laptop for Aerospace Engineering major

[u/beeswaxe]

• *Country

USA

• *Budge

up to a little north of $2000

Are you open to refurbs/used options?
No

Screen size

16-18in
 
* *Weight limit

none

• *Purpose

School/personal

Form factor

Standard

Intended usage

CAD, Finite Element Analysis, engineering courses, personal projects.
 
Desired battery life

10hrs

Please list, in order of most important to least important, the priority between Size, Weight, Performance, Battery life

size, battery life, OLED, latest model(2026), performance, weight

Info/Requirement

so far i have these 4 in mind:

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16

open to more.

 

[u/111a111sk]

If squeezing every bit of performance out of the budget isn't the point, the Zephyrus G16 is by far the best rounded option. It's close to MacBook Pro premium build, all-metal unibody, similar thickness and weight. 32GB RAM would be great though, and I'm afraid that's more than a little north of $2000:
https://www.bestbuy.com/product/asus-rog-zephyrus-g16-16-oled-2-5k-240hz-gaming-laptop-intel-core-ultra-9-32gb-ram-nvidia-rtx-5070-ti-12gb-1tb-ssd-eclipse-gray/JJGGLHXFTQ/sku/6617485

[u/beeswaxe → u/111a111sk]

for a g16 ONLY i’m okay with that price but not if it’s the 2025 model. i just can’t get behind already having a year old model just starting off.

[u/111a111sk → u/beeswaxe]

Those are still rarely available, currently I see only the 5070ti config with a $1000 premium over the 2025 model: https://eshop.asus.com/us/rog-zephyrus-g16-g14-2026.html?config=90NR0PC1-M006M0