6 Best Laptops for Electrical Engineering Students (2022)
Are you an electrical engineering student looking to buy the best laptop for electrical engineering students?
Engineering is a demanding field wherever you need a laptop which may handle all your daily intensive tasks and also where you’ll install all the essential software like MATLAB, Pspice, ETAP, Simulink, etc.
I have seen lots of engineering students wasting hundreds of dollars shopping for a feature-rich laptop of that they merely use any of the features. You’ll fall in that trap too as there are thousands of excellent laptops available in the market.
Not anymore because in this article we’ve especially included laptops that are good for electrical engineering students. The laptops mentioned in the list are performance packed, sports in a smart display, have good battery life and all other useful features which an engineering student wants.
But before I take you to the list, I’d wish to share a quick guide with you on things to check out before buying a laptop to save you extra cash.
Things to look out for before buying the best laptop for electrical engineering students
Out of the infinite options available within the market, it can be difficult to get the right laptop that suits your need that too at an excellent price. For electrical engineering students, they don’t need a high-end laptop with bumped up specs. So, here is what you wish to check out before finally making up your mind to spend cash on the laptop.
Processor:
Being an engineering student, you don’t need an i7 or i9 processor. However, to perform daily tasks like watching movies, writing assignments, listening to songs and casually taking part in games all at once you need an i5 processor. The Intel i3 processor would also work but it’s a bit underrated for multitasking so you need to go with the i5 processor.
RAM:
In terms of RAM, being a student, you need a minimum of 4GB RAM and to the max 8GB if you plan to use your laptop for normal daily tasks. However, if you like playing high-end games and you also do video editing, in this case, come with the 16GB RAM variant laptop.
Storage:
Engineering students need additional space to store software like MATLAB, ETAP, Simulink, etc. At times, students also need storage to save lots of all their favorite movies and songs in one place. Keeping all the above requirements in mind, you need a minimum of 500GB or 1TB of storage space in your laptop.
Display:
The display is not the first thing that an electrical engineering student would look at. So, any 15.6-inch IPS LED screen would work best for you. If you get a screen with high resolution or FHD screen the overall worth of the laptop can shot up by at least $100.
Graphics Card:
Again graphics card is something all the students would not care about as they purchase the laptop majorly to perform day to day tasks and not play games. Having a dedicated high-end graphics card would increase the price of the laptop easily by $200-300, therefore, try to avoid searching for laptops with a dedicated GPU card.
Following are the requirements that you must keep in mind because it will save you cash and also you may get the perfect laptop according to your desires. In the list below, we’ve included six laptops keeping all the above aspects in mind. So, without wasting any more time let’s dive right into it!
6 Best Laptops for Engineering Students
1. Acer Aspire E 15

Electrical engineers don’t need a high-end with top of the line specs laptops. They need a laptop which might perform the task without any lagging problems. In this case, the Acer Aspire E 15 is a nice budget laptop for electrical engineers that comes under $600.
You could not expect the build quality to be flawless in a $600 laptop and well that’s true with Acer aspire E 15 because the laptop comes with a chunky plastic design with a metal texture that overall makes it look premium. It sports a 15.6-inch display which is not that nice in terms of color production. But, the screen is bright and can perform nicely if you wish to watch movies occasionally.
Apart from that, within the hardware, you get a 256GB SSD drive with 8GB of DDR3 RAM and an Intel i5-8250U processor clocked at 3.4GHz. Oh, and also the battery on this laptop is built to last for 10 hrs or additional depending on an individual’s usage.
As engineering students like to play games in their free time, the Acer Aspire E15 comes with GeForce MX150 which might handle medium to low graphics games pretty smoothly. You also get pre-built Windows 10 Home installed with the machine that is a bonus.
Speakers on the laptop are loud enough but once you increase the volume to full you’ll start to feel a bit of noise and it won’t be crisp any longer. Also, this can be a heavy laptop weighing around 2.4Kg (5.3 lbs), thus you’ll need a bag to carry it with you.
Overall, the Acer Aspire E 15 is a nice budget laptop for all the electrical engineers who wish to perform basic daily tasks like watching movies, writing assignments and enjoying low graphics games.
- Screen Size: 15.6 Inches.
- Storage: 256GB SSD.
- RAM: 8GB DDR3 RAM.
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8250u.
- Graphics: Intel GeForce MX150.
- Weight: 5.3 lbs.
PROS
- Budget friendly laptop
- Functions without any lag
- 10hrs of huge battery life
- Bright display
CONS
- Plastic body
- Heavy
2). MSI GV62

MSI is a brand widely known for building the best gaming laptops within the market. If you like to play games quite anything, then the MSI GV62 is a nice budget gaming laptop for electrical engineers.
If I discuss the design of the laptop, the minimal exterior design makes it look simple. There’s a 15.6-inch FHD display that is bright and colorful – excellent for playing games at high frame rates.
Performance wise you get the 8th gen Intel i5-8300H processor clocked at 2.3GHz which may be further boosted at 4GHz. Moreover, there’s a powerful GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4G DDR5 Nvidia graphics card to handle all your gaming with a breeze.
In terms of storage, you get 1TB HDD + 16GB of Intel Optane memory on the laptop. If you don’t know abundant about the octane memory, it’s a combination of both the HDD and SSD. you’ll read in detail about the Optane memory here.
As this is a gaming laptop, the weight is obviously heavy weighing 2.2kg (4.4lbs). but I’d say MSI has done an amazing job in putting up all the hardware in just 2.2kgs of weight. The battery on this laptop can last you close to 4 hrs on normal usage. If you’re playing games, then you can expect anywhere between 2-3hrs of on-screen time.
To summarize, MSI GV62 is a superb laptop under $800 for all the electrical engineers who want to play high-end games and additionally perform day-to-day tasks.
- Screen Size: 15.6 Inches.
- Storage: 16GB IO + 1TB HDD.
- RAM: 8GB DDR4.
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8300H.
- Graphics card: GTX 1050Ti 4GB.
- Weight: 4.8 lbs.
PROS
- An affordable yet a powerful laptop
- Decent performance
CONS
- Relatively heavy
3. Apple MacBook Pro

I know, Apple MacBooks Pro is expensive and not everyone will afford it but If you have a budget between $1000-$1500, then this could be the right choice for you. If you have the budget but $1000, then you’re welcome to skip because I have got 4 other nice options for you.
This MacBook Pro comes with 13.3-inch retina display and it’s a non-touch ID model. The touch ID model would value you around $350 then this model and that I don’t think an electrical engineering student would need a laptop with the bit ID feature. If you still need the touch ID model, then you can get it here.
The display is one among the highlighting parts of this MacBook Pro. It’s bright, vivid and sharp that is perfectly suitable for outdoor usage. The build quality is also nice as you’ll already know Apple provides laptops with the wonderful build quality.
Apple has offered 256GB SSD storage that is nice enough for students. although there’s a model with 128GB storage I don’t think it’d be sufficient for you. The 8GB RAM can let you perform multiple applications directly and it won’t let you down for sure.

In terms of processor, you’ll be getting Intel’s 7th gen Core i5 processor that is not the latest and greatest processor on the market but it will the job fine for you. For gaming experience, there’s an integrated GPU i.e Intel Iris and Graphics 640 that can be useful while playing light-weight games. You can’t expect super quick gaming experience with this integrated graphics card.
The laptop weighs only 3 lbs (1.36 KG) that is lightweight and simply portable in my opinion. You can bring this laptop to college/ school without worrying about its weight. The laptop has 2 USB Type-C Thunderbolt that is quite useful whereas transferring the info but the sad issue about ports on this machine is there are not any traditional USB 2.0 ports which could upset many people.
When it comes to battery life, you’ll expect 5-6 hours whereas doing tasks like browsing, using MS office, watching videos, etc. Whereas doing significant tasks, you can expect the battery to last between 1-2 hours.
Overall, this can be a very good laptop for electrical engineering students for its portability and stable performance.
- Screen Size: 13.3 Inches.
- Storage: 256GB SSD.
- RAM: 8GB.
- Processor: Intel Core i5 7th Gen.
- Graphics card: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640.
- Weight: 3 lbs.
PROS
- Can perform any taks smoothly (Except gaming)
- Lightweight
- USB Type-C Thunderbolt
CONS
- Expensive
- No traditional USB ports
4. Dell XPS 13 9370- A lightweight laptop for electrical engineering

The Dell XPS 13 doesn’t need an introduction because it is one of the most successful and standard laptops around the world from the past few years. This can be the late 2018 model i.e XPS 13 9370 that I’m going to talk right now.
This XPS 13 comes with a 13.3-inch non-touch IPS display which has nice color accuracy and brightness. The SRGB rating of the display is 1000th whereas the Adobe RGB scores 77.
The laptop comes with 256GB M.2 SSD that is probably the only upgradeable factor you’ll find on this machine. The SSD performs faster and has the read and write speed of 3096 MBps and 346 MBps severally.
Dell has offered 8GB DDR3 RAM on this laptop together with Intel’s Core i5 processor i.e Intel Core i5-8250U. With the help of two fans provided on this machine, the heating management is pretty cool and probably you won’t face any heating problems.
Just like the above MacBook Pro, you won’t find any USB 2.0 ports on this laptop too. On the right-hand side, you’ll get one USB Type-C port with Thunderbolt 3 support and a micro SD card reader. On the left-hand side, you’ll get two USB Type-C ports. The port selection of this machine won’t be suitable for everybody.
The laptop weighs simply 2.7 lbs (1.2 KG) and it is not at all heavy by any means. Traveling with this laptop won’t be hard for you and you won’t even like a laptop bag to hold it.
The battery life on this XPS 13 is kind of superb. Dell claims that it will last up to 19 hours but that’s too sensible to be true. With light-weight to moderate usage, you’ll expect around 10 hours of battery life that is extraordinary in my opinion.
- Screen Size: 13.3 Inches.
- Storage: 256GB SSD.
- RAM: 8GB DDR3.
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8250U.
- Graphics card: Intel UHD Graphics 620.
- Weight: 3 lbs..
PROS
- Super fast performance
- Extremely lightweight
- Great battery life
CONS
- The position of the webcam is weird
5. Acer Predator Helios 300 (2018 Model)- The Best electrical engineering laptop

If you haven’t heard about Acer Predator Helios 300 before, let me tell you that this is one of the top-selling laptops on Amazon that has over 1600 reviews with a rating of 4.1. That the was stats of the 2017 model of this laptop and Acer has discharged the new model in June 2018 that again has lots of positive reviews from their customers.
Without bragging too much about this laptop, let’s dive into the most topics to discuss.
The 2018 version of Acer Predator Helios 300 comes with the identical 15.6-inch display with the good build quality. The display has improved from its previous version. The sRGB ratings of the display are 98 and have Adobe RGB ratings of a bit over 60th that is not bad at all.
You’ll be getting 256GB SSD along with 16GB DDR4 RAM that is over enough to perform multiple apps at once. The processor on this machine is that the same one that you’re elderly the above dell Inspiron. Again, you don’t have to worry about the processor because of it one of the best within the market right now.
You can really take your gaming experience to the next level on this laptop because it comes with GeForce GTX 1060 that comes with 6GB GDDR5 VRAM. You can scan more about this powerful GPU here.
If you did not just like the port choice of the above laptops, then you’re surely going to like of this one. There plenty of ports offered by Acer on this machine. On the left-hand side, there’s an ethernet port, a USB Type-C (Not Thunderbolt 3), HDMI, 1 USB 3.0 and full-sized SD card slot.
The battery life on this laptop too is pretty average. You can expect 3-4 hours that is not at all an excellent thing for college kids UN agency wish to bring it to varsity.
At last, I simply wish to mention that this can be the most effective laptop computer for engineering science students during this entire list in terms of value for the cash.
- Screen Size: 15.6 Inches.
- Storage: 256GB SSD.
- RAM: 16GB DDR4.
- Processor: Intel Core i7-8750H.
- Graphics card: GTX 1060 6GB.
- Weight: 5.5 lbs.
PROS
- Great value for money.
- Amazing performance.
CONS
- Battery life is not great.
6. Asus Vivobook F510UA

With over 1200+ positive reviews the Asus Vivobook F510UA is giving a fierce competition to Lenovo Yoga and Dell XPS series. Starting at just over $600 it’s excellent for all the engineering students who are trying to find a complete laptop for their daily needs.
If I discuss the design of the laptop, it’s thin and the laptop weighs only 3.7 lbs (1.7 kg) which is fairly portable I would say which makes it super easy to carry in one hand without having a laptop bag.
The 15.6-inch IPS LED display includes a bright color panel with 1920*1080 pixels giving you nice viewing angles. Except for that, the bezels on this one are super thin with over 80th screen to body ratio giving you additional screen real estate. If you’re looking for a laptop to watch movies, I’d suggest this one.
Also, it comes with the unique splendid visual optimization technology that produces optimized visuals for any kind of content you watch on your laptop.
There are the fingerprint sensor and a technology keyboard style which gives your palms rest whereas typing intensely.
Talking about the performance, the Vivobook F510UA comes with an 8GB DDR4 RAM with that you’ll watch movies, listen to songs and browse the internet all at once with none lagging issues.
Well, the 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD is sufficient for any engineering student who needs to store all their vital documents and presentations in the laptop. The battery life on the laptop is good too. Overall, it’s a good low-cost budget laptop if you want a good various to the Dell XPS 13 in under $700 it is the thanks to going.
- Screen Size: 15.6 Inches.
- Storage: 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD.
- RAM: 8GB DDR4.
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8250U.
- Graphics card: Intel UHD 620 graphics.
- Weight: 3.7 lbs.
PROS
- Very good display at this budget.
- Lightweight and portable.
- Performs reasonably well.
CONS
- Slow hard drive.
- Build should have been better.
Final Words:
Those were our top 6 laptops picks for the electrical engineering students who are on a budget. All the laptops have their pros and cons you need to decide that one suits your desires.
If you found this article helpful consider sharing it along with your other engineering friends who are searching for a budget-friendly well-rounded laptop. Thanks for taking the time and reading the article.