The market for high-performance laptops is quite limited. Satisfying the high demands of engineers, video editors and developers, as well as gamers, is quite difficult for manufacturers. Running today's software applications requires ample memory, a powerful graphics card, and a large screen, all packed into a compact and lightweight package.

The extremetech.com portal analyzed the offers on the market and prepared an overview of the best laptops for engineering students as of 2022.

Top-10 best laptops for engineering students

HP ZBook 17 G3

The new HP ZBook series is thinner and lighter than the previous generation, with better performance, a powerful battery and a variety of graphics card configurations. Support for UHD touch displays and Windows 10 has also been added. For applications that require the most accurate color reproduction, there is support for HP DreamColor displays. The cost of the basic configuration is about $1500. For those looking for a lighter workstation, HP offers the ZBook 15, ZBook Studio, and ZBook 15u models with less GPU performance.

Razer Blade

The Razer Blade is one of the most popular laptops in Silicon Valley. Just 1.77cm (0.7'') thin, this model features a 14'' QHD+ IGZO display, NVidia GeForce 970M graphics, SSD, 6th Gen Intel Core i7 quad-core processor and 16GB random access memory. On board the device are Thunderbolt, USB, USB-C and HDMI interfaces. Since Razer initially positions its products for gamers, special attention is paid to the keyboard equipped with full backlighting. To increase performance, a docking station is provided to which an external video card is connected. The 256GB SSD version of the Razer Blade will cost $2,000, while the 512GB SSD will cost an additional $200.

Dell Precision 17

Dell's flagship model features a 17" 4K UHD display and is available with a variety of Intel processors: i5, i7 and Xeon. The maximum amount of hard disk memory is 4 TB, RAM - 64 GB. Optionally, the user can use AMD Fire or Nvidia Quadro graphics cards. Also, the workstation is equipped with all the necessary interfaces for work: USB 3.0, HDMI, mini DisplayPort, Ethernet, USB-C (optional). The price of the basic configuration is $1580. The Dell Precision 17 is slightly heavier than the HP competitor at 3.4kg.

Lenovo ThinkPad P50

Lenovo puts a lot of effort into maintaining the high reputation of the ThinkPad line acquired from IBM. In the portable workstation segment, Lenovo offers the ThinkPad P50. This laptop is equipped with a 15.6” UHD IPS display, can be equipped with a 6th generation Intel Core or Xeon processor and Nvidia Quadro graphics cards. The viewing angle on the display is 180°. Also ThinkPad P50 is equipped with stereo speakers with support for Dolby technology. The design uses the TrackPoint manipulator, which is especially loved by some users. The maximum RAM is 64 GB and the maximum SSD capacity is 2 TB. The weight of the laptop is 2.2 kg. Backlit keyboard is optional.

Boxx GoBoxx MXL

Boxx is not as well-known as the manufacturers presented in the article, and specializes in developing the most powerful workstations on the market. The most powerful configuration is equipped with a 4 GHz Skylake quad-core processor, a discrete graphics accelerator and 64 GB of RAM. There are no budget assemblies in the manufacturer's portfolio, the starting price of GoBoxx MXL is $3400.

Asus ROG G752VS OC Edition

Workstation manufacturers are much more conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies, largely because of the need to certify applications. Gaming laptop vendors, like Asus, have no such problems. As soon as Nvidia introduced the 1070 series graphics cards based on the new Pascal architecture, Asus immediately used them in the new ROG G752VS model. It's the industry's first laptop that's truly VR-ready. The maximum amount of RAM is 64 GB, and the processor can be "overclocked" up to 4 GHz. For data storage, a 1TB HDD and a 512GB SSD are available, respectively. This model is equipped with a 17.3'' display, those wishing to have a larger screen are offered the G800VI model with a screen diagonal of 18.4''. The price of the device is from $3000.

Apple devices were not included in the review for two reasons. Firstly, many programs still do not have a version for OS X. Secondly, the technical specifications of the laptop have not been updated for a long time.