to do anything too intensive without giving you a lab to work in.

[Evil Genius Jr.]

I would wait until the last possible moment to buy a new "device" at this time.

Alot of new hardware releases at this time, new GPU's from Nvidia and AMD (coming shortly), and the new Skylake processors from intel is approaching rapidly.

With Skylake you will get MUCH better integrated graphics and presumably lower power consumption(longer battery life).

That was my other option, try the surface for a semester and if it doesn't cut it then get something new at Christmas time.

 

If you're staying on campus I would just stream your desktop to a cheap laptop so if it gets stolen/broken you can just get another and move on...

I doubt they will want you to do anything too intensive without giving you a lab to work in.

Any you recommend? HP Stream? Asus T100 or the like?

[Fredrikmikael]

That was my other option, try the surface for a semester and if it doesn't cut it then get something new at Christmas time.

 

Any you recommend? HP Stream? Asus T100 or the like?

 

Please for the love of god, don't get a HP Stream.

 

I work as tech support/computer technician in a electronics store.

All of the HP Stream 7's that we sold either got returned or had to be sent in as a warranty case.

And i've seen alot of issues with HP's laptops, especially their Touchpad going haywire.

 

Brands to stay away from (from my experience):

-HP

-Acer

-Toshiba

-Packard Bell

-And some of the Samsung's

 

Sure HP and Acer have som good models, such as the Acer nitro

But the majority of their products is complete horse shit

 

Get a trusty lenovo or asus 

[Evil Genius Jr.]

Yeah I certainly am focused on Asus, Lenovo, Dell, Micosoft and Apple. I just thought the HP looked like a good deal. Ideally I'd get the Surface 3 and use that to remote, but it's way to expensive for what it's worth, basically the same price as the pro minus all the features.

[Giki]

Yeah I certainly am focused on Asus, Lenovo, Dell, Micosoft and Apple. I just thought the HP looked like a good deal. Ideally I'd get the Surface 3 and use that to remote, but it's way to expensive for what it's worth, basically the same price as the pro minus all the features.

Ok so depending on your budget if you need something under $200 and can deal with *720p I would highly recommend the Asus X205TA I have last years model and the battery lasts forever when just streaming or doing basic stuff.

Also for the lulz I put Skyrim and modded it a bit and got it running at like 35 fps it was pretty magical.

Now if your gonna go for something $400 or more I would get whatever cheap laptop you can find on sale at your local store with a 1080p screen and a decent battery life of 6+ hours.

And for streaming I recommend splashtop streamer because in my testing its faster than team viewer or If you're on the LAN of your computer steam streaming is awesome!

* It would be 1080p down sampled to the 720p you would still have the space it just might be a bit harder to read small text.