Image: Adam Patrick Murray
Calling all engineering students! If you’re in the market for a laptop that can handle resource-intensive coursework, you’ve come to the right place. These laptops offer reliable performance as well as a portable form factor, which is important for when you’re running from class to class. We’ve also included budget-friendly machines and gaming rigs for those late night gaming sessions. Read on to learn more.
Why you should trust us: Hey, it’s in our name! PCWorld prides itself on laptop experience and expertise. We’ve been covering PCs since 1983, and now review more than 70 laptops every year. All of the picks below have been personally tested and vetted by our experts, who’ve applied not only performance benchmarks but rigorous usability standards. We’re also committed to reviewing PC laptops at every price point to help you find a machine that matches your budget.
Looking for great laptop deals? Check out our regularly updated list of the best mainstream, gaming, and 2-in-1 laptop deals.
Updated June 28, 2024: We added the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i as an alternative option underneath the Best Overall pick and the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 as the Best Battery Life pick. We’ve also updated our list of recent laptop reviews, so be sure to check those out near the bottom of the page.
Dell Inspiron Plus 14 – Best overall
Pros
- Strong performance
- Phenomenal battery life
- Fantastic typing experience
Cons
- CPU throttles under very heavy loads
- No user upgrades
Price When Reviewed:
$999
Why we like the Dell Inspiron Plus 14
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is one of the most well-rounded laptops we’ve come across in recent months. This sub-$1,000 machine offers reliable performance, phenomenal battery life, and a gorgeous display. You really can’t get much better than that. With an exceptional PCMark 10 score of 7,061, it toppled comparable machines like the Acer Swift Go 14 and the more expensive Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. This laptop also has a battery life of 17 hours on a single charge (a spectacular result!), so you don’t have trouble yourself with finding a wall outlet to juice up.
Who should buy the Dell Inspiron Plus 14
Anyone looking for a laptop that checks off all the right boxes. Battery life and overall performance are outstanding, sure, but don’t forget about the gorgeous 14-inch 1400p display, which is “exceedingly well suited to office work and static imagery,” according to our review. It has a maximum brightness level of 418 nits and an anti-glare coating, so you can use this laptop in various lighting conditions. The design is far from sexy, but its hardware capabilities and amazing battery life make up for the uninspired aesthetics.
Alternative option: If you’re willing to shell out the extra cash, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i ($1,699.99) is a more premium option. It’s loaded with a faster processor (Intel Core Ultra 9 185H), more RAM (32GB), and a higher resolution display (3200×2000). It also has a bigger screen that measures 16 inches and a killer keyboard. You can’t really go wrong here if you need high-end power for high-end engineering tasks.
Read our full
Dell Inspiron 14 Plus review
Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 – Best battery life
Pros
- Attractive, slim, and light
- Class-leading battery life
- Excellent wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi 7
- Good performance in real-world situations
Cons
- Vague keyboard falls short of competitors
- IPS touchscreen’s image quality can’t compare to OLED
- Gaming performance doesn’t hold up
Price When Reviewed:
Starting at $999.99, as-tested $1999.99
Why we like the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7
Microsoft’s 2024 Surface Laptop is one of the first machines to release with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite CPU. While we really like its slim profile and reliable day-to-day performance, we’re absolutely astonished by the 20 hour battery life. The 54 watt-hour battery is small compared to the 90 watt-hour battery inside the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus, making the 20 hour battery life all the more impressive. According to our review, we strongly believe it poses a “significant threat to alternatives with AMD and Intel hardware.” The competition better watch out!
Who should buy the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7
Anyone that needs a long-lasting laptop. It’s a solid choice for those who travel often or those who don’t want to worry much about battery life. The Qualcomm chip isn’t the best for hardcore gaming, but it’s fantastic for battery life and daily activities. It also scores quite well in benchmarks with Arm support and wireless connectivity is excellent thanks to Wi-Fi 7, which is the latest Internet standard. If your workload includes heavy-duty tools designed to stress x86 chips, without a dedicated Arm version available, you’d probably be better off selecting a laptop with an Intel or AMD CPU inside however. The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED is a great option with strong 16-hour battery life (though the Surface Laptop 7 lasted about 3 hours longer in our battery rundown test).
Read our full
Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 (13.8″) review
Acer Aspire 3 – Best budget option
Pros
- Reliable performance
- 1080p display
- HD webcam
- Solid build
Cons
- Speakers sound tinny when playing music
- A little heavy
Price When Reviewed:
$329.99
Why we like the Acer Aspire 3
The Acer Aspire 3 laptop offers dependable performance at an affordable price. It’s fast enough for day-to-day tasks like checking e-mail, browsing the web, assembling code, and so on. You’re also getting a full-sized keyboard plus a 1080p screen. It even edged out the competition with a respectable Cinebench R15 score of 1,925, beating out the comparable Acer Aspire Vero 14. Cinebench, by the way, determines how well a laptop handles processor-intensive multi-threaded workloads by running all of the cores of a CPU.
Who should buy the Acer Aspire 3
Anyone who’s on a restricted budget! It’s a great value because of the low price tag and the good performance. The HD webcam also produces clean, crisp video, so you’ll always look your best in video calls, and the battery lasts about eight hours on a single charge. That’s more than enough battery life for a full day of learning!
Read our full
Acer Aspire 3 review
Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition – Best for work and gaming on a budget
Pros
- All-day battery life
- Robust chassis
- Gorgeous 16:10 display
Cons
- 720p HD camera leaves little to be desired
- Keys feels a little soft
Price When Reviewed:
$1,099.99
Why we like the Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition
The Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition is something of a unicorn and I mean that in the best way possible. It exhibits strong graphics performance as well as long battery life. Long battery life? A gaming laptop? How preposterous! Well, not anymore! The Asus TUF managed an incredible 11 and a half hours on a single charge. Also, thanks to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU inside, it achieved an impressive 123 frames-per-second in the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark. That’s nothing to sneeze at, especially for a sub-$1,000 gaming machine.
Who should buy the Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition
The Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition is a good option for those on a tight budget. For under a grand, you’re getting reliable graphics performance, a spacious keyboard, and long battery life. It also works as a good general purpose machine, which is perfect for college students that want to work on homework during the day and then switch to gaming at night. With a Cinebench R20 score of 589, it should have “no trouble running lightweight apps and programs,” according to our review.
Alternative option: The Lenovo LOQ 15 is a good alternative option, as it comes with a slightly better GPU (RTX 4060). Despite getting a high rating, it didn’t make the cut because of poor battery life and limited connectivity options.
Read our full
Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition review
Acer Swift Edge 16 – Best ultraportable
Pros
- Gorgeous OLED display
- Lightweight
- Strong CPU performance
Cons
- Mediocre battery life
- Weak audio
Price When Reviewed:
$1,299.99
Why we like the Acer Swift Edge 16
The Acer Swift Edge 16 is lightweight, affordable, and powerful. It weighs just 2.71 pounds. The 3200x2000p OLED screen is super vibrant and, according to our review, “delivers an infinite contrast ratio and deep inky black levels that produce convincing shadows in dark scenes.” It even turned in a strong PCMark 10 score of 6,494, beating out the more expensive Acer Swift Go 16. That means the Swift Edge 16 is capable of out-performing some machines that cost hundreds of dollars more.
Who should buy the Acer Swift Edge 16
If you’re looking for a lightweight ultraportable with strong performance, the sub-$1,000 Acer Swift Edge 16 is the laptop you want. It’s light enough to take with you from class to class and the spacious 16-inch display is fantastic for school work, watching movies, and so on. Sure, the design is a bit bland and battery life is a disappointing six to seven hours (still not an awful result), but if you can handle those minor shortcomings, then the Acer Swift Edge 16 is the right pick for you.
Alternative option(s): If you’re able to stretch your budget a little further, then you should definitely consider picking up the Acer TravelMate P6. It’s a little lighter than our top pick at 2.65 pounds and has a bigger battery, but it’s more expensive and doesn’t have an OLED display. The HP Dragonfly G4 is another solid option, as it offers high performance as well as an LTE connection. That said, it’s very expensive.
Read our full
Acer Swift Edge 16 review
Asus Zenbook 14 OLED – Best OLED display
Pros
- Robust build quality
- Attractive OLED touchscreen
- Good CPU and integrated GPU performance
- Outstanding battery life
Cons
- Uninspiring design
- Keyboard isn’t memorable
- Mediocre connectivity options
Price When Reviewed:
$849.99
Why we like the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED
The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED dazzled us with its peppy CPU performance, outstanding battery life, and slick-looking OLED touchscreen display. According to our review, “movies and games look realistic and vibrant” on the 14-inch 1980x1200p OLED touchscreen, although it can be difficult to view content in brighter environments because of the reflective surface. It also died at the 16 hour mark on a single charge, which is absolutely fantastic. That result outclasses comparable machines like the Lenovo Slim 7 14 Gen 9 and the HP Pavilion Plus Laptop 14. As for how it performs, you should have zero problems zipping through real-world tasks like web browsing, video conferencing, and so on.
Who should buy the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED
Anyone that’s looking to pick up an affordable laptop with an OLED display. It’s so much more than that, though. The build quality is solid and day-to-day performance is both fast and responsive. Connectivity options are a bit limited, but that’s not unusual for a laptop in this price range. Overall, this is an exceptional budget laptop, as you can’t really beat the price to performance ratio.
Read our full
Asus Zenbook 14 OLED review
Recent laptop reviews
- Dell Inspiron 16 Plus: The Dell Inspiron 16 Plus is a powerful 16-inch workstation with a nice combination of performance, battery life, and build quality. It’s a good alternative to gaming laptops for people who want more power than the average laptop offers.
- Surface Laptop 7: The Microsoft Surface Laptop’s strong processor performance and top-tier battery life prove that Windows’ transition to Arm has staying power, but even the most casual gamers should think twice.
- Acer Aspire 3: The Acer Aspire 3 cuts performance to the bone as it limbos below a $500 MSRP.
- Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i: The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i is one of the best mainstream Windows laptops on the market, with great specs, a gorgeous display, and a killer keyboard.
How we test engineering laptops
The PCWorld team puts every Windows laptop through a series of intense benchmarks that test GPU and CPU performance, battery life, and so on. The idea is to push the laptop to its limits and then compare it against others we’ve tested.
Below, you’ll find a breakdown of each test and the reasons why we run them. For a much deeper look at our review methodology, check out how PCWorld tests laptops.
Windows laptops
- PCMark 10: The PCMark 10 benchmark is how we determine how well the laptop handles general use tasks like web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, streaming, and so on.
- HandBrake: HandBrake is more intensive than PCMark 10. It measures how long a laptop’s CPU takes to encode a beefy 30GB file.
- Cinebench: Cinebench is a brief stress test of the CPU cores. It renders a 2D scene over a short period of time.
- 3DMark: 3DMark checks if 3D performance remains consistent over time by running graphic-intensive clips. This is how we test a gaming laptop’s GPU.
- Video rundown test: To gauge battery life, we loop a 4K video using Windows 10’s Movies & TV app until the laptop dies.
FAQ
1.
How much processing power will I need in an engineering laptop?
You’re going to need a good amount of processing power for engineering tasks, so we’d recommend an Intel Core i5 or higher. However, an Intel Core i7 is considered ideal. This type of processor is good for multitasking, gaming, and demanding workloads.
2.
Is RAM important to an engineering laptop?
Absolutely! The amount of RAM directly impacts the speed of your programs. Engineering students will likely be living in programs like Java and Python, so making sure those programs run smoothly is absolutely vital. The bare minimum we’d recommend is 8GB, but 16GB is better.
3.
What about storage?
You’re going to need quite a bit of space for a slew of engineering programs, so we’d recommend at least 512GB of SSD (solid state drive) storage. If you want more space and have the budget for it, go for 1TB of NVMe SSD storage.
4.
How much should my laptop weigh?
You don’t want to be lugging a five pound beast from class to class. A portable laptop should weigh about three pounds or less. In terms of portability and value, we suggest buying a laptop with a 13- or 14-inch display.
Author: Ashley Biancuzzo, Associate Editor, PCWorld
Ashley Biancuzzo manages all laptop and Chromebook coverage for PCWorld. She’s been covering consumer tech since 2016, and her work has appeared on USA Today, Reviewed, Polygon, Kotaku, StarWars.com, and Nerdist. In her spare time, she enjoys playing video games, reading science fiction, and hanging out with her rescue greyhound.
