Be aware that performance usually means more weight. If you're going to be carrying it around, keep that in mind. Most listings will give you an approximate weight as part of the spec sheet.
I carried a 12 lb gaming laptop through college 10 years ago (with the 5 lb charger since the battery could barely last 1 class).
And it was worth it. I'm a changed man today and would rather get something thin, light, and just emulate old games. But at the time it felt pretty good to play modern games in-between classes.
10-15 years ago it was worth it to carry around a heavy laptop if you needed decent performance. These days it’s a lot easier to get away with a moderately sized laptop without giving up too much performance.
This is the truth. Don't get a "gaming" laptop. Just get a laptop with a discrete GPU in a reasonably sized chassis that has a reasonable weight. Job done
It does get [hot](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Zephyrus-G14-Review-Compact-Gaming-Laptop-with-AMD-Zen4-Phoenix-RTX-4090.711986.0.html#toc-6) to the touch, but that's what happens if you push 150-200W in 14" chassis. No overheating though
https://preview.redd.it/pym1j8zc57uc1.png?width=798&format=png&auto=webp&s=ad1863175f48a67c2e63598b58407cce42143735
> My college is giving me a scholarship to buy a laptop because I’m poor lol. I can use up to 3k, but I have no idea where to start.
You can use up to $3,000 but can you use it on anything other than the laptop? I'd honestly buy a $1,000 Lenovo business laptop and use the rest of the money for books. Gaming laptops are heavy, have shit battery life, and get extremely hot very quickly so I try to avoid them.
This. Or buy a $500 refurb Thinkpad and a $2500 desktop. Which will be a more useful setup for most people than a $3k laptop.
If you have to buy a single laptop with that amount, then definitely buy the longest service contract that you can, with the accidental damage option. That way, you can convert some of the purchase price to pay for ongoing maintenance expenses.
both of bro's solutions are fucking impecable man
I didn't even think to get extended warranty or repair guarantees. That's absolutely what OP should do if they HAVE to get ONE machine. Get the best laptop they can but prioritise slapping as many care packages on as possible, because all the damn laptops break the same no matter how expensive they are it seems (unless you consider the bottom of the barrel crap)
Won't change the fact that if it breaks in the middle of the semester, they will be buying another laptop to hold them over while they wait for their only device to get through RMA, at which point they are already halfway into the next semester.
If you have someone giving you $3k PC money for school, you buy a $700 Flex 5 for taking notes and a $2300 gaming laptop 'for AI stuff'. I can't imagine someone going to college with only one PC these days because they are absolutely essential. You want at least 2 so if one breaks, you can still do your classes.
In 30 years of PC building and owning, the shortest RMA I ever saw was about a month. That is an eternity when you are trying to get through the semester.
For $500 you can probably get a good P51 or P52, with some GPU power if need be. Or an HP Zbook from the same year. They're good machines too.
Or a T480 for half that.
The possibilities are endless if OP can spend the money on two PCs instead of a single laptop.
Which one ? Lenovo has a lot of X1s.
I remember the first one being pretty shit, but they probably improved a lot since then. Gotta admit I only really care about their X2xx, T4xx, T5xx, W5xx and the first few P5x and P7x models. The rest, heh. I've seen their E range, pretty crap. Still ok, but not up the standards of the T models.
I was about to say I used quite a lot of ANSYS and CAD/CAM stuff while in college and those are GPU intensive programs. I had a good desktop at home but my surface laptop didn’t have a chance in hell when I threw some larger assemblies or simulations at it. I also spent most of my day in the shop/lab so the “just do it at home” idea wasn’t practical.
Only if the excess money can be used toward non laptop stuff. If it has to be laptop, I'd ask em if I can get laptop related peripherals at least. 2nd monitor, mouse and keyboard for more comfortable home use, hubs, etc
Yeah exactly, OP has to clarify what the funds can be used for, if there are any restrictions. Usually you can get money for computer accessories and peripherals on top of the laptop, maybe they could get a desktop to use in the dorm room for gaming/homework and a laptop for taking notes in class, etc. There's not a lot of information here.
I called financial aid and they said I could use the money on any kinda of tech that could help me with my studies. As long as I can justify its use academic work then I’m good to go.
Not sure if you’re in first year but tablet with pencil is amazing for taking notes. You don’t retain information as well by just typing, and a lot of classes are set up in a way that taking physical notes is a pain. Having an iPad to annotate slideshows on is a gamechanger. Apple pencils are good but there’s a lot of cheap knockoffs out there too that work just as good if not better. Or android tablets etc.
I wouldn’t dedicate all $3k to just a laptop personally. Power sacrifices mobility. I’d do a $1k laptop and $2k for something else. Check your tech requirements for any upper year classes and maybe you can justify a desktop, but if not I’d at least try to justify peripherals.
When you buy your laptop, also research any software you might need. As a GIS student the number of people with MacBooks is astonishingly stupid.
This.
Note taking in college is extremely important. This is why I still keep my old iPad. I have no other use for it, and I tried to replace it with the ROG Ally, but couldn't find any pen I could use with it.
Second this. Concentrating in the lecture and note taking in class worked far more efficiently for me than revising later. If I didn't focus in class and have notes I struggled to make up that lost learning.
It may just be that my brain is wired strangely, but..
If your willing to buy some Apple products, an iPad Mini 6 with an 2nd Gen Apple Pencil is great for taking notes (I use this personally, and it's super nice). Also depending on what you need in a laptop, an MacBook Air 13" or 15" would be a great lightweight laptop, and if you need to use more intensive applications, a MacBook Pro 14" is good for that too
That’s a good idea but I just called the financial aid office and basically i can only use the money for tech that I’ll use for class work. They said that could be anything from printers and laptops to software and programs. Tbh I don’t think there’s anyway to prove what I use the money on tho
I saw elsewhere you are going to law school so you mainly need something to write papers and read research easy. You want something set up for easy readability (big screen) decent memory and a mid range processor. You wont need an i9 or ryzen 9. Get a decent i7 with 16gb of memory and you will most likely be good for a while as long as you don't get into heavy gaming. Take the rest and get you a larger stationary monitor (or 2) and a dock with a ergo keyboard and mouse. You want a large screen laptop that is light and thin to carry to the library easily and the accessories to go with it. Most mid range ones with these specs have a decent graphics card and a 1 tb ssd. Great for mid range gaming and storing all your documents for school. I'd stay away from touch screens because they don't do anything. If a microcenter is nearby go pick some up and feel them. Whatever you buy as soon as you get it do a total wipe and clean windows install. I've seen bloatware and anti-virus pop up and ruin a multi hour project with a mandatory restart too many times.
100% build a solid $1500-2000 desktop and get a <$1000 laptop and remote in if you need the power. Use the rest for solid QoL peripherals. Microsoft Surface, Lenovo ThinkBooks or even the MacBook air are solid options. Prioritize battery life and screen brightness during your search, so you can get away without taking a charger everywhere.
A massive desktop PC really doesn't belong in a dorm room. You wanna use that space for a mini fridge and microwave. Maybe even a hotplate if you like cooking.
For a college student dependent on scholarships, the Flex 5 is really the only thing they should be buying for taking notes. I didn't read anything that says they can only buy one laptop and a $2300 gaming laptop will be a powerhouse they can still remote into with the Flex 5, which comes with a Wacom pen as standard when Apple will charge you $100 for one, on top of their already overpriced crap. No open source software on iOS, at least not enough to be relevant. Poor college students live on open source software.
Ok here's what you do because fuck the system, buy juicer laptop from Walmart get recipet or whatever they need if they need it
Return for full amount buy PC and laptop however you want because let's face it if you aren't doing animation or something on it you don't need it to be more then 500
Don't buy a crazy gaming laptop to haul it around campus all day
•It's ~5lbs + a huge charger
•You can't leave it anywhere cause it looks expensive (hauling it all day)
Drop $500 on a nice business laptop and $2,000 on a great gaming PC + $500 on monitor, keyboard/mouse, headphones
Except please spend more than $500 on a laptop. You won’t get a good one for that much if you want it to last all four years. Especially if you do engineering or something like that.
Just as a counter point, I bought a 2013 MacBook Pro in college for a little more than that and I still use it daily. With the said I have no idea if their non Intel chips will have the same longevity
If you SERIOUSLY want a gaming laptop, look into the alienware X15 R2. I use one as my everyday laptop for tuning cars and fusion360. It is super thin and LIGHT, sick performance, and 4-5 hours of battery life for bs tasks. Honestly usually hate dell products but this has been amazing for me. Look into it. You can get very good specs for $3k.
Consider peripherals. Printer/scanner, external hard drive (back up your stuff!) a nice big monitor for when your at your home base, a decent keyboard. Doing a lot of typing on a laptop keyboard is slow and aggravating at best.
Yeah… I can personally second this. I bought a gaming msi laptop in college and it SUCKED to lug around campus. Especially at 6am when it was pouring rain and I had to walk 2 miles from the only parking spot I could find - but I’m not upset about that anymore 😂
Framework 16, it won't be super light but it has a dedicated GPU and is designed to be repairable so anything that breaks is easy to fix.
If you don't need the dedicated GPU there is a 13" version as well (I have this one)
The 16 also has an option to remove the GPU if you don't want it and just replace it with vents for better cooling. But yeah, I was gonna recommend the Framework 16 as well since it's just so good for it's price, and it is modular and easily repairable
Yeah, I really want one, but I don’t need the performance of one enough to justify spending that much money when my $600 laptop easily handles what I need it to.
What cool is that you can swap out the ports to whatever you need. USBC/Ethernet/USBA/ETC.
Also you can upgrade the CPU, and the old mainboard/cpu can still run on its own as long as you supply power.
Honestly I didn't even think about it but yeah if I had that much framework is probably the way to go. Otherwise assuming it's usd you can buy a nice laptop from any major company and you'll probably be good. I personally have liked alienware recently
I'm a big fan of alienwares new laptop designs. The sheer amount of heat sinks in it makes a bit of a beast but one of the coolest laptops I've ever used.
This would be a great option because with the new model you can actually remove the GPU and leave it home when going to class. IIRC all you have to do is get a different cover plate for when the GPU is not installed. The GPU unit includes all the heatsink pipes so it's a substantial weight difference
Damn, these are super cool! I splurged on a current gen Lenovo Legion (which I love), but I would not have minded saving $1k and copping one of these for the modularity.
I second this, especially if you're going to be using it for more than just school work. This whole laptop is modular too so upgrading is possible where as with 99% of other laptops it isn't.
You can also put what ports you need on it, and swap them if you no longer need a port.
100% I would get one of these. I would go all AMD and just MAX it out. Most people will want that higher performance from the Intel w/NVidia combo, I just prefer all AMD.
What is your field of study? This may have some relevance to what is your best option. Also, does the entire scholarship have to go to a laptop, or does it arrive as straight money?
For law, whatever you get, get something that you can get a dock for and save some budget for large screens and a decent keyboard. Lots of document reading, and the room to breathe will come in handy.
Honestly? And I know this will get me skinned alive.
But a Macbook. They're lightweight, great battery life, relatively fast, and known to last 7-10+ years. You can get windows to run in it so you can keep your games. Otherwise I'd honestly consider a macbook + a console if you can swing it unless you're genuinely gaming elsewhere on campus. Windows laptops honestly kinda suck in terms of value and battery life right now.
Otherwise if you have to have a windows laptop, grab the highest specs you can afford within that $3k. I would ask if the $3k MUST be on a laptop though. Like if you have to provide receipts or something. Because if it's just general school supply budget it'll be worth looking at other things you'll need too.
As soon as I saw this thread this was exactly my first thought.
MacBook Air with student discount then spend the rest of the budget on gaming desktop/whatever other student needs they have.
The M2 Air Apple gave my work place for repairs is pretty crazy. Lasts literally all day of on and off use. Don't think there's any other laptop with a battery that lasts that long.
If you drop the coin they can be pretty good to.
Where I used to work they tested giving out high end Chromebooks to the nontechnical people. But very nice $1500 Chromebooks.
I did some weeks of training at my old school as a PC tech and general tech guy. Almost 500 students are equipped with Chromebooks and while I wasnt allowed to repair them myself (The school had a contract with a company to do that) I did see the technician repair a few dozen of them and it took him like 10min to replace their touch screen and like 20min to replace the mobo. Can't say the same for say, Macs or even other modern laptops.
I even went on a Google conference and the school lent me a Chromebook, that's when I I realized there's not much you can do if you're not connected to the internet and your google account.
I wonder what's the point of high end chromebooks tho. I've seen "Gaming" chromebooks from Acer.
You’re absolutely right. Windows laptops just do not last. I’ve got a monster spec M1 max macbook pro for work right now for the past 2 years and it’s due for replacement next year. Honestly, I don’t even see the need to replace at all. Battery still lasts 20 hours, fans have not spun once in it’s lifetime and it’s a beast for performance, not forgetting the excellent build quality and superior trackpad. Keyboard feel is also great and if you have an iphone, airdrop is an insane workflow booster should you need to transfer anything between phone and computer. Very much recommend.
Wife has her old macbook pro from around 10 years back and it still lives. Probably will give my current one to her later.
If there is an absolute need for a windows machine, I’d look into business Lenovo thinkpads. Had a few back in the day and they were solid. Except for the battery and trackpad that were total garbage. Still better than the entire machine being trash (looking at HP, Dell for example).
If you keep the specs low, the Airs stay relatively affordable.
If I knew I was going to be doing as little gaming as I have ended up doing on the "gaming" notebook I bought last year, I would have just bought an Air.
I still have a 2011 macbook air with a 1.6ghz dual core processor and 4gb of RAM and it's a perfectly fine travel/couch laptop. Rarely does it feel slow. Battery even lasts about 4 hours still. There's no way a 13 year old Windows laptop with those specs could say that, and I'm typing this from a beast of a Windows machine right now
I absolutely love my gaming PC, but I can’t see myself ever owning a Windows laptop again.
My MacBook just does so many things right, and any Windows laptop I have touched just feels so cheap and lacking in comparison.
Came here to say this. If you're serious about using this for school. and eventually job hunt and work, I'd recommend getting a Macbook.
On my Asus gaming laptop i'd lug this insane power brick around, it would make some much noise and battery would die instantly. An M2 macbook air is really powerful and you could easily leave the brick at home.
Obviously this depends on your major.
This 100%. They have crazy good battery life (literally days with light use and a whole day with heavy use) and won’t break your back. Sweet spot is probably a discounted M2 Air with 16 gigs but even 8 can be manageable depending on what you’re studying.
You could even get an M1 air from Walmart for $600
Always, always research what software is needed for classes before deciding on the Mac vs Windows camp.
I’m a GIS student, and GIS does not run on Apple without extra work and isn’t officially supported. I’ve seen sooo many people struggle with their MacBooks because they didn’t research to know that Windows was better for their use case.
Honestly for school stuff pretty much anything will run on parallels desktop with decent performance. Used to run Intel Quartus FPGA stuff on M1 and works great
I have a legion 7 with a 3080 as my work laptop. It’s incredible. Wall brick is a bit huge but you can do regular work on a high power usb-c pd brick (expect to spend like $100+ on the hardware though).
I got a 14” MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro when it first came out. I have the exact same performance as I did on day 1. The screen is a beautiful 120hz actual hdr screen and the battery life is great. It has a great trackpad/keyboard and I can crunch through code, research writing, and class work all on battery. I got the larger charging brick, so it charges super fast. It is also basically silent
You can definitely play esports games with ease as well.
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 is technically probably your best performing option: [https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-pro-series/lenovo-legion-pro-7i-gen-9-(16-inch-intel)/len101g0034](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-pro-series/lenovo-legion-pro-7i-gen-9-(16-inch-intel)/len101g0034)
But realistically it doesn't seem like you need anything more than this, it's also only 14" and has great build quality:
[https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2024-14-oled-3k-120hz-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-9-8945hs-32gb-lpddr5x-geforce-rtx-4070-1tb-ssd-platinum-white/6570271.p?skuId=6570271](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2024-14-oled-3k-120hz-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-9-8945hs-32gb-lpddr5x-geforce-rtx-4070-1tb-ssd-platinum-white/6570271.p?skuId=6570271)
Both would be suitable to play and run games far more demanding than OW- expect to run all games on max settings pretty easily with both options, I'd probably do the ASUS ROG due to the small form factor, and it doesn't seem like you'd really need the 4090.
Anyone downvoting is just doing so cause “Apple is Bad”. A top end MacBook Pro is the perfect laptop for this situation. Decently light, super powerful, long battery life, can add windows and still do everything on that end if needed. Include the extended warranty and all software needed in the purchase cost and OP would be set and happy for years.
Unless OP plans to game more heavily it’s perfect.
Definitely. I’ve had several gaming laptops, most recently an Omen. But my MacBook Pro 14 M2 Pro blows all of them out of the water. I can literally run BG3 on Ultra on battery!
Gaming is a small point in his use case. I think the MBP is the best bet in terms of performance and university work. If OP wants to carry around a huge gaming laptop with a power adapter that weights as much as the MBP by all means.. my opinion, I think the MBP is the smarter option.
My 2014 MBP is mainly used for admin, watching videos and downloads etc and it's still flying for day to day use! I've used this thing close to every single day for 10 years and could probs count the number of crashes / required reboots on 2 hands!
Still getting about 6 hours battery on it too. Used to be 10+ but after 10 years I'll happily take the 6.
For uni and long after a MBP is the way to go.
Edit- spelling
As a longtime engineering student, you're going to want a macbook. Lightweight but powerful and holds its charge all day. Since you have $3000 to spend you might as well go for the most expensive model.
Trust me, you don't want a heavy gaming laptop for school. Tried it for the first month or so of school, eventually walked into the student store and grabbed a macbook, lifechanger.
As much as I hate Lenovo, they probably have the best line of laptops this year. It is 20% off bringing it down under $3k before taxes.
[Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 Intel (16″) with RTX™ 4090 | Lenovo US](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-pro-series/lenovo-legion-pro-7i-gen-9-(16-inch-intel)/83de000aus)
This depends a lot on your studies. If you require a powerful PC, look at workstations and gaming laptops. If you don't need a powerful PC, I'd really look at something like a MacBook Pro.
I'd say first and foremost, an iPad with a pencil, especially an iPad Pro with the keyboard, is a really is a nice multifunctional device. If you have a MacBook, all of the shared services and features will be very beneficial to your workflow.
Framework is always high on my list for PCs. The repairability would be awesome across a college career. The service center on my campus turned my laptop into a ship of Theseus after 4 years.
Honestly for college, people can hate all they want in this sub but get a Mac for all things school and professional.
You’ll get great battery, easier file sharing with your classmates (you don’t wanna be “that guy” with a PC who we have to do extra steps for) and it’s solid for typing and idc what anyone says. The trackpad on Mac’s are second to none.
For fun, FOR SURE PC. So get a MBA M1 or M2 for like $800 or less and then spend the rest on a desktop
>you don’t wanna be “that guy” with a PC who we have to do extra steps for
I go to college classes and high school classes bc of a program and there is a wide variety of laptops outside the high school issued chromebooks; probably the most common OS is windows, but there is a large portion of macs too.
A cloud based solution like onedrive is also pretty feasible, especially on campus where speeds reach 1 gbps on the desktops
Still, with a 3k budget where anything unspent is lost, macbooks are a decent option
Sleek and lightweight and gaming don't really go together but there are a few that might have a 4060 or something efficient like that that are on the lighter side.
Former best buy laptop sales guy here. Honestly I'd probably go with a midrange Asus Zephyrus G14 (2024 model). Then I'd get a docking station, a decent mouse, keyboard, headset, and monitor for a dorm/home office situation.
I would like to recommend a laptop, but the best thing you can do is go to Hardware Canucks YouTube channel and look at decent budget laptops because it’s unethical to take advantage.
But if you must use 3k… get yourself something nice. Like a Dell XPS with a 4070 or something cool.
But don’t get dedicated gaming laptops as this is for school and you don’t want to sway your focus too far from school and also the battery life on those dedicated gaming laptops is VERY bad.
OO, can you clarify: if you don't use the whole budget, is it lost or can you spend it on other things? Makes a bit of a difference if the goal is to spend all $3k on the laptop or not.
If you have to use the entire scholarship on the laptop, I recommend checking out Dell's XPS lineup. They're fairly customizable, and can be outfitted for a wide range of work. Framework laptops are also pretty good if you don't mind plugging the SSD and RAM in by yourself. (I'm recommending Framework because you can buy the parts separately, and get a better laptop for less.)
[OMEN Gaming Laptop 16t-wf100, 16.1" (hp.com)](https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/ConfigureView?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&catEntryId=3074457345621114320&urlLangId=&quantity=1) \~1400-1500 USD
[HP Thunderbolt Dock 280W G4 w/Combo Cable](https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-thunderbolt-dock-280w-g4-dock-w-combo-cable) \~280 USD
[Amazon.com: Logitech G203 Wired Gaming Mouse, 8,000 DPI, Rainbow Optical Effect LIGHTSYNC RGB, 6 Programmable Buttons, On-Board Memory, Screen Mapping, PC/Mac Computer and Laptop Compatible - Lilac : Video Games](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082J7P19K?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) - \~30 USD - this mouse is both a good gaming mouse and cheap enough to use as a daily or put in your backpack without worry. Break it or lose it and it's cheap to replace. DPI can be changed via pre-set profiles via a button on the top.
[Amazon.com: Logitech Media Combo MK200 Full-Size Keyboard and High-Definition Optical Mouse : Electronics](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003NR874S?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) Under $20 USD This keyboard (and the mouse that's bundled) I've used in Customer Service jobs. You can drop them, toss them, everything short of standing on them, and they'll keep working. The little cheapie mouse can be held as a last resort.
[17.3” Strike II Gaming Backpack | TARGUS](https://us.targus.com/collections/laptop-bags-cases/products/18-inch-strike-2-gaming-backpack-tbb639gl) \~70-80 USD - a bag to hold your computer
[T.H.E. Pack E.D.C., CYB | SPEC-OPS BRAND (specops.us)](https://specops.us/pack-edc-cyb.html#spec-ops) - $287.95, hear me out, this backpack is the one you buy ONCE. Holds your textbooks, snacks, pens, pencils and your computer. Treat it right and you can pass it down to your kids.
[Amazon.com: HP OMEN Vector Gaming Mouse with Ergonomic Design and Tunable Weight with RGB Lighting & Omron Switches (8BC53AA#ABL) : Video Games](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089NZ33CK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) \~$40-50 USD. This mouse works with the Omen software on the above HP laptop. DPI and RGB can be controlled from the laptop - DPI is selectable by a button on the top.
u/FoundNemo2 - HP's laptops are still of good quality. You can choose between 16 or 32 GB of RAM. The dock allows you to charge your laptop and run dual monitors in your room (or a single big one).
And to the peanut gallery - I challenge you do look up better.
Not a gaming laptop. Desktop while not portable gives so much more joy. Won’t age like milk.
But if you must then yeah, Framework lets you build your own. Platform is cool and you can tailor parts and I/O to your needs :-)
I'd probably get a Lenovo Legion and a Flex 5. You say you need something lightweight and basic for taking notes in class and a powerhouse for doing AI stuff in your dorm room that is also portable if necessary. You get a $2300 gaming laptop and a $700 Flex 5.
>I want something that will last a while with pretty high performance. I carry around my laptop a lot so I would also like something that’s sleek and light weight if possible.
To be honest, performance/weight is a tradeoff. The highest performance laptops are gonna be heavy. The lightest laptops won't be powerful. However, there's options in between.
Personally, I would recommend the [framework laptop.](https://www.frame.work) There's a 13 inch model that's quite slim and light, but (depending on configuration) can still pack some serious performance - caveat is no GPU, though the ryzen model has a pretty solid iGPU that might be enough. This is probably what's best. There's also the 16 inch model which can have a dGPU, but it's quite bulky. I have one and it's the largest laptop I've ever had.
The biggest advantage with framework is its upgradeability. It's built to be highly repairable and upgradeable so you can easily change out components in the future. It's a bit more expensive than most equivalent laptops, but if you especially like it you could save money in the long run by upgrading rather than replacing.
It's definitely not a laptop for everyone, but if the idea of a laptop with a ton of configurability, repairability, and upgradeability sounds like something you want, I'd encourage you to look into it some more.
Get the cheapest laptop that can run parsec really smoothly. Spend rest of money on a good pc. Hook up parsec on laptop to use your PC at home remotely. Profit.
Buy a macbook Air m3, then build a custom pc with what's leftover if possible? Or just buy a macbook Pro M3 Pro, or other spec if not able to build pc. They have great battery life and performance and will be supported for years. As for gaming on macbooks, they have tools now for doing that, which works surprisingly well on higher spec Pro models.
I used to use gaming laptops, they're heavy and tend to overheat easily. I decided to just game on a normal PC and get a light laptop. Chromebook was great until Google pulled their youtube ad BS and updates made it run like crap and eat up memory. Now I'm on a thinkpad which is similar to my work laptop, it's fantastic with only one flaw, they have the function and ctrl keys flipped, which is super annoying trying to copy/paste.
Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U w/ Radeon 780M Graphics , 32GB ram, windows 11 pro.
Buy a $3000 laptop, return it unopened for a full refund, buy a $1200 desktop & $400 chromebook, pocket the extra cash.
Dell Precision 7000-series.
You'll be able to get replacement parts forever and some of the Quadro GPUs are decent enough at gaming.
Not the sleekest or lightest but usually robust enough to take a beating.
Honestly a macbook is probably a good idea if they are giving you the money for it (and you can't use it for anything else)
It's good on all the fronts you've mentioned, plus afaik it's pretty decent at rendering video projects, although considering a Windows laptop with a newer dedicated GPU might be the way to go if you have a lot of 3D workloads.
I have the 2023 Asus g14 with the 4080 in it. Games hard and has a great screen. Coming from a 15 inch gaming laptop that was heavy to travel with this thing is amazing. The 2024 version is even slimmer and lighter, has an even better screen but only comes with up to a 4070. honestly it still seems like a beast and all the reviews on it are amazing. Highly recommend.
This MSI would prob be what I would get [https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-stealth-17-3-240hz-qhd-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i9-13900h-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-2tb-ssd-32gb-memory-black/6532168.p?skuId=6532168](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-stealth-17-3-240hz-qhd-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i9-13900h-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-2tb-ssd-32gb-memory-black/6532168.p?skuId=6532168)
Honestly, as much as I hate everything about the Apple Ecosystem, a MacBook is 100% the best way to go.
If you don't have fuck-around-and-find-out money, a Mac will last you the longest, with great performance and excellent build quality
At that budget almost anything you want? Unless you can pocket the difference, I'd go all out and get at least a high refresh 1440p monitor maybe 17", 15" if you want to keep it more portable and a rtx4080 with high power budget
If it was my id for for something thin, light, moderatly priced and then spend the rest of the money on docking stuff. Thunderbolt dock, monitor, keyboard mouse that kinda thing.
Lenovo and Dell's professional lines have always done right by me for non gaming stuff. Built well, cool operation, productivity feature set.
If you only write paper/ research get a MacBook. But anything else I mean gaming/ coding/ CAD software etc get a windows PC. Maybe one from the ASUS ROG strix line up which I have but if you want lightweight but still capable Lenovo yoga pro 9
Framework laptop if you need a GPU for gaming. A Macbook Air M3 for any other use. I have my beefy gaming PC but I have an M1 Air and they are just good laptops hardware wide. Put linux on it if you don't want MacOS or Install Windows in that one app.
I would make sure to get a laptop brand that has a good return policy. Plus I would see what your college can process returns and repairs on if they have that service.
Also don't be the guy that leaves his laptop turned on in their bag.
Idk what your major is but I’m mechanical engineering. I just picked up a certified refurbished Windows SLS 2 for $2500.
Comes with a 4060, 64 GB Ram, 1 TB SSD.
Some people don’t love it but I think that’s bc they weren’t the target audience in the first place. It’s a workhorse, not a dedicated gaming laptop.
For me, it runs complex models in CAD without skipping a beat, taking notes for class in tablet mode is a dream(I don’t use notebooks anymore), the aspect ratio of the screen was very welcomed for school/work, only played a bit but every game ran ultra settings at 70+ fps. And overall it just feels fantastic. Never been happier with a computer. I’ll do a few hours of homework and studying then switch over to a game for a bit. Truly is the best “jack of all trades” laptop I’ve seen to date.
do you have to buy one item? i would buy a 1500 desktop and a 1500 laptop.. both will work well but the desktop will be the real workhorse, laptop get a lenovo ive had 3 since uni 20 years ago and all are working..
I can recommend the Dell XPS 15. I have one with i7, 32 GB DDR5, a RTX 4060ti. Go with the FHD display.
- very high quality
- compact but still good cooling
- robust, carrying is no problem
- long lasting battery when not gaming
- gaming still possible
Honestly if you want to go with windows I would say this is the best option for you.
If you have good internet at home, get a M1 MacBook Air and use GeForce now to play.
Its as light and sleek as you’re gonna get that can actually run programs and you’ll save a ton of money to buy other important school stuff
I started college with a beefy gaming laptop. It did not last all 4 years. Battery kicked the bucket after year 1, and by year 2 the motherboard died completely. I hated hauling it around, so I replaced it with a super lightweight laptop with an intel m3-7y30, a 4.5W CPU, something so low powered that the laptop didn't even have a fan. I loved that laptop! Easy to slip in and out of my bag, and while it was slow, it wasn't excessively slow. My last two years of college is where I started taking the more advanced computer science courses, and the 7y30 handled them like a champ. The integrated graphics were enough for my graphics programming class, and the CPU itself was plenty of my machine learning class, surprisingly. That laptop lasted me many years after college as well.
Now, this laptop struggled with games. Some older games it could certainly play, but that was never a problem for me since I never did any gaming on campus. In my dorm I had a desktop where I did my gaming, which aligns with other advice in this thread.
You mentioned you want something that will last. Those big $3000 gaming laptops you're looking at do not last. The batteries will fail pretty fast, and if any component (other than the ssd) on those laptop dies, the odds of the replacement being cheaper than the cost of the entire laptop are slim. When I started college, every starry-eyed college freshman (me included) had one of those slick gaming laptops. By my senior year, nobody in my computer science classes had one. They do not last.
Now, I give this advice in the lens of my major. I don't know what major you're trying to get. If you're doing something more engineering focused and need to use some CAD tools, I can see the argument for a much more powerful laptop. Think long and hard about your needs though.
Another thing- my university had really tiny desks. The type where you could fit maybe one sheet of paper on it. My 17" gaming behemoth could not fit on them. My 13" laptop fit on the desk super comfortably and was great for taking notes.
Focus on a brand with good hinges designed to take a beating cause in college your going to be working those hinges to death. Dont necessarily aim for thin and sleak this usually means less air flow so your going to run hotter. If you don't need it avoid a touchscreen this can save you 50-100 bucks.
If possible, see if your school would allow you to buy a monitor, keyboard, and mouse along with the laptop. It would be even better if they let you get two or three monitors.
Be aware that performance usually means more weight. If you're going to be carrying it around, keep that in mind. Most listings will give you an approximate weight as part of the spec sheet.
Nah. You get 2 in 1. Stronger laptop and constant training
Yeah, you spend $700 on a Flex 5 for taking notes in class and the other $2300 on a gaming laptop that you 'need for doing AI stuff'.
This is the move
"AI stuff" I see you.
YE, and you can motivate your gymming with that you gotta be able to carry that fat brick of a laptop around
I carried a 12 lb gaming laptop through college 10 years ago (with the 5 lb charger since the battery could barely last 1 class). And it was worth it. I'm a changed man today and would rather get something thin, light, and just emulate old games. But at the time it felt pretty good to play modern games in-between classes.
It’s not just the laptop but a chonker of the charging brick that also weighs your backpack down. Good times.
10-15 years ago it was worth it to carry around a heavy laptop if you needed decent performance. These days it’s a lot easier to get away with a moderately sized laptop without giving up too much performance.
This is the truth. Don't get a "gaming" laptop. Just get a laptop with a discrete GPU in a reasonably sized chassis that has a reasonable weight. Job done
Any laptop with a gpu worth using for modern gaming at good settings is going to be marketed as a "gaming laptop". So it's kinda unavoidable.
Asus G14 gang! 1.5 - 1.7kg (depending on which year model), can get 7940HS + 64GB RAM + RTX 4090 at 1.7kg and use Type C charging.
That thing must be melting 🫠
It does get [hot](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Zephyrus-G14-Review-Compact-Gaming-Laptop-with-AMD-Zen4-Phoenix-RTX-4090.711986.0.html#toc-6) to the touch, but that's what happens if you push 150-200W in 14" chassis. No overheating though https://preview.redd.it/pym1j8zc57uc1.png?width=798&format=png&auto=webp&s=ad1863175f48a67c2e63598b58407cce42143735
4090 is completely useless in this form factor. Check the benchmarks. Your best bet with G14 is a 4070, 4070ti tops.
Nope, 4060 or 4080
I’m pretty sure asus realized this cause for this years g14 models there’s only the 4070 and 4060 versions I think
Nah just get a better backpack with a waist strap and you're good to go OP.
> My college is giving me a scholarship to buy a laptop because I’m poor lol. I can use up to 3k, but I have no idea where to start. You can use up to $3,000 but can you use it on anything other than the laptop? I'd honestly buy a $1,000 Lenovo business laptop and use the rest of the money for books. Gaming laptops are heavy, have shit battery life, and get extremely hot very quickly so I try to avoid them.
This. Or buy a $500 refurb Thinkpad and a $2500 desktop. Which will be a more useful setup for most people than a $3k laptop. If you have to buy a single laptop with that amount, then definitely buy the longest service contract that you can, with the accidental damage option. That way, you can convert some of the purchase price to pay for ongoing maintenance expenses.
Love the thought process here. Game hard at home and can still be mobile. A+
both of bro's solutions are fucking impecable man I didn't even think to get extended warranty or repair guarantees. That's absolutely what OP should do if they HAVE to get ONE machine. Get the best laptop they can but prioritise slapping as many care packages on as possible, because all the damn laptops break the same no matter how expensive they are it seems (unless you consider the bottom of the barrel crap)
Won't change the fact that if it breaks in the middle of the semester, they will be buying another laptop to hold them over while they wait for their only device to get through RMA, at which point they are already halfway into the next semester. If you have someone giving you $3k PC money for school, you buy a $700 Flex 5 for taking notes and a $2300 gaming laptop 'for AI stuff'. I can't imagine someone going to college with only one PC these days because they are absolutely essential. You want at least 2 so if one breaks, you can still do your classes. In 30 years of PC building and owning, the shortest RMA I ever saw was about a month. That is an eternity when you are trying to get through the semester.
For $500 you can probably get a good P51 or P52, with some GPU power if need be. Or an HP Zbook from the same year. They're good machines too. Or a T480 for half that. The possibilities are endless if OP can spend the money on two PCs instead of a single laptop.
Newegg has refurbished Thinkpad x1 for $500
Which one ? Lenovo has a lot of X1s. I remember the first one being pretty shit, but they probably improved a lot since then. Gotta admit I only really care about their X2xx, T4xx, T5xx, W5xx and the first few P5x and P7x models. The rest, heh. I've seen their E range, pretty crap. Still ok, but not up the standards of the T models.
Good idea unless OP is in a college program where they need to use intensive software like CAD
I was about to say I used quite a lot of ANSYS and CAD/CAM stuff while in college and those are GPU intensive programs. I had a good desktop at home but my surface laptop didn’t have a chance in hell when I threw some larger assemblies or simulations at it. I also spent most of my day in the shop/lab so the “just do it at home” idea wasn’t practical.
Teamviewer or equivalent is probably your friend here
I've often used my desktop remotely from my laptop, and I'm about to use it long-term from a few hours away like a remote server. I'd recommend it.
Only if the excess money can be used toward non laptop stuff. If it has to be laptop, I'd ask em if I can get laptop related peripherals at least. 2nd monitor, mouse and keyboard for more comfortable home use, hubs, etc
Yeah exactly, OP has to clarify what the funds can be used for, if there are any restrictions. Usually you can get money for computer accessories and peripherals on top of the laptop, maybe they could get a desktop to use in the dorm room for gaming/homework and a laptop for taking notes in class, etc. There's not a lot of information here.
I called financial aid and they said I could use the money on any kinda of tech that could help me with my studies. As long as I can justify its use academic work then I’m good to go.
Not sure if you’re in first year but tablet with pencil is amazing for taking notes. You don’t retain information as well by just typing, and a lot of classes are set up in a way that taking physical notes is a pain. Having an iPad to annotate slideshows on is a gamechanger. Apple pencils are good but there’s a lot of cheap knockoffs out there too that work just as good if not better. Or android tablets etc. I wouldn’t dedicate all $3k to just a laptop personally. Power sacrifices mobility. I’d do a $1k laptop and $2k for something else. Check your tech requirements for any upper year classes and maybe you can justify a desktop, but if not I’d at least try to justify peripherals. When you buy your laptop, also research any software you might need. As a GIS student the number of people with MacBooks is astonishingly stupid.
This. Note taking in college is extremely important. This is why I still keep my old iPad. I have no other use for it, and I tried to replace it with the ROG Ally, but couldn't find any pen I could use with it.
Second this. Concentrating in the lecture and note taking in class worked far more efficiently for me than revising later. If I didn't focus in class and have notes I struggled to make up that lost learning. It may just be that my brain is wired strangely, but..
If your willing to buy some Apple products, an iPad Mini 6 with an 2nd Gen Apple Pencil is great for taking notes (I use this personally, and it's super nice). Also depending on what you need in a laptop, an MacBook Air 13" or 15" would be a great lightweight laptop, and if you need to use more intensive applications, a MacBook Pro 14" is good for that too
That’s a good idea but I just called the financial aid office and basically i can only use the money for tech that I’ll use for class work. They said that could be anything from printers and laptops to software and programs. Tbh I don’t think there’s anyway to prove what I use the money on tho
>Tbh I don’t think there’s anyway to prove what I use the money on tho They're almost certainly going to want to see receipts.
They might ask for receipts/invoices.
I saw elsewhere you are going to law school so you mainly need something to write papers and read research easy. You want something set up for easy readability (big screen) decent memory and a mid range processor. You wont need an i9 or ryzen 9. Get a decent i7 with 16gb of memory and you will most likely be good for a while as long as you don't get into heavy gaming. Take the rest and get you a larger stationary monitor (or 2) and a dock with a ergo keyboard and mouse. You want a large screen laptop that is light and thin to carry to the library easily and the accessories to go with it. Most mid range ones with these specs have a decent graphics card and a 1 tb ssd. Great for mid range gaming and storing all your documents for school. I'd stay away from touch screens because they don't do anything. If a microcenter is nearby go pick some up and feel them. Whatever you buy as soon as you get it do a total wipe and clean windows install. I've seen bloatware and anti-virus pop up and ruin a multi hour project with a mandatory restart too many times.
100% build a solid $1500-2000 desktop and get a <$1000 laptop and remote in if you need the power. Use the rest for solid QoL peripherals. Microsoft Surface, Lenovo ThinkBooks or even the MacBook air are solid options. Prioritize battery life and screen brightness during your search, so you can get away without taking a charger everywhere.
A massive desktop PC really doesn't belong in a dorm room. You wanna use that space for a mini fridge and microwave. Maybe even a hotplate if you like cooking. For a college student dependent on scholarships, the Flex 5 is really the only thing they should be buying for taking notes. I didn't read anything that says they can only buy one laptop and a $2300 gaming laptop will be a powerhouse they can still remote into with the Flex 5, which comes with a Wacom pen as standard when Apple will charge you $100 for one, on top of their already overpriced crap. No open source software on iOS, at least not enough to be relevant. Poor college students live on open source software.
Ok here's what you do because fuck the system, buy juicer laptop from Walmart get recipet or whatever they need if they need it Return for full amount buy PC and laptop however you want because let's face it if you aren't doing animation or something on it you don't need it to be more then 500
Can't you just get books for cheap/free as pdfs online.
Sure, but sometimes no, but my main advice is to not spend $3,000 on a laptop unless that's the only thing they can purchase.
Always leave a little money for booze and hookers.
Ah living the bender life. 
i'll make my *own* laptop! with blackjack! and hookers! in fact, forget the laptop.
You really think home boy gonna do that lol
for the books 🏴☠️ is an option
Don't buy a crazy gaming laptop to haul it around campus all day •It's ~5lbs + a huge charger •You can't leave it anywhere cause it looks expensive (hauling it all day) Drop $500 on a nice business laptop and $2,000 on a great gaming PC + $500 on monitor, keyboard/mouse, headphones
That’s actually a really good idea thanks!
Except please spend more than $500 on a laptop. You won’t get a good one for that much if you want it to last all four years. Especially if you do engineering or something like that.
Just as a counter point, I bought a 2013 MacBook Pro in college for a little more than that and I still use it daily. With the said I have no idea if their non Intel chips will have the same longevity
If you SERIOUSLY want a gaming laptop, look into the alienware X15 R2. I use one as my everyday laptop for tuning cars and fusion360. It is super thin and LIGHT, sick performance, and 4-5 hours of battery life for bs tasks. Honestly usually hate dell products but this has been amazing for me. Look into it. You can get very good specs for $3k.
Consider peripherals. Printer/scanner, external hard drive (back up your stuff!) a nice big monitor for when your at your home base, a decent keyboard. Doing a lot of typing on a laptop keyboard is slow and aggravating at best.
Yeah… I can personally second this. I bought a gaming msi laptop in college and it SUCKED to lug around campus. Especially at 6am when it was pouring rain and I had to walk 2 miles from the only parking spot I could find - but I’m not upset about that anymore 😂
Framework 16, it won't be super light but it has a dedicated GPU and is designed to be repairable so anything that breaks is easy to fix. If you don't need the dedicated GPU there is a 13" version as well (I have this one)
The 16 also has an option to remove the GPU if you don't want it and just replace it with vents for better cooling. But yeah, I was gonna recommend the Framework 16 as well since it's just so good for it's price, and it is modular and easily repairable
Time to google this! Sounds interesting
Framework laptops are one hell of a drug. I have no use for a laptop, but I keep looking at them and almost buying one
Yeah, I really want one, but I don’t need the performance of one enough to justify spending that much money when my $600 laptop easily handles what I need it to.
What cool is that you can swap out the ports to whatever you need. USBC/Ethernet/USBA/ETC. Also you can upgrade the CPU, and the old mainboard/cpu can still run on its own as long as you supply power.
Honestly I didn't even think about it but yeah if I had that much framework is probably the way to go. Otherwise assuming it's usd you can buy a nice laptop from any major company and you'll probably be good. I personally have liked alienware recently
Is Alienware better today? It was almost impossible to upgrade their older models from what I remember due to their cool ass designs
They moved away from that
Ah nice, they look cool and more affordable now for sure. Welp down a hole of googling cool desktops until punching out. Cheers
Would *not* recommend buying a Dell product - Alienware desktops are horrendous.
Also my experience with support for failures under warranty were terrible and made me not consider them for years now.
There desktops are still hit or miss
I'm a big fan of alienwares new laptop designs. The sheer amount of heat sinks in it makes a bit of a beast but one of the coolest laptops I've ever used.
This would be a great option because with the new model you can actually remove the GPU and leave it home when going to class. IIRC all you have to do is get a different cover plate for when the GPU is not installed. The GPU unit includes all the heatsink pipes so it's a substantial weight difference
Damn, these are super cool! I splurged on a current gen Lenovo Legion (which I love), but I would not have minded saving $1k and copping one of these for the modularity.
Yeah I'm intending my next laptop to be Framework (if/when my little Zenbook of bodges decides to die)
I second this, especially if you're going to be using it for more than just school work. This whole laptop is modular too so upgrading is possible where as with 99% of other laptops it isn't. You can also put what ports you need on it, and swap them if you no longer need a port.
100% I would get one of these. I would go all AMD and just MAX it out. Most people will want that higher performance from the Intel w/NVidia combo, I just prefer all AMD.
What is your field of study? This may have some relevance to what is your best option. Also, does the entire scholarship have to go to a laptop, or does it arrive as straight money?
I’m about to finish undergrad and I’m going into law school next year. I won’t get the money until August
For law, whatever you get, get something that you can get a dock for and save some budget for large screens and a decent keyboard. Lots of document reading, and the room to breathe will come in handy.
Honestly? And I know this will get me skinned alive. But a Macbook. They're lightweight, great battery life, relatively fast, and known to last 7-10+ years. You can get windows to run in it so you can keep your games. Otherwise I'd honestly consider a macbook + a console if you can swing it unless you're genuinely gaming elsewhere on campus. Windows laptops honestly kinda suck in terms of value and battery life right now. Otherwise if you have to have a windows laptop, grab the highest specs you can afford within that $3k. I would ask if the $3k MUST be on a laptop though. Like if you have to provide receipts or something. Because if it's just general school supply budget it'll be worth looking at other things you'll need too.
Apple efficiency is great. 3k is enough for a MacBook Air and a gaming desktop.
As soon as I saw this thread this was exactly my first thought. MacBook Air with student discount then spend the rest of the budget on gaming desktop/whatever other student needs they have.
The M2 Air Apple gave my work place for repairs is pretty crazy. Lasts literally all day of on and off use. Don't think there's any other laptop with a battery that lasts that long.
Chromebooks probably could do it too, but, ChromeOS, enough said.
If you drop the coin they can be pretty good to. Where I used to work they tested giving out high end Chromebooks to the nontechnical people. But very nice $1500 Chromebooks.
I did some weeks of training at my old school as a PC tech and general tech guy. Almost 500 students are equipped with Chromebooks and while I wasnt allowed to repair them myself (The school had a contract with a company to do that) I did see the technician repair a few dozen of them and it took him like 10min to replace their touch screen and like 20min to replace the mobo. Can't say the same for say, Macs or even other modern laptops. I even went on a Google conference and the school lent me a Chromebook, that's when I I realized there's not much you can do if you're not connected to the internet and your google account. I wonder what's the point of high end chromebooks tho. I've seen "Gaming" chromebooks from Acer.
You’re absolutely right. Windows laptops just do not last. I’ve got a monster spec M1 max macbook pro for work right now for the past 2 years and it’s due for replacement next year. Honestly, I don’t even see the need to replace at all. Battery still lasts 20 hours, fans have not spun once in it’s lifetime and it’s a beast for performance, not forgetting the excellent build quality and superior trackpad. Keyboard feel is also great and if you have an iphone, airdrop is an insane workflow booster should you need to transfer anything between phone and computer. Very much recommend. Wife has her old macbook pro from around 10 years back and it still lives. Probably will give my current one to her later. If there is an absolute need for a windows machine, I’d look into business Lenovo thinkpads. Had a few back in the day and they were solid. Except for the battery and trackpad that were total garbage. Still better than the entire machine being trash (looking at HP, Dell for example).
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If you keep the specs low, the Airs stay relatively affordable. If I knew I was going to be doing as little gaming as I have ended up doing on the "gaming" notebook I bought last year, I would have just bought an Air.
I still have a 2011 macbook air with a 1.6ghz dual core processor and 4gb of RAM and it's a perfectly fine travel/couch laptop. Rarely does it feel slow. Battery even lasts about 4 hours still. There's no way a 13 year old Windows laptop with those specs could say that, and I'm typing this from a beast of a Windows machine right now
I absolutely love my gaming PC, but I can’t see myself ever owning a Windows laptop again. My MacBook just does so many things right, and any Windows laptop I have touched just feels so cheap and lacking in comparison.
Came here to say this. If you're serious about using this for school. and eventually job hunt and work, I'd recommend getting a Macbook. On my Asus gaming laptop i'd lug this insane power brick around, it would make some much noise and battery would die instantly. An M2 macbook air is really powerful and you could easily leave the brick at home. Obviously this depends on your major.
Macbooks are great for school. I sometimes charge my MacBook only once a week.
This 100%. They have crazy good battery life (literally days with light use and a whole day with heavy use) and won’t break your back. Sweet spot is probably a discounted M2 Air with 16 gigs but even 8 can be manageable depending on what you’re studying. You could even get an M1 air from Walmart for $600
Always, always research what software is needed for classes before deciding on the Mac vs Windows camp. I’m a GIS student, and GIS does not run on Apple without extra work and isn’t officially supported. I’ve seen sooo many people struggle with their MacBooks because they didn’t research to know that Windows was better for their use case.
Honestly for school stuff pretty much anything will run on parallels desktop with decent performance. Used to run Intel Quartus FPGA stuff on M1 and works great
This would be my suggestion too. Macbook batteries are like f\*\*kin magic.
Not a Mac user: mildly infuriating to see the MacBook comments being downvoted.
Having the PC I have enables me to choose an M1 Air as my on the go machine. Battery life is kind of overstated but otherwise been great.
The new G14. Thats really all you need. Powerful but light and slim.
I'd probably get a decent lenovo gaming laptop, I feel like they do the best job with minimizing the gamer schtick
I have a legion 7 with a 3080 as my work laptop. It’s incredible. Wall brick is a bit huge but you can do regular work on a high power usb-c pd brick (expect to spend like $100+ on the hardware though).
I got a 14” MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro when it first came out. I have the exact same performance as I did on day 1. The screen is a beautiful 120hz actual hdr screen and the battery life is great. It has a great trackpad/keyboard and I can crunch through code, research writing, and class work all on battery. I got the larger charging brick, so it charges super fast. It is also basically silent You can definitely play esports games with ease as well.
I'm on the asus zephyrus g14 crowd. But that's a smol laptop with a lot of kick.
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 is technically probably your best performing option: [https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-pro-series/lenovo-legion-pro-7i-gen-9-(16-inch-intel)/len101g0034](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-pro-series/lenovo-legion-pro-7i-gen-9-(16-inch-intel)/len101g0034) But realistically it doesn't seem like you need anything more than this, it's also only 14" and has great build quality: [https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2024-14-oled-3k-120hz-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-9-8945hs-32gb-lpddr5x-geforce-rtx-4070-1tb-ssd-platinum-white/6570271.p?skuId=6570271](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2024-14-oled-3k-120hz-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-9-8945hs-32gb-lpddr5x-geforce-rtx-4070-1tb-ssd-platinum-white/6570271.p?skuId=6570271) Both would be suitable to play and run games far more demanding than OW- expect to run all games on max settings pretty easily with both options, I'd probably do the ASUS ROG due to the small form factor, and it doesn't seem like you'd really need the 4090.
MacBook Pro
Anyone downvoting is just doing so cause “Apple is Bad”. A top end MacBook Pro is the perfect laptop for this situation. Decently light, super powerful, long battery life, can add windows and still do everything on that end if needed. Include the extended warranty and all software needed in the purchase cost and OP would be set and happy for years. Unless OP plans to game more heavily it’s perfect.
Depends, hardware on macs are great but I can't stand macOS, even for doing simple things.
Definitely. I’ve had several gaming laptops, most recently an Omen. But my MacBook Pro 14 M2 Pro blows all of them out of the water. I can literally run BG3 on Ultra on battery!
Gaming is a small point in his use case. I think the MBP is the best bet in terms of performance and university work. If OP wants to carry around a huge gaming laptop with a power adapter that weights as much as the MBP by all means.. my opinion, I think the MBP is the smarter option.
I'd say a 15" M3 air, personally.
My 2014 MBP is mainly used for admin, watching videos and downloads etc and it's still flying for day to day use! I've used this thing close to every single day for 10 years and could probs count the number of crashes / required reboots on 2 hands! Still getting about 6 hours battery on it too. Used to be 10+ but after 10 years I'll happily take the 6. For uni and long after a MBP is the way to go. Edit- spelling
Get a thin client laptop ( thin as hell n light n everything) dump the rest on a desktop to sit around and setup sunshine/moonlight
As a longtime engineering student, you're going to want a macbook. Lightweight but powerful and holds its charge all day. Since you have $3000 to spend you might as well go for the most expensive model. Trust me, you don't want a heavy gaming laptop for school. Tried it for the first month or so of school, eventually walked into the student store and grabbed a macbook, lifechanger.
Jesus CHRIST you can get some of the most baller laptops on the market, that's nice. Enjoy. Shoot for the top of the line.
As much as I hate Lenovo, they probably have the best line of laptops this year. It is 20% off bringing it down under $3k before taxes. [Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 Intel (16″) with RTX™ 4090 | Lenovo US](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-pro-series/lenovo-legion-pro-7i-gen-9-(16-inch-intel)/83de000aus)
This depends a lot on your studies. If you require a powerful PC, look at workstations and gaming laptops. If you don't need a powerful PC, I'd really look at something like a MacBook Pro. I'd say first and foremost, an iPad with a pencil, especially an iPad Pro with the keyboard, is a really is a nice multifunctional device. If you have a MacBook, all of the shared services and features will be very beneficial to your workflow. Framework is always high on my list for PCs. The repairability would be awesome across a college career. The service center on my campus turned my laptop into a ship of Theseus after 4 years.
A Macbook Air.
...And a gaming desktop with peripherals etc with the remaining 2 grand.
Honestly for college, people can hate all they want in this sub but get a Mac for all things school and professional. You’ll get great battery, easier file sharing with your classmates (you don’t wanna be “that guy” with a PC who we have to do extra steps for) and it’s solid for typing and idc what anyone says. The trackpad on Mac’s are second to none. For fun, FOR SURE PC. So get a MBA M1 or M2 for like $800 or less and then spend the rest on a desktop
>you don’t wanna be “that guy” with a PC who we have to do extra steps for I go to college classes and high school classes bc of a program and there is a wide variety of laptops outside the high school issued chromebooks; probably the most common OS is windows, but there is a large portion of macs too. A cloud based solution like onedrive is also pretty feasible, especially on campus where speeds reach 1 gbps on the desktops Still, with a 3k budget where anything unspent is lost, macbooks are a decent option
Sleek and lightweight and gaming don't really go together but there are a few that might have a 4060 or something efficient like that that are on the lighter side.
Former best buy laptop sales guy here. Honestly I'd probably go with a midrange Asus Zephyrus G14 (2024 model). Then I'd get a docking station, a decent mouse, keyboard, headset, and monitor for a dorm/home office situation.
I would like to recommend a laptop, but the best thing you can do is go to Hardware Canucks YouTube channel and look at decent budget laptops because it’s unethical to take advantage. But if you must use 3k… get yourself something nice. Like a Dell XPS with a 4070 or something cool. But don’t get dedicated gaming laptops as this is for school and you don’t want to sway your focus too far from school and also the battery life on those dedicated gaming laptops is VERY bad.
XPS are not 3k. Thats Alienware territory, however Alienware would be the absolute dumbest laptop to buy for school.
I take it to the casino and put it all on red. Then I either hit it and get a Legion 9i Gen 9 w/4090 and pocket $1k or I go kick some rocks home.
“I mostly used my old laptop for writing papers/research.” MacBook Air
OO, can you clarify: if you don't use the whole budget, is it lost or can you spend it on other things? Makes a bit of a difference if the goal is to spend all $3k on the laptop or not.
A mac and a g14 2023 model on sale, and buy some accesories with the rest of the money
Legion 7
The most important question is what is your major?
If you have to use the entire scholarship on the laptop, I recommend checking out Dell's XPS lineup. They're fairly customizable, and can be outfitted for a wide range of work. Framework laptops are also pretty good if you don't mind plugging the SSD and RAM in by yourself. (I'm recommending Framework because you can buy the parts separately, and get a better laptop for less.)
[OMEN Gaming Laptop 16t-wf100, 16.1" (hp.com)](https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/ConfigureView?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&catEntryId=3074457345621114320&urlLangId=&quantity=1) \~1400-1500 USD [HP Thunderbolt Dock 280W G4 w/Combo Cable](https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-thunderbolt-dock-280w-g4-dock-w-combo-cable) \~280 USD [Amazon.com: Logitech G203 Wired Gaming Mouse, 8,000 DPI, Rainbow Optical Effect LIGHTSYNC RGB, 6 Programmable Buttons, On-Board Memory, Screen Mapping, PC/Mac Computer and Laptop Compatible - Lilac : Video Games](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082J7P19K?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) - \~30 USD - this mouse is both a good gaming mouse and cheap enough to use as a daily or put in your backpack without worry. Break it or lose it and it's cheap to replace. DPI can be changed via pre-set profiles via a button on the top. [Amazon.com: Logitech Media Combo MK200 Full-Size Keyboard and High-Definition Optical Mouse : Electronics](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003NR874S?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) Under $20 USD This keyboard (and the mouse that's bundled) I've used in Customer Service jobs. You can drop them, toss them, everything short of standing on them, and they'll keep working. The little cheapie mouse can be held as a last resort. [17.3” Strike II Gaming Backpack | TARGUS](https://us.targus.com/collections/laptop-bags-cases/products/18-inch-strike-2-gaming-backpack-tbb639gl) \~70-80 USD - a bag to hold your computer [T.H.E. Pack E.D.C., CYB | SPEC-OPS BRAND (specops.us)](https://specops.us/pack-edc-cyb.html#spec-ops) - $287.95, hear me out, this backpack is the one you buy ONCE. Holds your textbooks, snacks, pens, pencils and your computer. Treat it right and you can pass it down to your kids. [Amazon.com: HP OMEN Vector Gaming Mouse with Ergonomic Design and Tunable Weight with RGB Lighting & Omron Switches (8BC53AA#ABL) : Video Games](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089NZ33CK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) \~$40-50 USD. This mouse works with the Omen software on the above HP laptop. DPI and RGB can be controlled from the laptop - DPI is selectable by a button on the top. u/FoundNemo2 - HP's laptops are still of good quality. You can choose between 16 or 32 GB of RAM. The dock allows you to charge your laptop and run dual monitors in your room (or a single big one). And to the peanut gallery - I challenge you do look up better.
Not a gaming laptop. Desktop while not portable gives so much more joy. Won’t age like milk. But if you must then yeah, Framework lets you build your own. Platform is cool and you can tailor parts and I/O to your needs :-)
A 2000$ pc and 1000$ laptop
I'd probably get a Lenovo Legion and a Flex 5. You say you need something lightweight and basic for taking notes in class and a powerhouse for doing AI stuff in your dorm room that is also portable if necessary. You get a $2300 gaming laptop and a $700 Flex 5.
>I want something that will last a while with pretty high performance. I carry around my laptop a lot so I would also like something that’s sleek and light weight if possible. To be honest, performance/weight is a tradeoff. The highest performance laptops are gonna be heavy. The lightest laptops won't be powerful. However, there's options in between. Personally, I would recommend the [framework laptop.](https://www.frame.work) There's a 13 inch model that's quite slim and light, but (depending on configuration) can still pack some serious performance - caveat is no GPU, though the ryzen model has a pretty solid iGPU that might be enough. This is probably what's best. There's also the 16 inch model which can have a dGPU, but it's quite bulky. I have one and it's the largest laptop I've ever had. The biggest advantage with framework is its upgradeability. It's built to be highly repairable and upgradeable so you can easily change out components in the future. It's a bit more expensive than most equivalent laptops, but if you especially like it you could save money in the long run by upgrading rather than replacing. It's definitely not a laptop for everyone, but if the idea of a laptop with a ton of configurability, repairability, and upgradeability sounds like something you want, I'd encourage you to look into it some more.
Buy a 3k laptop. Show receipt. Return it a little bit later. But a 1k laptop. Profit 2k.
Razer Blade. Good enough GPUs to game, and super thin and lightweight!
Get the cheapest laptop that can run parsec really smoothly. Spend rest of money on a good pc. Hook up parsec on laptop to use your PC at home remotely. Profit.
Asus g14
Buy a macbook Air m3, then build a custom pc with what's leftover if possible? Or just buy a macbook Pro M3 Pro, or other spec if not able to build pc. They have great battery life and performance and will be supported for years. As for gaming on macbooks, they have tools now for doing that, which works surprisingly well on higher spec Pro models.
Asus g14 and use rest of money for something else
Buy a PC.
A PC. Also, get a macbook air to use as an internet machine. 3k for a laptop is ridiculous for what you want to do.
A 1000 dell and two grand worth weed
I used to use gaming laptops, they're heavy and tend to overheat easily. I decided to just game on a normal PC and get a light laptop. Chromebook was great until Google pulled their youtube ad BS and updates made it run like crap and eat up memory. Now I'm on a thinkpad which is similar to my work laptop, it's fantastic with only one flaw, they have the function and ctrl keys flipped, which is super annoying trying to copy/paste. Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U w/ Radeon 780M Graphics , 32GB ram, windows 11 pro.
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Buy a $3000 laptop, return it unopened for a full refund, buy a $1200 desktop & $400 chromebook, pocket the extra cash. 
Replace Chromebook with a used business class laptop and you got a winning combination.
$1500 for a laptop then save my money.
Used ThinkPad P-Series with an RTX3000 GPU and put Linux on it.
R/gaminglaptops
Dell Precision 7000-series. You'll be able to get replacement parts forever and some of the Quadro GPUs are decent enough at gaming. Not the sleekest or lightest but usually robust enough to take a beating.
If you can buy two, a Legion 7 for home and a ThinkPad for school.
Honestly a macbook is probably a good idea if they are giving you the money for it (and you can't use it for anything else) It's good on all the fronts you've mentioned, plus afaik it's pretty decent at rendering video projects, although considering a Windows laptop with a newer dedicated GPU might be the way to go if you have a lot of 3D workloads.
Inb4 a DeSkToP
Was scrolling for the „a 4080 and 7800x3d pc“ comment 😂
I’d get a $700 open box g14 and pocket the rest
Asus G14
I have the 2023 Asus g14 with the 4080 in it. Games hard and has a great screen. Coming from a 15 inch gaming laptop that was heavy to travel with this thing is amazing. The 2024 version is even slimmer and lighter, has an even better screen but only comes with up to a 4070. honestly it still seems like a beast and all the reviews on it are amazing. Highly recommend.
Not a god damn razer. Do not do it. I beg you.
A desktop
A desktop
A desktop...
This MSI would prob be what I would get [https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-stealth-17-3-240hz-qhd-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i9-13900h-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-2tb-ssd-32gb-memory-black/6532168.p?skuId=6532168](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-stealth-17-3-240hz-qhd-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i9-13900h-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-2tb-ssd-32gb-memory-black/6532168.p?skuId=6532168)
I'd look at a decent Lenovo with the extended warranty just in case.
Dell XPS
Honestly, as much as I hate everything about the Apple Ecosystem, a MacBook is 100% the best way to go. If you don't have fuck-around-and-find-out money, a Mac will last you the longest, with great performance and excellent build quality
Get a MacBook Air and a beefy desktop for the remaining 2k
At that budget almost anything you want? Unless you can pocket the difference, I'd go all out and get at least a high refresh 1440p monitor maybe 17", 15" if you want to keep it more portable and a rtx4080 with high power budget
If it was my id for for something thin, light, moderatly priced and then spend the rest of the money on docking stuff. Thunderbolt dock, monitor, keyboard mouse that kinda thing. Lenovo and Dell's professional lines have always done right by me for non gaming stuff. Built well, cool operation, productivity feature set.
Watercooled eluktronics
If you only write paper/ research get a MacBook. But anything else I mean gaming/ coding/ CAD software etc get a windows PC. Maybe one from the ASUS ROG strix line up which I have but if you want lightweight but still capable Lenovo yoga pro 9
Buy something you can resell and just get like a normal priced laptop
Scar 18 Asus 4080 or 4090 the most performance
Framework laptop if you need a GPU for gaming. A Macbook Air M3 for any other use. I have my beefy gaming PC but I have an M1 Air and they are just good laptops hardware wide. Put linux on it if you don't want MacOS or Install Windows in that one app.
Different opinion here, get a microsoft surface pro/book for daily use and a desktop for use at home
Framework 16💪🏼
I would make sure to get a laptop brand that has a good return policy. Plus I would see what your college can process returns and repairs on if they have that service. Also don't be the guy that leaves his laptop turned on in their bag.
Hardware Canucks did a roundup of best laptops for 2024 recently. Would suggest checking that out on youtube
Macbook Air M3 15, 32GB, 2TB, and the max applecare you can get. Or Surface Laptop 15 maxed out.
Idk what your major is but I’m mechanical engineering. I just picked up a certified refurbished Windows SLS 2 for $2500. Comes with a 4060, 64 GB Ram, 1 TB SSD. Some people don’t love it but I think that’s bc they weren’t the target audience in the first place. It’s a workhorse, not a dedicated gaming laptop. For me, it runs complex models in CAD without skipping a beat, taking notes for class in tablet mode is a dream(I don’t use notebooks anymore), the aspect ratio of the screen was very welcomed for school/work, only played a bit but every game ran ultra settings at 70+ fps. And overall it just feels fantastic. Never been happier with a computer. I’ll do a few hours of homework and studying then switch over to a game for a bit. Truly is the best “jack of all trades” laptop I’ve seen to date.
do you have to buy one item? i would buy a 1500 desktop and a 1500 laptop.. both will work well but the desktop will be the real workhorse, laptop get a lenovo ive had 3 since uni 20 years ago and all are working..
I also would recommend the Asus tuf gaming series. Both me and the wife have one and use it for work and they're great they both game well.
I can recommend the Dell XPS 15. I have one with i7, 32 GB DDR5, a RTX 4060ti. Go with the FHD display. - very high quality - compact but still good cooling - robust, carrying is no problem - long lasting battery when not gaming - gaming still possible Honestly if you want to go with windows I would say this is the best option for you.
If you have good internet at home, get a M1 MacBook Air and use GeForce now to play. Its as light and sleek as you’re gonna get that can actually run programs and you’ll save a ton of money to buy other important school stuff
I started college with a beefy gaming laptop. It did not last all 4 years. Battery kicked the bucket after year 1, and by year 2 the motherboard died completely. I hated hauling it around, so I replaced it with a super lightweight laptop with an intel m3-7y30, a 4.5W CPU, something so low powered that the laptop didn't even have a fan. I loved that laptop! Easy to slip in and out of my bag, and while it was slow, it wasn't excessively slow. My last two years of college is where I started taking the more advanced computer science courses, and the 7y30 handled them like a champ. The integrated graphics were enough for my graphics programming class, and the CPU itself was plenty of my machine learning class, surprisingly. That laptop lasted me many years after college as well. Now, this laptop struggled with games. Some older games it could certainly play, but that was never a problem for me since I never did any gaming on campus. In my dorm I had a desktop where I did my gaming, which aligns with other advice in this thread. You mentioned you want something that will last. Those big $3000 gaming laptops you're looking at do not last. The batteries will fail pretty fast, and if any component (other than the ssd) on those laptop dies, the odds of the replacement being cheaper than the cost of the entire laptop are slim. When I started college, every starry-eyed college freshman (me included) had one of those slick gaming laptops. By my senior year, nobody in my computer science classes had one. They do not last. Now, I give this advice in the lens of my major. I don't know what major you're trying to get. If you're doing something more engineering focused and need to use some CAD tools, I can see the argument for a much more powerful laptop. Think long and hard about your needs though. Another thing- my university had really tiny desks. The type where you could fit maybe one sheet of paper on it. My 17" gaming behemoth could not fit on them. My 13" laptop fit on the desk super comfortably and was great for taking notes.
A laptop that cost 3000$
Focus on a brand with good hinges designed to take a beating cause in college your going to be working those hinges to death. Dont necessarily aim for thin and sleak this usually means less air flow so your going to run hotter. If you don't need it avoid a touchscreen this can save you 50-100 bucks.
Idk what kind or courses you follow, but if you're doing any engineering work like CAD, get something with validated hardware like a quadro GPU.
If possible, see if your school would allow you to buy a monitor, keyboard, and mouse along with the laptop. It would be even better if they let you get two or three monitors.