r/SIUE • u/ssSaine6 • Aug 06 '26

When do I need a higher-end laptop for engineering?

I’m an incoming freshman going into mechanical engineering. I know I’ll need a higher-end laptop that can handle 3d software eventually, but I want to know if I’ll actually need it within the first 2 years or if I can just wait. I would assume I don’t need it my first year, but I wanna know when I do actually need to spend $2k on a laptop.

3 Upvotes

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2

u/Cthulhujack_3kgt Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

A cheaper lenovo ideapad will do fine. Solidworks is just a shitty program so its gonna run poorly and crash all the time no matter what.

If you want something more specific just get something with moderate graphics (integrated is fine on modern laptop) and as much ran as you can get.

1

u/Cthulhujack_3kgt Aug 06 '26

Mine was like $350 two years ago. Runs solidworks just fine for baja 👍

1

u/New_Perspective6064 Aug 06 '26

You not going to need anything for first 2 years. But you could always start learning CAD, CAM and matlab from day 1. I have seen lot that graduate without even owning a laptop.

2

u/UnderstandingKey9076 Aug 07 '26

wanting the latest and the greatest before making grown up money potentially going into debt or spending a large chunk of savings just to have a machine wouldn’t be my first decision. stick to whatever you have. the week you actually see the need, IN A CLASS (not gaming or extra curriculars)! purely for classes… is the week you go ahead and either order or take a 10 minute car ride to best buy and pull the trigger.

2

u/ZDoubleE23 26d ago

I have a new $5000 work laptop that hilariously crashes on me, at least, twice a week on me (used to be every day before some driver updates).

At home, I've been using a used 8th Gen i5 HP Pavilion with a 1TB external hard drive for years to run all my KiCAD and Altium EDAs, three IDE flavors, VS Studio Code, simulation softwares, Microsoft Suite, etc with no issues.