Toshiba P70 for freshman engineering student?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Is this a good computer choice for Freshman Engineering son:
Toshiba P70 Intel Core i7-4700MQ quad core processor
Nvidia GT 740M 2GB dedicated graphics with Optimus
Hybrid 8G 1TB 5400RPM SATA hard drive
12GB (4GBX3) 1600MHz DDR3L memory</p>

<p>Realize that battery life will be short but 17 inch screen is not really that portable anyway and it was pretty affordable after all the coupons/discounts.
Thanks in advance for your opinion.</p>

2

<p>That’ll outperform a lot of desktops.</p>

<p>Personally, I’d go with getting a solid desktop and an inexpensive chromebook or something good enough to run Word, Power Point, and maybe some youtube videos when he might be traveling.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your reply. He can’t lug a desktop cross country but he does have a smaller laptop and a tablet to run the basics if he needs something more portable. So it seems that the P70 will do the engineering stuff? Good!</p>

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<p>Disagreed with RacinReaver, desktops are awful for college!</p>

5

<p>Fidoprincess, if you can afford it. I would really recommend getting a model with a Solid State Drive (SSD) instead of a conventional spinning hard drive (HDD).</p>

<p>SSDs:

  • boot 2x+ faster (for example: [SSD</a> vs HDD Windows Boot Time Comparison - YouTube](<a href=“SSD vs HDD Windows Boot Time Comparison - YouTube”>SSD vs HDD Windows Boot Time Comparison - YouTube))
  • shut down 2x+ faster
  • are more reliable; less prone to failure
  • you can shake the computer without worrying about a spinning disk failing.
  • Faster Data access speed allowing RAM to operate at maximum speed. also helps with the process threading in i7 processors.
  • no defragmentation
  • quieter
  • almost no heat output
    -faster data write speeds</p>

<p>The downside is that Solid state drives cost more, but in the long run they are worth it. Hard Drives fail often and you will lose all your precious data permanently. </p>

<p>This particular laptop isn’t a bad choice at all, but I just would be afraid for incase a part fails. Most likely it would be the hard drive to fail first. </p>

<p>Not trying to sound like a marketer, but many engineering students have had good luck with lenovo laptops because they are quite customizable. </p>

<p>Also, on a large 17 inch laptop make sure the battery is adequate for a days use. Buying a extra battery too can sometimes be a lifesaver :)</p>

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<p>Thanks for your reply, r77r77. Couldn’t afford the ssd-was around $350 more and we were already stretched to get this one. We looked long and hard at the lenovas but they were more as well, unless we got a refurb for about the same price as this one new. I don’t think he will be carrying this laptop to class. He’ll have the other lightweight one if he wants to take notes, etc. or the tablet so we made the judgement call on the ssd. Do students really carry around powerhouse computers to class?</p>

<p>In your other post re:Autocad, it looks like this laptop falls short on the memory-that page says recommended 16GB memory and this one has only 12GB (4GBX3) 1600MHz DDR3L memory. I know I can add another stick but do you think it’s a necessity or just “preferred”?</p>

<p>Also, do you think kid needs an external hard drive to back up data? especially since we couldn’t get the ssd? If so, any recommendations? </p>

<p>Thanks again for your help!</p>