Specs to look for: college laptop

[Carlos R]

If I were shopping around for a gaming notebook or a workstation laptop I would be more certain of what to get. 

This machine, however, won't be used for much more than my sister's college stuff -- PowerPoint presentation, essay writing, researching, excel. Throw in some movie viewing and that's pretty much it. 

As it will be her computer for 5-7 years, though, I'm thinking it's best to buy something fairly good that can perform adequately for the foreseeable future. 

 

What processor can we get away with? 

Similarly, what about RAM? 

 

 

Whatever you guys come up with, I'll shop for something that has that and a decent SSD on the weekend and that's it. 

 

 

[Guest]

Recommended Processors:

• AMD Ryzen 2700U (And lesser variants)
  • Target TDP of 15W (cTDP up to 25w)
  • Best iGPU of the list
    • Would have some benefits even if she doesn't play games
    • (The number of CUs and frequency goes down as you go lower)
      • 10CUs - 2700u
      • 8CUs - 2500u
      • 6CUs - 2300u
      • 3CUs - 2200u
  • 4 cores/ 8 "threads" (For the 2500u and 2700u)
    • 4 cores/4 "threads" for the 2200u and 2300u
• Intel 8th gen u series (Eg i7-8850u)
  • Target TDP of 15W (cTDP up to 25w)
  • 4 cores/8 "threads" for all variants (Lower clocks the lower you go)

Personally I would go for the 2700u but laptops with them are few sadly, the Intel U series are still decent however. These are lower TDP processors and tend to be better on battery life, though if you expected her to be doing heavy computing in the future, you may want to start looking into an H/HQ processor from Intel and a dGPU. On the topic of GPUs, having a thunderbolt port would be worthwhile if you want to one day use a dGPU with the laptop, but doesn't seem necessary in this case.

On ram, try for a minimum of 8GB, 4GB could work but having more room and relying on paging less is recommended. If you can, try for something with 16GB but that isn't necessary.

[genexis_x]

Preferred weight and battery life? If you want something that lasts (not performance) then consider premium business laptops/mobile workstation like Thinkpad T series