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Budget Laptops for Budding Engineers, Get the Best Bang for Your Buck

If you’re about to begin your journey as an engineer, then laptop is a crucial item to have in your checklist of things to buy. It will go a long way in supporting your professional growth as a budding engineer. Choosing the right laptop that fits in your budget is therefore very critical. This is easier said than done. You need to have the right processor to handle all those computational tasks while running engineering applications like CAD, CAM, etc. The device needs to be sturdy, durable, and reliable so that it can continue to work flawlessly even under the stressful environments that engineers have to be in regularly. As a budding engineer, you not only need a high-end laptop, but also a laptop that is durable.

If your work is going to be mostly 2D, then you may not need discrete graphics. Having regular onboard graphics will be just fine, to avoid the temptation of drowning in gaming world. In fact, going for a device with discrete graphics chips suitable for gaming is also not recommended for engineers. They’re just not optimized for engineers’ applications, so it’s better to get a laptop with graphics meant to support such applications.

Here are a few key things to remember before venturing out to buy a laptop – if you are an engineer.

CPU
CPU is the first and most important thing to look at when buying a laptop for an engineer. The whole processing of a laptop lies on its processor and speed. The processor plays a great role in handling heavy software like AutoCad, ChemCad, etc. These software work with huge databases and require lots of space to run. The more space requires more processing and if the processor is slow, it will slow down the application response time. Look for at least an 8th generation quad-core or Hexa core processor.

RAM
RAM is one of the most important aspects to look into. The larger RAM size is good to go in every situation to run the heavy apps required by engineers. Go for at least 8 GB, and take it up to 32 GB depending upon the types of applications you plan to run. This would be adequate to handle just about any heavy app. Though graphics play a major role in giving these apps a run, still, RAM helps you in handling multiple tasks together.

Storage Capacity
For all engineering requirements, one needs good-sized storage. The application likes of CATIA, ANSYS, SolidWorks are bulky software and would require at least 512 GB space to give the best value. One needs to give priority to SSD drives here as they are quick and give a solid retrieval speed without any delay. Looking at the budget, you can have a combination of both SSD+HDD. Many line ups are coming with this combo, the best grab to get speed and abundance space in the budget.

Graphics
Engineers mostly have to run heavy software. Software like Work Area, CAD, MATLAB, and SolidWorks is used for 3D environment applications and video rendering.

This is where the graphics card comes into the play. It does all the heavy lifting when it comes to Full-HD quality videos rendering or high-res image manipulation used by these applications. If you need a seamless, error-free performance to run those apps, then go for discreet onboard graphics with at least 2GB dedicated video memory. If it’s a very high-end app, then you should consider 4 GB video memory .

Ports
Having ample ports in the device is also important for engineers, as they would constantly need to connect various peripherals or devices to it. So make sure you have at least 2 USB ports, high-speed WiFi, HDMI and display port, to name a few.

Recommendation
One good product line that engineers could consider is the HP Probook series of laptops. They’re business laptops available in various configurations and budget points. If you can afford more, then another recommended product line is the HP ZBook series of mobile workstation class laptops.

Check out https://store.hp.com/in-en/default/hp-business-offers for some good deals by HP.

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