How do we choose a laptop for aeronautical engineering?

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DD and I have looked everywhere in the uni specs and found nothing - she feels she can’t go without one but it seems it’s either cheap and cheerful for ms office and then rely on the lab kit for CAD etc or buy something really very pricey in which case I want to know for certain buying the right thing. Can anyone advise? She’s going to Southampton if that helps. Can she wait and go without to start with? We’ve only got tower PCs here so we can’t even send her with something to tide her over.

Just let her buy one once she knows what to get. Her phone will be sufficient for emails etc that she may need to begin with.

littletreefrog - thanks - I’m inclined to do this. She’s not so keen, but I’d rather fork out once I know what’s what.

Mines doing mech eng, and a gaming laptop has been recommended as it needs the graphics for Cad

Both of my children did/do engineering at university ( chemical and electrical and electronic) and my husband is an aeronautical engineer.

I would just buy a laptop she likes, the programmes / packages she will run will be available on the university servers for her to log into. If it is any help we replaced my daughters ( Chem Eng)last year and bought a HP Pavillion 14 ec0005na.

Snoozvwert that’s helpful, thank you. I’m not keen on buying a £££ paperweight if she can’t then buy the CAD tools to go on it
because they’re aimed at businesses. I am assuming the fact that they don’t define a spec suggests they provide what’s needed there, but DD thinks she needs something that’ll cost more than my car…

Check out other university sites for recommendations. Mine did different engineering but needed a 17 inch screen, fast processor and superlite for carrying. LG Gram was what mine chose (earlier model), and I got a deal in Costco. Mine also needed to hook up second screen to make things easier and got a slimline TV set from a friend. Also needed a 17 inch back pack. They ended up with the Fjallraven backpack which is now used as their airline underseat bag although much newer backpacks now available

I meant to say try the university's IT dept. There's bound to be a helpdesk for staff and students. DD can message them and see if they recommend anything. (I'm pretty sure my DD had to get in touch with the IT dept at her original uni and the study abroad uni she went to to make sure all was fine for her year away.)

I'm a professional engineer with 25 years CAD under my belt.

I would strongly recommend a ThinkPad T14 with a dedicated graphics card. It's unlikely that a student will need workstation class power and if they do uni will provide the software and hardware. Professional kit goes very quickly into the low to mid thousands.

The T14 screen is 14" which is comfortably bigger than 13" but isn't a beast to lug around like 15". It's pretty robust, light, good battery etc. id suggest Windows 11 pro and a dedicated graphics card.

Hi @Daftasabroom please could I ask for some advice? My daughter is planning on going to university next year to do aeronautical engineering. Would a Thinkpad T14 work? When you say it needs a dedicated graphics card would you need to buy this separately? Thank you

Gaming laptop is good for CAD. The HP Legion and LOQ have all the graphics and cpu horsepower you will need for undergrad engineering. The only issue is that gaming/workstation laptops are heavy.

I think as long it's not the most basic graphics she should be okay.

Definitely no need for an off board graphics card.

Good ideas above, OP. Another possibility is that DD can join the online forum TheStudentRoom. She can ask students doing AE at Southampton for online advice.

I don’t think you will need to spend as much as you fear.

I'd recommend contacting the tutors on the course if possible. In my experience the IT department are not going to know the individual course requirements and will give very generic advice.

We're having that same debate now as we want to get one for ds 18th. Apparently it needs a graphics card similar to nvidia GeForce gtx and ideally 16gb ram.

@NCTDN what @poetryandwine said. CAD is not as demanding as it used to be. If your DCs start doing high end simulation it will likely be towards the end of their course and they'll probably need to use a different PC in any case.