Best laptops for engineering students in 2024

The best laptops for engineering students are vital if you're in need of something powerful to take you through your courses without failure, and we have put together a list of the cream of the crop.

This includes laptops like the ASUS ProArt P16, which is powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor and Nvidia's RTX 4070 GPU, making it an excellent choice if you need something strong and capable of running high-load tasks. And with it capable of being configured at 32GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage, alongside its gorgeous 3,840 x 2,400-pixel OLED display, it's an excellent choice for those in need of an excellent middle-ground between quality and cost.

But if you'd prefer something a little cheaper considering the ProArt P16 we reviewed came in at $2,299, look no further than the Asus TUF Gaming A14. It's an absolute beast that manages over 10 hours of battery life, even though it's built with an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. And considering it boasts MIL-STD-810H certification, making it far more durable than the average gaming laptop while staying at around 3 pounds, it's an absolutely incredible product for $1,399.

The quick list

Best overall laptop for engineering students

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When determining the best fit for our number one laptop suited for engineering students, we searched for something with a modern, AI-infused procerssor, powerful GPU, high-resolution display, long-lasting battery life, plenty of RAM, and lots of storage all within a product that wouldn't reach the costs of the most absurdly priced workstations.

If you're in need of that balance, look no further than the Asus ProArt P16. It's built with a powerful AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 laptop GPU with 8GB of vRAM, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of SSD storage, and a 3,840 x 2,400-pixel resolution OLED touchscreen.

Those specs are already fantastic on paper, which justifies the $2,299 price point of the model we reviewed, but things get even more impressive when considering its staggering 9 hours and 32 minutes of battery life. This is especially impressive for a laptop with a discrete GPU, as our expectations in battery life for laptops with discrete GPUs are significant lower.

And with the inclusion of its OLED display, you also gain the benefit of enjoying streaming content (and games if you so wish) at an incredible color depth with inky blacks that make every frame as immersive as possible. Its 85.5% DCI-P3 color coverage ensures everything you watch will look vivid, but its 356-nit brightness might be a bit underwhelming if you plan to use the laptop in bright spaces (this isn't shocking considering OLED displays typically struggle with brightness).

You can also expect phenomenal processing performance out of its AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, as it managed a multi-core score of 15,286 on the Geekbench 6 test. While this isn't necessarily as strong as the staggering MacBook Pro M3 Max (20,886), it's still an impressive score and outdoes the Asus TUF Gaming A14 (AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, 11,330) and HP ZBook Studio 16 (Intel Core i9-13900H, 14,532).

It also did exceptionally well converting a 4K video to 1080p on the Handbrake app, accomplishing the task in 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Compared to the HP ZBook Studio 16 (4:37) and Asus TUF Gaming A14 (4:21), the ProArt P16 absolutely demolishes with its processing power.

See our full ASUS ProArt P16 (2024) review.

Best affordable laptop for engineering students

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We normally wouldn't go out of our way to recommend a gaming laptop for engineering students. This is due to how often they're unnecessarily large, lacking in sturdiness, and bogged down by weak battery life. Great performance isn't the only facet an engineering student needs to think about, as having a machine that can handle your needs while traveling to school without being overbearing in your backpack is vital.

But the Asus TUF Gaming A14 blew us away for this exact reason, as it fulfills the requirements of a gaming laptop, while hitting shockingly good longevity, all packed in an affordably priced, thin machine.

We reviewed our model of the Asus TUF Gaming A14 for $1,399 and it was built with an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a 2,560 x 1,600-pixel resolution IPS display at 165Hz refresh rate.

Yet even though it's a gaming laptop, it blew us away with its 12.24 x  8.94 x 0.67~0.78-inch build (which is surprisingly small and thin), alongside its light 3.2 pound weight. But even though it's small, it didn't stop Asus from building it with MIL-STD-810H certification, which means it passed tests involving drops, vibrations, humidity, high or low temperatures, and more. 

This means it will survive in conditions other laptops might not. While that doesn't mean we recommend treating it poorly and letting it drop from heights, it's better primed to survive an accident in case one does happen.

Beyond just that, we were blown away by its longevity. On the Laptop Mag battery life test, which involves continuous web surfing over wifi at 150 nits, the Asus TUF Gaming A14 lasted 10 hours and 4 minutes before running out of juice. That's unprecedented, as the average for gaming laptops is 5 hours and 3 minutes, which is practically half as long.

It's also the longest lasting gaming laptop we've tested in over four years, with the previous one being the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 back in 2020. Considering you'll want to use this on-the-move while traveling between classes, long-lasting battery life is vital, and this machine has you more than covered.

See our full Asus TUF Gaming A14 (2024) review.

Best high-end laptop for engineering students

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Now that we've gotten the more reasonable recommendations for engineering students out of the way, let us jump into the product that is reserved for those in need of the most luxurious laptop available.

The HP ZBook Studio 16 G10 is the pinnacle of what you'd expect from a high-powered workstation, boasting the powerful professional-grade Nvidia RTX 4000 Ada Generation GPU, which is designed to handle high-level 3D rendering, 8K video editing, and data set analysis. Whereas most engineering laptops are recommended to have a GPU with 6 to 8GB go vRAM, the RTX 4000 Ada comes with 20GB GDDR6 vRAM, meaning it can work with far larger models and datasets at a time than your typical gaming graphics cards which boast less than half the amount of vRAM.

Beyond just its incredibly powerful GPU, it boasts an Intel Core i9-13900H processor, 64GB of RAM, 2TB of SSD storage, and a 16-inch 3,840 x 2,400-pixel resolution anti-glare OLED display. Its 457-nit brightness display is good enough to handle bright environments, although it might not survive against direct sunlight, whereas its 117% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut makes it perfect for enjoying streaming content with vividness.

As a result of these phenomenal specs, it's not much of a surprise that the HP ZBook Studio 16 G10 we reviewed cost $8,905. Yup, you read that right, this laptop is notoriously comparable to the price of a solid used car. However, you should be able to find these laptops on steep discounts at HP's website so you won't have to spend that much money. At the time of writing this, configurations of this laptop with a base price of $7,635 are discounted down to $3,399, and this drop in cost is reflected across many of the configurations. Paying more than three thousand dollars is still a lot of money for a workstation, but at least it brings this beast into a reasonable price range.

See our full HP ZBook Studio 16 G10 review.

How to choose the best laptop for engineering students

Determining what makes a laptop right for an engineering student generally depends on your college and the expectations of your courses, but there's many agreed upon foundations that colleges themselves share publicly on the internet.

Gonzaga University in Washington's 2024 system requirements for an Engineering laptop include Windows operating system, at least 16GB of RAM, 500GB of storage space (SSD recommended), an "advanced graphics card," which examples including Nvidia Quadro FX, a minimum i7 processor, and a USB-C port.

Arkanas Tech University's breakdown is a bit more complex, offering separate categories for what makes a "good," "better," and "best" engineering laptop. 

For the "best" category, the university recommends an Intel Core i7 or i9 processor (12th Gen or newer), or AMD Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 9 (5000-series or newer), Windows 10/11 operating system, 16 to 32GB of RAM, 500GB to 1TB of SSD storage, a dedicated graphics card with 6-8GB of video memory, and a 15 to 17-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel display (or higher).

Your own university might feature a breakdown of what's necessary for its engineering course, so that's a good place to start to ensure you don't get stuck with an underpowered machine. If this sort of information isn't publicly available on your university's website, we are using these website's recommendations as a foundation and highlighted some of our favorite laptops that meet these requirements.

How we test laptops for engineering students

We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before we send it to our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers, and heat management.

In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamut of the laptop's display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 6 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop with converting a 4K video to 1080p resolution and duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. 

Discrete graphics is a vital aspect of any laptop for engineering students, but there's a difference between a workstation GPU (like Nvidia's Ada Lovelace cards) and a gaming GPU (like the Nvidia RTX 40-series). For the former, we run the laptop through a series of gaming tests at 1080p and their native resolutions, including titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, Assassin's Creed Mirage, Far Cry 6, Cyberpunk 2077, and more. For the latter, we use synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark Firestrike and 3DMark Time Spy and analyze its performance, alongside playing games like Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm with medium settings at 1080p and 4K resolution.

We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. Gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered longer than 5 hours deserve praise.

These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop's materials to the feel of its touchpad.

Why trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over a hundred laptops yearly, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming. 

We are 100 percent independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades and continues to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on. 

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it. 

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