student laptop recommendation?

[tJuggernaut29]

so i have been carrying around my 7 pound laptop for years now and im sick of its weight, im looking for a lighter laptop that can still get what i want done, and be around 500$

i want at least 4 threads, 3 ish GHz or better (it needs to be an improvement on my 4 thread 2.66GHz pentium), an i5 or i7, an ssd 256GB or bigger, and at least 8GB of ram, and it has to be lightweight.

i dont care how thin it is, but i do need some normal usb ports on the side (no usb C only)

it needs to be name brand (HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, etc) not some one off by a no name company.

touchscreen would be awesome, but not a must

im an engineering student, a beefy CPU and ssd are a requirement, for CAD stuff, and the 500$ budget is a requirement. (500 ish, if its like 514$ thats close enough)

 

Thanks, look forward to some suggestions

also links to the products would be especially helpful 

also having a 10 key would be preferred, i type a lot of numbers

 

needs to be new, ive messed around with a used thinkpad before and i vowed never again

 

update, looking at the Aspire 5 Laptop - A515-51-53TH does anyone have experience with this? is it good/ bad?

[genexis_x]

With the low budget, you should look into used business/workstation laptops with quad core CPU. RAM and SSD can be added later

[johnukguy]

If you can wait a little, the new Ryzen laptops will likely give you better bang for your buck.

[Pendragon]

45 minutes ago, tJuggernaut29 said:

im an engineering student, a beefy CPU and ssd are a requirement, for CAD stuff, and the 500$ budget is a requirement. (500 ish, if its like 514$ thats close enough)

3

last gen business laptops with quad cores are the ONLY option. you aint getting ANYTHING new at that price point.

[tJuggernaut29]

1 hour ago, Pendragon said:

last gen business laptops with quad cores are the ONLY option. you aint getting ANYTHING new at that price point.

there is new stuff out there with these specs, you just need to find it. which is why i asked in the tech forum, for help finding them.

here is an example of a 4 thread laptop with an ssd, but im looking for other options than just the one so i can make a good decision.

https://us-store.acer.com/aspire-5-laptop-a515-51-53th#_ga=2.85136859.317793278.1510453629-1874178426.1494640052

[Pendragon]

On 11/12/2017 at 12:03 AM, tJuggernaut29 said:

4 thread laptop

is very different from

On 11/11/2017 at 9:36 PM, tJuggernaut29 said:

beefy CPU

You do know that those ULV chips are like terrible. Duo HT Cores. Whereas last gen business notebooks come with actual quad cores 8 threads right?

[RankAmateur]

go to woot.com. there are a lot of manufacturer refurbished desktop/laptos on there for cheap. thats about the best youre gonna do for 500 usd. if you could up it to 8, check out the dell xps13. there will almost certainly be sales on it and the xps line just, so  so good.