Finding the best laptop for your engineering program can sometimes be tricky, especially if your institution has overly vague or specific requirements for what laptop you need.
I know because here at Tom's Guide my team tests dozens of laptops from the top companies every year to find the best laptops for college students, and we look for especially powerful or capable machines that would be ideal for engineering students. We also try to keep abreast of engineering program requirements and listen to readers who write in with questions about which model(s) best meet their course requirements.
Because of that I know that many of today's best gaming laptops typically work well as engineering student laptops because they're built with discrete graphics cards, powerful CPUs, and lots of memory and storage. All that tech helps a beefy gaming laptop like the Alienware m18 run demanding games well, but it can also help these laptops crunch code and power through CAD work with aplomb.
That said, we still recommend the Dell XPS 16 as the best laptop for most engineering students because it's widely available, customizable with powerful components and delivers great performance and battery life.
Those are just two of the recommendations you'll find on this curated list of the best laptops for engineering students—we also have advice for folks seeking cheaper, more portable options for class.
The quick list
The Dell XPS 16 is our current top recommendation for engineering students because it's svelte and portable yet powerful enough to do some heavy lifting thanks to its discrete GPU. While the tight keyboard and invisible touchpad take some getting used to, this is a great all-around laptop.
The cyberpunk aesthetic makes it clear this is a gaming laptop, but don't let that dissuade you from considering this budget machine, which gives you a cutting-edge Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU, a 13th Gen Intel CPU and a solid 144Hz 15.6-inch display.
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a great gaming laptop with a discrete GPU and battery life to rival the XPS 15 or Galaxy Book 3 Ultra. The fact that it lasts over 10 hours on battery yet weighs under 4 pounds makes it the most portable on this list.
The powerful Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series GPU in Samsung's Galaxy Book 4 Ultra make it not just great for gaming, but heavy-duty computational work too. If you like the vivid colors and sharp contrasts of OLED, the 16-inch OLED screen makes this a great choice.
The Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio's discrete Nvidia GPU onboard makes it one of the most powerful 2-in-1s you can buy, and the unique sliding 120Hz touchscreen is great for taking notes if you splurge for the $129 Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus.
The Alienware m18 is the biggest, most powerful gaming laptop we've tested to date. Despite its great keyboard and solid speakers/screen it's too heavy, hot and loud to be of much use on the go, so this is really best as a semi-portable PC you mostly keep on your desk.
Alex Wawro is a lifelong journalist who's spent over a decade covering tech, games and entertainment. He oversees the computing department at Tom's Guide, which includes managing laptop coverage and reviewing many himself every year.
The best laptops for engineering students you can buy today
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The best laptop overall
The Dell XPS 16 is what we recommend most to engineering students because it's versatile, powerful and easy to carry to school. Plus, it lasted over 11 hours in our battery test, so you can count on it lasting you through a day of classes.
This Windows 11 laptop comes with a nice, bright 16-inch LCD screen, but if you can afford it I recommend springing for the 4K OLED touchscreen upgrade because it makes everything you do on the laptop look nicer. Plus, having the touchscreen gives you a nice alternative way to interact with the laptop when your hands are tired from jamming out assignments.
If you plan to do a lot of demanding coursework I also recommend upgrading the integrated Intel Arc GPU to a discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX laptop GPU. Our review unit came with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, but you can choose from a few options when configuring your own Dell XPS 16.
Read our full Dell XPS 16 review.
The best value option
The MSI Cyborg 15 ($999) is a cyberpunk-inspired gaming laptop that won’t destroy your wallet. Packing a 13th Gen Intel Core CPU and an Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU, this laptop delivers solid gaming performance for $1,000, making it great for students who want to use that power for schoolwork. Toss in a 144Hz 15.6-inch display and you have a machine that’s a great entry into the world of PC gaming.
The laptop has a cool design, great performance and costs less than $1,000. The display could be brighter and a bit more colorful, but the 144Hz refresh rate is welcome. And while its battery life isn’t great, the Cyborg 15 also doubles as a good productivity device, so long as you keep it plugged in.
Read our full MSI Cyborg 15 review.
The most portable
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a perennial favorite here at Tom's Guide that regularly ranks among the best gaming laptops you can buy, and those strengths also make it great for engineering students.
What makes the ROG Zephyrus G14 so compelling is the way it delivers great performance and decent battery life in a small, easy-to-carry chassis. The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU in our review unit is powerful enough to play many games at 60+ fps and chew through the work of transcoding a 4K video down to 1080p in under 5 minutes, so it should be good enough for many homework assignments.
The big weakness to watch out for when carrying this thing for school is battery life: The most recent Zephyrus G14 we tested lasted just under 7 hours in our in-house battery test, which means it may not get you through a full day of classes.
But as long as you don't need to use it on the go for more than a few hours at a time, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a powerful, svelte laptop for engineering students.
Read our full Asus ROG Zephryus G14 review.
The best OLED
The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra is the powerhouse of Samsung's Galaxy Book lineup, and that makes it the best Samsung laptop for engineering students because it comes with a beefy CPU and powerful Nvidia GeForce RTX discrete laptop GPU.
Together these components give this 16-inch ultraportable OLED laptop enough muscle to help you tackle coursework, and the thin-and-light design makes it easy to slide into a backpack. Plus, the roomy keyboard makes knocking out papers feel nice and comfy.
This laptop really shines if you already own other Samsung Galaxy devices because it comes with Samsung Galaxy software pre-installed that will let you easily share files and data between Galaxy devices. However, if you're not already invested in the Samsung ecosystem you can just ignore the extra Galaxy features—they won't interfere with the speed and capabilities of this laptop.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra review.
The best 2-in-1
Microsoft's Surface Laptop Studio 2 is a powerful 2-in-1 with a MacBook Pro-like design and an eye-catching hinged display. This is Microsoft’s flagship device for Windows 11, which promises to make Windows a more inviting place for both work and play. Like Windows 11, the Surface Laptop Studio is advertised as a one-stop shop for productivity, entertainment and creative work.
And for the most part, it is all that: its 13th Gen Intel CPU and 16+ GB of RAM gives you enough power to tackle most work, and if you splurge for a model with the discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 or 4060 GPU the Surface Laptop Studio also doubles as a decent machine for gaming or video editing on the go. We've also heard it's an ideal choice for college engineering programs which require laptops that both have a discrete GPU and can be used with an active stylus. While you have to pay extra for the Microsoft Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus, its haptics make writing or drawing on the Studio's 14.4-inch 120Hz touchscreen feel great.
However, it's a bit pricey when you kit it out, and despite its great components the Surface Laptop Studio delivers subpar performance compared to the best MacBooks and Windows laptops. But few laptops can match its intriguing sliding hinged display, which can be tented over the keys like an easel or slid all the way flat to turn the Studio into a heavy tablet.
Read our full Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 review.
The best big screen
The Alienware m18 is one of the biggest, most powerful gaming laptops we've tested to date, and it's great for engineering students who need a big-screen PC that can move with you.
By that I mean, the Alienware m18 is our recommendation for the best laptop for engineering students who want a big screen to work on. The 18-inch display on the m18 is right at the edge of too big to carry, and it gives you lots of screen space to use for playing games, working on research or editing homework in CAD.
The low-profile CherryMX mechanical keys are also a delight to type on, and while the laptop is so heavy (9+ pounds) that you won't want to carry it in anything but a car very often, the fact remains that you can take it to a friend's house or home for summer break if you need to.
However, I definitely recommend a lighter, longer-lasting laptop on this list (like the Zephyrus G14) if you're looking for a laptop to carry to class, since in addition to its massive weight the Alienware m18 R2 barely lasts a few hours, tops (and less when gaming) on battery power.
Read our full Alienware m18 R2 review.
Battery benchmarks: comparison
Battery life is a key concern for students since you don't want a laptop dying in the middle of class. With that in mind we've collected all the results from our battery tests of these laptops, and I've organized them below in a list that's easy to peruse.
As you can see, the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra is the current clear winner of terms of long battery life.
| Laptop | Battery life (tested) |
| Alienware m18 R2 | 3:46 |
| Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | 6:51 |
| Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 | 9:31 |
| MSI Cyborg 15 | 5:05 |
| Dell XPS 16 | 11:03 |
| Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra | 13:19 |
Performance benchmarks: comparison
To help you get a better sense of which laptops perform better, I've also included a table of all the results from these laptops in our CPU benchmark tests.
For these tests we run the Geekbench single-core CPU and multi-core CPU tests and report the scores for each. By comparing these scores and seeing which is higher, you can get a general sense of which is more capable.
As you can see from the results below, the Alienware m18 is the clear performance leader on this list. However, even a cheap gaming laptop like the MSI Cyborg 15 can put up decent numbers in terms of raw performance.
| Laptop | Geekbench single-core test | Geekbench multi-core test |
| Alienware m18 R2 | 2,868 | 18,035 |
| Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | 2,614 | 12,246 |
| Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 | 1,862 | 12,760 |
| MSI Cyborg 15 | 1,837 | 10,614 |
| Dell XPS 16 | 1,751 | 13,199 |
| Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra | 2,426 | 13,061 |
How to choose the best laptop for you
How to choose the best engineering laptop for you
Performance: If you're going to be spending years studying engineering, you're going to need a computer with enough power to handle anything your teachers throw at you. We recommend at least a new mid-range CPU (Intel Core or AMD Ryzen 5) and at least 16 GB of RAM, though if you can afford to spend more on on a laptop with better specs it will pay off in the long run.
Graphics and gaming: Most gaming laptops come with discrete graphics cards so they can run the latest games well, but the same card can be equally vital to engineering students who will be using CAD (computer-assisted design) and 3D analysis programs. These kinds of applications really benefit from the power of a good GPU, so if you're expecting to do any graphics or 3D work it's a good idea to invest in a laptop with a discrete Nvidia or AMD graphics card.
Operating system: Laptops typically come in three flavors: Windows (most mainstream PCs), macOS (MacBooks) and Chrome OS (Chromebooks). Chrome OS isn't good for much besides web surfing, file management, and light computing, so a Chromebook isn't a great choice for serious schoolwork. However, a crafty student could install Linux on a high-powered Chromebook to turn it into a decent laptop for engineering work.
Many engineering students spend a lot of time working with specialized or self-developed software, so Windows is often preferable over macOS because it throws up fewer roadblocks when using such tools. However, even Windows can sometimes get in the way of serious engineering work, which is why many engineering students get Windows laptops and install Linux on them so they can dual-boot into either operating system.
As mentioned above, when making your buying decision be sure to consult your teachers and/or the engineering department at your school for more specific advice on what you'll need for your studies. Whichever system you decide on, it's a good idea to pair it with the best mouse for your particular work situation.
How we tested these laptops
How we test the best laptops for engineering students
To find the best laptops we run every machine through a rigorous suite of benchmarks and real-world tests to gauge how it will perform during everyday use.
We measure the average brightness and color quality of each laptop's display using our in-house light meter and colorimeter. For general performance, we run our machines through tests that include Geekbench 5 (CPU performance), as well as various 3DMark tests to measure graphics capabilities. We also run a file transfer test to measure how fast a machine's hard drive is, and a custom battery test that has the machine browse the internet over Wi-Fi until it runs out of juice.
Plus, we run the graphics benchmark test in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm to get a sense of how well a laptop can handle basic games. When testing dedicated gaming laptops, we run benchmarks for a number of games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2.
For more information on our testing process, check out our guide to how we test.
