Tech Best College laptop?

[ValentineIllusion]

Sooo, I just finished my first year of college with my old high school laptop, and it worked pretty decently, but I'm really in need of an upgrade right now. It runs horribly, it overheats, and now there are big, pixelated, black spots on my screen that aren't *too* bothersome, but they cover up a decent chunk of my screen. So, I'm in the market to buy a new one, but I honestly have noooo idea what's actually going to be good. Now, I'm here for help! c:

The things I'm looking for:

• Just something that will run well and reliably. My processor right now is awful, and I'm really afraid of getting another bad one.
• Something good for college.
• I'm not huge on PC gaming, but I have a couple I play here and there, and I don't want them to trash my computer. Especially now that E3 just happened, I'm stupidly excited for that Cyberpunk game, and I want it to at least run and not lag so much I can't enjoy it.
• Really looking for something lightweight, that I think is called an ultrabook? But I also reeeally don't want a Macbook, just because I hate the Apple operating system.
• And I hate touch screens and 2-in-1 computers - especially the latter. But, I feel like it's impossible to find computers without either of those anymore.

Aaand my current contenders:

• Microsoft Surface Book 2 - Goes against everything I care about with the touchscreen/2-in-1 business, but I was told it'll run well enough without literally setting itself on fire.
• Razer Blade Stealth - Was my frontrunner, but then I heard it's got an overheating problem and it's not actually good enough for games at all.
• Asus Zenbook - Cheapest ultrabook I've found so far, comes in pink, has a decent processor, but I haven't heard from any actual person that it runs decently.

Sooo, yeah. I know absolutely nothing about this tech stuff, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Ashfeather]

Good graphics + lightweight is the tricky combo. I have a laptop which has a good graphics card - it can play most games very well, however due to it being lightweight the air flow inside is nearly non existing and it will get hot enough to fry eggs on pretty fast. Getting your laptop egg-frying-hot is usually not super great for it's length or quality of life. Cyberpunk comes out god-knows-when (sometime beween 2018-2021 I think is the ETA currently?), so who knows what it will actually require. An NVIDIA graphics card usually works with everything to at least some degree though. Take note that Cyberpunk is also coming out for PS and XBOX, so, I mean, if you have one of those you don't have to stress out your laptop with it.
From my own biased opinion Asus laptops seem to do pretty good without being too overpriced. I considered getting an Asus gaming laptop to do some away-from-home rendering work on before getting my hands on the nameless thing I have now. They had a decent rep around my classroom full of 3D art and gaming fanatics.

 

[marshmarrow]

I'm currently loving my Dell XPS 13, you can find some pretty good deals on Amazon for under $1,000. Also, it has a great insurance plan through Dell, which you should definitely consider if you plan on bringing your laptop out on campus. It'll cover everything except theft, and replace the laptop if necessary. The ASUS Zenbook was my second choice.


It's very light and quiet, and it handles games well, but I'm not picky about graphics so you might be a better judge yourself. It does have a touch feature but it's not a 2-in-1, and it can be easily disabled. I also recommend uninstalling/reinstalling Windows after you get it, because it comes packed with quite a lot of bloatware. That would be my only complaint so far.

It stays very cool when browsing and using lightweight software, heating up a little bit when playing games, but nothing I play is very hard on the system.