re: Laptop recommendations for undergrad engineering

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Holy crap I didn't realize Dell XPS laptops were that spendy. All of their 15" i7s appear to be 2k plus and they all look to be 10th and 9th gen (we are on gen 11) with 3 generation old graphics. Not saying they aren't capable machines, just that you could get a lot newer or the same tech for cheaper.

For instance:
This Dell XPS 15 Laptop for $1800

Has the same main hardware as this:

ASUS Zephyrus M15 for $1100


OP, personally I much prefer a ~15" screen to a ~13". On the 32GB v 16GB RAM, 32GB is a lot 16GB is fine. Since you don't say he is going to be gaming and the requirements call for discrete graphics I think you would be fine going with an Nvidia 1650 card, which is probably the oldest you'll find in a laptop with discrete graphics anyway, or above (oldest => 1650 1660, last gen => 2060 2070 2080, newest => 3060 3070 3080). NVME SSD as the main drive, they're lightning quick. i7 10th gen or 11th gen, preferably 11th gen since that is the newest. Or AMD Ryzen 7 or 9. Brands I'd be looking at ASUS, MSI, Dell, Razer, Lenovo. Filtering for those specs at Best Buy, you can change the filter to 13" screen as well.

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Yeah, I mean Dell XPS's are pricey, but in general they rate as the almost always the highest quality laptops you can get.

You are paying for that premium though for sure.

For engineering stuff, 16 GB should be fine for school work.

The Asus is a good deal, but again also on 10th gen, so its just a matter of what he needs, what his budget is, how much he wants it to last, etc...