Laptop Suggestions

[jsdemar]

As others have mentioned, I've had good results with Dell laptops for many years. I run several CAD programs on my old XPS 14Z with an extra monitor. Replaced the battery twice, keyboard twice, and replaced the CDROM drive with a TB drive. Also put in a SS drive and dual boot to Ubuntu Linux.

I'm not sure what I'd replace it with, there are many good choices.

 

[TomBroad]

A better way to put it is that they are pretty terrible at anything than basic middle/highschool work.
I know as that’s all I had computer wise for the last 6+ years. But I will admit, that they are not bad at what they were intended to do, and are decently unkillable.
But the second you run anything different than google docs, they either suck at it (even OnShape struggled) or straight up can’t run the program because of ChromeOS

That's the intent of ChromeBooks -- something to let the school kids treat roughly and run basic school work, plus make it easy to keep everyone on the "same page" by using on-line resources. I have an old Acer that I picked up at Walmart for small change. Even runs Linux in parallel. Actually works OK so long as you stay within the limitations of the low-powered hardware. Mine is out-of-date (a really annoying thing that happens with Google), but I've been able to update the Linux and even run OpenRocket on the field without hauling along my laptop and charger. Not to shabby for loose change. However it is NOT NOT NOT intended for anything compute or graphic intensive, so CAD is out except for on-line CAD like OnShape.