Been looking around recently too and it looks like if it’s lightweight + high specs, it’s gonna be expensive. (Easily $3000+ Singapore dollars, it could be different based on where you are).

Try entering your current laptop specs into Co-Pilot and then ask the bot for some recommendations. That’s what I did. Give it info for what you’re gonna be doing and also state what kind of games you play, graphically intense games gonna require much more powerful graphics cards too.

Am currently using Dell Inspiron since 2018 and it still works well ,but it’s heavy, so I’m looking around to find something lighter. My commute to uni is about 1.5hrs so the weight matters more to me now. Something you may want to consider too.

Would be great if you could go down to a shop to look around and have a feel of the laptops.

Also if you can afford it, I think it’s worth getting something midrange compared to the lowest cost stuff as the laptop is smth you’ll be using for the next 5 years easily.

Unfortunately I don’t know much about the actual components, so I dare not comment on those 🫣

If you are gaming you need one with dedicated gpu. Take dell and hp out of the choices. Go with lenovo, asus, msi

Hp zbook studio, Lenovo Thinkpad p1/x1 extreme, Dell precision 5690, just get refurbished workstation laptops, they’ve usually been treated better than musty teenagers or gamers who just play Elden Ring and God of War

Dell is better.

HP known well for hinge issue.

HP = Hinge Problem

Lenovo and Dell are better choices for school use. Ideally, choose a business series laptop from them.

Manufacturer doesn’t really matter too much, just look at specs.

Recommend Asus. Asus is one of leading mainboard manufcturers.

Would you purchase it in US.

What is your budget ?

I’ve had mixed reviews about ASUS, a lot of the better models are out of my price range. I only know people who game on them so I wasn’t sure about having to use them for school.

I’ve been looking at a Lenovo - Ideapad 1i 15.6" FHD Touchscreen Laptop - Intel Core i3-1215U with 8GB Memory - Intel UHD Graphics - 256GB SSD - Cloud Gray.

But again, I know nothing of computers so I’m basically just basing a decisions off reviews.

What do college students do with 16 gb ram,intel ultra processor and graphics card 🤔 ,even my i3 can perform coding task.

Oof, I feel that spreadsheet pain — once Excel starts gaslighting you by freezing every time you scroll, it’s time for an upgrade

Between the two, I’d lean toward the Dell 16 Plus with the Ultra 7, especially if your priority is raw performance. That Ultra 7 will handle stats workloads, giant datasets, and multitasking better than the ZBook’s Ultra 5. Plus, unless you're running GPU-heavy software (like 3D rendering or CAD), the RTX 1000 in the ZBook is a bit overkill for your use case.

Also, Dell’s XPS and Plus models have come a long way in terms of build quality and thermals, so you’re not sacrificing much in that department. You’ll get a bigger performance boost from a stronger CPU than from a mid-range GPU in stats-heavy workflows.

If you want to dig into a few more balanced picks for students who game, code, and wrestle with huge Excel files for fun I wrote up a quick guide here:
👉 https://eternaltouristreviews.blogspot.com/2025/03/best-laptop-for-gaming-students-and.html

Hope this helps, feel free to shoot me a DM if you need anything else, happy hunting!

I think you can buy a cheaper laptop for that kind of work honestly

Don't buy unknown brands like Nimo. Also you might not need a gaming laptop for light gaming. They have terrible battery life. Look for something that has a U series processor. They have good battery life.

just pickup a used thinkpad, you can get a great one for like 300 bucks these days and they hold up for YEARS. they are built like a tank and the keyboard in them are fantastic.

Used thinkpad

Get a used g6 or a omen with a 3070. 2070 2080 gpus are okay

None of them is good. HP would have been decent, but 2050 was too weak even when it was new, about 10 years ago. I would recommend some laptop without dedicated graphics card but with Ryzen 8700 or higher cpu. They have Radeon 780M integrated graphics which is comparable to low-end dedicated ones. Just make sure it has a bit more ram, like 32G, because integrated graphics uses it.

Or get some used laptop with at least 3060 GPU. I'd look into Lenovo Legion series or Thunderobot, those are pretty good for their price.

Depends.

However my experience with DELL machines has not been great, and I probably wouldn't choose one any time soon

you can't really compare multiple companies when they each have over 10 lineups of laptop tiers

All manufacturers have cheap garbage machines, top-tier business grade mobile workstations, and everything in between.

You need to be more specific.

No

Dell and HP are same tier but HP updating latest spec is very slow compare to dell (business lineup). for warranty based on experience dell do better, issue with HP. most HP service getting terrible in my country

More of a laptop than a student college student needs.

Unless they are an Engineering or Video Processing student, they will do better with an ultra-light 12-14" laptop with a long run time. I got my daughter a Lenovo 2-in-1 for about $600.

I have a MacBook air^ and a pc at home running a 3060ti I built in 2020 msi motherboard 16 gb ram. Pretty basic system. And the majority of ai frameworks used cuda cores which the m series on the Mac’s lack which will make it very difficult to run open sources models but again I’m to get my masters so I need more.

And this is still cheaper than a brand new 24 MacBook Pro which is wild lol

Thanks but this is way overboard and priced. Its better to build a desktop

Does it come with it's own power plant?

No, not hp consumer line

Not that model.

Look for either a ProBook, EliteBook or ZBook if you want to go for HP, otherwise avoid.

Zbook. I refurbish those at a volunteer computer repair shop.

$680 for an i3 and 8gb is terrible.

16gb of ram minimum, and you can get a mid modern cpu in this budget too.

HP is the best... The king of laptops. God bless HP..