New laptop recommendations for an ME undergrad

[AndrewDe]

I'm starting my engineering program (mechanical engineering) this fall 2017. Transfer student, going in as a Junior. That being said I'm looking to buy a new laptop to get me through the prorgan. I currently have a MacBook Pro 2010, no longer good. I'm not familiar with the Microsoft PC world. Hoping to get some good feed back on, what to look for, and what to stay away from. I currently have my eyes set on a Lenovo Yoga 720, 16gb ram, 512 ssd, icore i7, windows 10 pro 64.

Any recommendations greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[phinds]

Personally, for the last several years I have been sticking with HP for one simple reason: customer support.

Modern laptops are very much commodity items and you're not likely to go wrong with the hardware/software almost no matter WHAT you buy. I'm very confident that you can find on-line horror stories about poor customer service from ANY company, including HP, but I have had 3 new HP laptops in the last several years (mine, my son's, and my wife's) and I can only say I have been absolutely amazed at the high quality of the customer service I have received for various issues, at least one of which was entirely my own fault. They not only went WAY out of their way to help me solve the problems, they actually called me back on one issue, after a couple of weeks had gone by, just to make sure that the solution they had helped me implement was holding up.

 

[rootone]

I would recommend HP too, they are a solid company with a history going back before any PCs existed.
I am told though that Lenova is very good value in terms of what spec you get for the price.
What to steer clear of is companies you never heard of before, especially ones that 'target' you with net advertisements.

 

[jerromyjon]

I tried a Toshiba satelite flip book, it had some functional quirks I didn't like (keyboard didn't shut off when flipped, battery pack charging feature would not work while powered off, extremely laggy for core i5 with 16g ram) so i returned it and got an HP envy x360 i5 8g ram. Much better computer but still has its own problems (keyboard shuts off when flipped but doesn't turn back on when returned to laptop position, integrated graphics isn't very powerful but at least it works with UHD TV) Return policy of where you purchase is obviously important. ( I bought from Best Buy, no hassle returning first one I tried!)

 

[RJLiberator]

It seems like you are going in the right direction.

I would just stress to get a linux or windows OS based laptop. I have a mac, and while it works and is great, it does make it a bit more challenging to get programs to work for my physics courses.

Otherwise, as others have said, you can't really go wrong, just get a good deal somewhere.

 

[CalcNerd]

I have a Lenovo Yoga that I've had for several years with similar specs to what you are looking at. I love it! It had gobs of power when I bought it and it has aged well ie it still runs all the software I've added without bogging down or wimping out with poor performance. However, as others have said, today's laptops are pretty much commodity items, but the little bit extra to buy brand names is certainly worth it.

 

[bishop27]

Base on your specs and brand it will be a good buy.