• Congratulations to the Class of 2024 on your results!
    Let us know how you went here
    Got a question about your uni preferences? Ask us here

Laptop requirements for electrical engineering and computer science? (1 Viewer)

OreoMcFlurry

Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
40
Gender
Male
HSC
2021
Hey everyone,

I'm intending to do electrical engineering and computer science at UNSW in 2022, and was curious as to whether or not there are particular requirements for laptops? I'm a Windows kind of guy, so if you guys have any recommendations for what laptops I should get; then please share them :)

Thank you very much for your time.
 

dasfas

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2019
Messages
469
Gender
Male
HSC
2019
Dell XPS 13 and Dell XPS 15 are good windows laptops. You don't need that powerful a laptop for engineering/compsci, but there are some applications that do lag a lot. So if you have the money, go with XPS 13 + Desktop. Or you could do XPS 15 and not need a Desktop. Or if you are on a smaller budget, then XPS 13. If this is still too much, then I can give other recommendations.
 

nzexperiment

Active Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2021
Messages
110
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2022
Dell XPS 13 and Dell XPS 15 are good windows laptops. You don't need that powerful a laptop for engineering/compsci, but there are some applications that do lag a lot. So if you have the money, go with XPS 13 + Desktop. Or you could do XPS 15 and not need a Desktop. Or if you are on a smaller budget, then XPS 13. If this is still too much, then I can give other recommendations.
xps are not good for power. They are good laptops in terms of screen and etc but the price to performance ratio is not worth it
 

dasfas

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2019
Messages
469
Gender
Male
HSC
2019
xps are not good for power. They are good laptops in terms of screen and etc but the price to performance ratio is not worth it
I'm not sure what applications they use in elec, but for mech, the only big problem for me was solidworks (3d modelling), but I think that was just because it was poorly optimised for mac.

If they want to avoid that headache, then yeah, they could go for a beefy computer, but I do a very similar course to what they're studying and my intel i3 is serving me well. I probably over emphasised the lagging of the applications. Realistically this is for only a couple units and there are workarounds ie. I used the library computers instead.
 

Drdusk

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Feb 24, 2017
Messages
2,022
Location
a VM
Gender
Male
HSC
2018
Uni Grad
2023
Hey everyone,

I'm intending to do electrical engineering and computer science at UNSW in 2022, and was curious as to whether or not there are particular requirements for laptops? I'm a Windows kind of guy, so if you guys have any recommendations for what laptops I should get; then please share them :)

Thank you very much for your time.
I recommend getting windows with at least 8gb ram, though 16 is preferred if you’re going to be majoring in Cybersecurity for compsci. You will find running virtual machines to be quite useful and this will be a hassle if you do not have a decent amount of ram.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top