Best laptops for engineering students 2023: Expert picks and advice

The Dell XPS 17 has a lot going for it. You’re getting super-fast performance, a vivid display, and long battery life. The laptop also provides great connectivity features with four Thunderbolt 4 ports and an impressively long battery life. Under the hood, it’s rocking an Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage. That’s a ton of memory and storage, which is a good thing if you’re using a lot of resource-intensive applications such as 3D CAD modeling programs

The one real downside is that the XPS 17 weighs just under five and a half pounds, so it’s a real beast. The webcam is only 720p, as well, which may be a downside if you have to do any online classes or video-conferencing. Buy if you can live with those minor shortcomings, the latest XPS 17 is a phenomenal choice.

If you’re looking to save some cash, the Acer Aspire 3 is a worthy choice. It packs a good amount of performance for not a lot of money. Plus, the full-size keyboard provides loads of room, which is perfect for writing those term papers or modifying those CAD models. While that’s all well and good, the internals are really what makes this laptop a solid value buy.

The Aspire 3 comes with a Ryzen 3 7320U CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of PCIe SSD storage. The 15.8-inch 1080p display also has decent color quality. In our tests we found that the battery was able to hold a charge for up to eight hours of continuous use—enough to last a full day of classes. One of the most surprising features was the design. While a little utilitarian, it’s one of the sturdiest builds we’ve seen on a budget laptop. All in all, the Acer Aspire 3 gives you plenty of bang for relatively few bucks.

The Asus Zenbook 14X OLED has a lot going for it. This machine offers long battery life, rugged build quality, and a pleasant typing experience. However, the real star of the show is the stunning 1800p OLED display. The 14.5-inch screen features a resolution of 2880×1800 and a refresh rate of 120Hz. According to our reviewer, it “provides an infinite contrast ratio that can reach a perfect minimum luminance of zero nits.” That means you’re going to get a lifelike experience in dimly lit scenes. Want to know the best part? The whole package only costs $799.99, which is a killer value.

The Zenbook 14X comes equipped with an Intel Core i5-13500H CPU, Intel Iris Xe graphics, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. In other words, it’s capable of handling engineering software as well as everyday tasks like checking email and watching Netflix. At the end of the day, it’s a sensible laptop with a superb screen. Compared to other laptops in this price point, you’ll see sacrifices in the hardware or keyboard, but that’s not the case here with the Zenbook 14X.

If you’re looking to squeeze in some 1080p gaming between classes, the MSI Thin GF63 is worth checking out. For a gaming laptop, it’s actually quite lightweight at just over four pounds, which is great for those who like to game on-the-go. Most gaming laptops tip the scales at six pounds or more. As for what’s going on under the hood, it packs a decent amount of power for a budget gaming machine. Let’s dive right in.

The MSI Thin GF63 comes with an Intel Core i7-12650H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. Given the hardware, you should be able to run most games on the Medium or High graphics preset. For more graphically demanding games in which speed is everything, we’d recommend dialing the graphics back a bit. The 15.6-inch display has a resolution of 1920×1080 and a refresh rate of 144Hz. Although it ekes out just 300 nits of brightness (which is common for a budget gaming laptop), gameplay should be reasonably smooth thanks to the high refresh rate. It’s not the most vibrant or color-accurate screen we’ve ever seen, but it’s passable, especially for a sub-$1,000 machine.

If you can live with the sacrifices, then the MSI Thin GF63 is a great budget option for most students.

The Dell XPS 13 Plus comes with strong performance and a superb OLED panel, all bundled within a lightweight package. Thanks to the Intel Core i7-1280P CPU, this machine can easily breeze through day-to-day productivity as well as photo editing tasks. It also features Intel Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage.

The display is a little small at 13.4 inches, which may irk some folks, but the OLED touchscreen is positively divine. With a resolution of 3456×2160, the picture is both sharp and vibrant. It’s a compact machine, though, so battery life is mediocre and you won’t find a lot of connectivity options. If you’re willing to overlook those limitations, then the Dell XPS 13 Plus is a good option for most engineering students.

Note 10/17/2023: We recently reviewed the 2023 version of this laptop, but it didn’t score as high as the 2022 model. While we liked the newer model’s high-resolution display and the near-silent operation, battery life is average at best and there’s only two ports, which limits connectivity options.

The Acer Swift Edge 16 is a fantastic laptop for students. Not only is it thin and light, but the OLED screen is gorgeous and super vibrant. It weighs just 2.71 pounds, which is considered featherlight as far as ultraportable laptops are concerned. Despite its size, you’re still getting a rather spacious 16-inch 2000p OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. According to our reviewer, the display “delivers an infinite contrast ratio and deep, inky black levels that produce convincing shadows in dark scenes.” While the screen is an absolute delight to binge your favorite Netflix shows on, the 54 watt-hour battery is both small and somewhat lacking, managing only six to seven hours of battery life on a single charge. That’s not a terrible result, but we’ve seen better.

The laptop features an AMD Ryzen 7 7840U CPU, Intel Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage. Whether you’re researching a topic or composing emails, it’s designed with day-to-day productivity in mind. The design itself is on the blander side, as it’s just a black square, but some folks may dig the simplicity of it. If you’re looking for a thin-and-light laptop with a stunning 16-inch OLED display, then the Acer Swift Edge 16 is a fine choice. The price (just over $1,000) isn’t too bad, either.