Since my son will be attending an engineering college next fall. He needs a laptop. So researching and buying the best laptop for an engineering student have been one of our goals. After did the research, we could not find the answer to the question, what is the best laptop for engineering students. However, we came our conclusion and bought a new laptop for my son.

If you are in similar situation like us. First question you need to ask yourself is what your budget is. The max budget that we have is around $1,000. We want this computer to last at least 4 years. We were looking at a Thinkpad and some Dells.

We Bought:

Dell Inspiron i17R-2248MRB 17.3-Inch Laptop

Technical Details

• Intel Core i5-460M 2.53GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz, 3MB Cache
• 4GB RAM; USB 2.0 (3); Combo eSATA/USB 2.0 (1); HDMI and VGA; RJ45 Ethernet; 1 Half Mini-Card Slot; 1 Headphone Jack; 1 Microphone Jack
• 500GB Hard Drive; 8x CD/DVD Burner (Dual-Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
• 17.3″ High-Definition Display; Intel HD Graphics

Because we want a high-quality and high-performance laptop with relatively low cost. Dell isn’t known to have great build quality, however, we take advantage of its return policy and we bought last week, so we have test drive time. By my experience, sometime, you maybe unlucky and get a Dell laptop with uncertain and would not last you four years. However, if you tested and used it for awhile no issue found, it means you are lucky you got a good one and will last you four years.

The Thinkpads have good quality, but will cost you significantly more than the others.

Consider your personal situation thoroughly and hope you can found the best laptop for you!

Laptop Bag

External Hard Drive

Back up your files! Otherwise, your important work(data) could be lost.

Flash Drive

You may use this to download information from your school’s computer, and vice-versa. Keep copies of your current assignments on the flash drive so your work is always available to you and backed up.