Best laptop for machine learning under 1500

[Mayank Dhingra]

looking for a windows laptop with good battery and good performance for deep learning

[LukeSavenije]

xps 15

lg gram

razer blade

huawei matebook x

@GeneXiS_X knows more than me about this

[Mayank Dhingra]

lg gram doesnt have a gpu

razer blade is out of my budget

and i am not sure about the customer service of huawei

the reason why i am not sure with the xps 15 is thermal throttling

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, Mayank Dhingra said:

lg gram doesnt have a gpu

razer blade is out of my budget

and i am not sure about the customer service of huawei

the reason why i am not sure with the xps 15 is thermal throttling

then I would wait untill GeneXiS_X reacts to my mention. He will probebly know something for you. I'm not that much into laptops. also, quote or mention me next time

[mikkeyboi]

Any of the mentioned laptops above are good if you want the battery life.

You won't be training models locally (be better using AWS), and even if you do, you leave simulations running overnight on a plugged-in computer.

Making use of the GPU in deep learning libraries like tensorflow, keras, or pytorch at a budget of $1500 wouldn't make much of a difference.

So I guess my recommendation will be Lenovo P series (P1 for Quadro P2000 or P52s for Quadro P500) - the quadros for the extra push for data preprocessing, not necessarily for deep learning. Excellent battery life too.

I would also recommend the Razer blade, they'll likely have previous gen for around that price for Black Friday or random refurb sales.

 

You can also check here to see which GPUs matter for deep learning. http://timdettmers.com/2018/11/05/which-gpu-for-deep-learning/

 

[Mayank Dhingra]

@mikkeyboi

P1's battery isnt as good and the benchmark scores of xps 15 are better than P52s'

[genexis_x]

1 hour ago, Mayank Dhingra said:

looking for a windows laptop with good battery and good performance for deep learning

Kindly provide more info:

Where are you from?

Min how many hours of battery life?

Max weight preferred?

Any other special requirements?

1 hour ago, Mayank Dhingra said:

razer blade is out of my budget

and i am not sure about the customer service of huawei

the reason why i am not sure with the xps 15 is thermal throttling

1. Razer laptops have trash quality too. The latest Blade 15 doesn't have improvements, sadly

2. Expect Xiaomi like service which can be quite troublesome since it's located in China

3. Just don't look at XPS 15 unless you want the iGPU model or, you got some really great deal and have a tight budget. Too many issues

[genexis_x]

Just now, Mayank Dhingra said:

@mikkeyboi

P1's battery isnt as good

Battery life in P1 is decent, just not for the highest end spec+UHD panel

[Mayank Dhingra]

I am looking for an alternative for xps 15 due to its thermal limitation

battery life should be min 8hrs

a decent gpu

good performance

[GoldenLag]

if you are looking at ultrabooks you will allways have thermal constrainst.

 

is screensize a requirement?

[PineyCreek]

Give your preferences beyond the three you listed.  Maximum weight? Screensize requirement? Storage options?

[Guest]

I don't think that exists, for that price what you can get is:

A decent gaming laptop, no battery life.

Decent battery life, crap*y gaming performance thanks to thermals 

 

What I can think is a thinkpad 480 maybe? with an mx150.

Nothing compared to a 1050 but whatever..

 

Unless you choose to buy a Thunderbolt 3 capable laptop with an eGPU

[genexis_x]

3 hours ago, Mayank Dhingra said:

I am looking for an alternative for xps 15 due to its thermal limitation

battery life should be min 8hrs

a decent gpu

good performance

Where are you from? Budget? Preferred max weight?

[zhubaohi]

Well, Thinkpad P1, Thinkpad X1 Extreme, Macbook Pro 15' are usually considered as the contender for xps 15.

[Mayank Dhingra]

Alright so i am a gradute student in san jose, california and looking to buy a laptop for deep learning

Requirements

CPu-i7

GPU

Good Battery life

RAM - 8 or more

screen size and weight do not really matter

i have been searching for a while now and the best one that i've found is xps 15

it costs me around $1400 with i7, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q, 97W battery, 8gb ram.

The only downside to xps 15 is thermal throttling

do you have any suggestions as to why i should and shouldnt buy a xps 15 with the above mentioned specs.

 @GoldenLag  - screensize doesnt matter but 14" is preffered

 @zhubaohi  - P1's battery life isnt as good as xps 15's, thinkpad x1's extreme's benchmarks scores are lower than xps' and i am looking for a windows laptop so no macbooks

@PineyCreek 

@Lukyp  - the i7 version of t480 starts at $2100

@GeneXiS_X - I am from india

 

[Mayank Dhingra]

@GeneXiS_X

I am from california

requirements

cpu - i7

battery life - 8 hrs or more

a gpu

[Mayank Dhingra]

I am thinking of buying an xps 15 FHD with the following specs for around $1400

i7 8750h

ram - 8GB 2x4GB DDR4-2666MHz,

256 ssd

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050Ti with 4GB GDDR5

battery - 97Wh 

[Fasauceome]

You shouldn't if you don't need a powerhouse of a laptop. Otherwise, you absolutely should. It's the best all around laptop I've yet used.

[Mayank Dhingra]

@fasauceomei need a laptop with those specs but the only issue with xps 15 is thermal throttling

you think i should go for it or keep looking for laptops?

you have any suggestions for any other laptops?

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, Mayank Dhingra said:

@fasauceomei need a laptop with those specs but the only issue with xps 15 is thermal throttling

you think i should go for it or keep looking for laptops?

you have any suggestions for any other laptops?

The thermal throttling is mainly an issue on the Vega model, the one with the 1050 ti is great. (the Vega model is actually great too, I've used both.) The thermal issues are minimal, not nearly on the level of the macbook.

[Mayank Dhingra]

okay thanks @fasauceome

[DailyProcrastinator]

I have a hard time answering this because the XPS15 is a great laptop. A close friend owns the new XPS 15 with the 4k touchscreen, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and the 1050Ti and he has had zero complaints.

 

I own the 2017 XPS13 and I use this laptop daily, I absolutely love it. I only ever had one issue where after the battery died on reboot the system boots before the SSD receives power so it would just send me into bios. The fix was setting a 2 second boot delay on power up and since then I have been issue free, there are only 2 other laptops I would personally 'consider' over this XPS. I think you will be very happy with it.

[wojtepanik]

Be carefull the ram might be soldered so go for 16gb from the start

[Mayank Dhingra]

@wojtepanik i think the ram is upgradable but thanks anyway

[JERKSON]

8 hours ago, Mayank Dhingra said:

I am looking for an alternative for xps 15 due to its thermal limitation

battery life should be min 8hrs

a decent gpu

good performance

Even though many users would disagree, I just bought a surface laptop 2, and I love it! The keyboard is fantastic, the screen is stunning, and the fit, finish and overall polish are outstanding. I am not the biggest Apple fan, as I would assume most users on this forum are, But after having this notebook for a week I finally get it, I wasn't too happy spending $1299 on an i5 laptop with 256gb of storage, but it is swift, and just feels fast in everything that I would use a notebook for. The downsides are; No expansion, AWFUL I/O with no USB C and only one USB port, and Apple-like prices with similar performance. Luckily I was willing to spend a little bit more for a great screen and battery life. I was also looking at a Lenovo Thinkpad because I like the retro style and expandability, also the Thinkpad's keyboard was AMAZING IMO, maybe even better than the surface laptop, but the 3:2 IPS screen on the surface book was the tipping point, it is almost the perfect laptop, and gets a HUGE recommendation from me! But sadly it doesn't have dedicated graphics, so it may not work for your tasks.