EE graduate and undergraduate students are required to own a personal laptop for their studies.
Hardware – Laptop
Minimum
Note: This should be an actual laptop, as a tablet or Chromebook will not be sufficient for your EE studies.
- A 64 bit version of Windows, Linux, or Mac OS.
- A 64 bit dual core processor from AMD or Intel
- 4 Gigabytes of RAM with capacity to upgrade
- 12 inch or larger screen with resolution of 1366×768 or higher
- NVidia, AMD, or Intel integrated graphics processor
- USB 2.0 ports
- Built-in or add-on 100 Mbit wired Ethernet
- Hard disk with 256 Gigabyte capacity
Recommended
- A 64 bit version of Windows 10: Most software you will use in your studies runs on Windows, followed by a large number of Linux tools. If you choose a Mac, you will need to dual boot or host a virtual machine on your laptop for some classes. Some students find the extra complexity cumbersome.
- Core i7 processor, or AMD Ryzen
- 8 Gigabytes of RAM or more
- 12 inch or larger screen with resolution of 1366×768 or higher
- Discrete NVidia graphics processor, or NVidia or AMD integrated graphics processor
- USB 3.0 ports
- Integrated 1,000 Mbit wired Ethernet
- Solid State Disk (SSD) with 512 Gigabyte capacity or higher
A resistive touch screen and stylus for taking notes or making drawings is a nice-to-have, but not necessary.
Some examples of laptops you may consider
Any model of recent vintage: Lenovo ThinkPad, Lenovo Yoga, Dell Latitude, Dell Precision, HP EliteBook, etc.
Dell has created a special page specifically for ECE students.
Software
- Select the operating system of your choice (with a strong preference for Windows, native or dual-boot/VM – see above). Certain applications may require a specific operating system. Matlab for example will run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Red Hat or Ubuntu Linux, but certain other packages will only run on Windows.
- UW students can get a number of free Microsoft software through the EE Dreamspark program. See here: http://uwee.onthehub.com/
- Many other vendors provide low-cost software through UW Uware; see here: http://www.washington.edu/itconnect/wares/uware/
If you have any questions, come talk to one of the departmental computing staff