Best light-weight 2017 laptop running Unity 5 smoothly?

News & General Discussion
1

Hi,
I want to buy a light-weight laptop so I can take and use it everywhere and easy but also runs Unity smoothly as well.
My factors in short are:

  • light-weight (preferably not more than 1.5 kilograms)
  • Runs Unity, 3D max, Photoshop, … smoothly
  • Except that, I want it for programming mostly
  • I don’t play games, though, so I think I don’t need a high-end graphic card

With these factors, what is the best laptop that suits me (without considering money at this point)? I searched a lot and found that Zenbook 3 is a good choice, but lacking a dedicated graphic card, which made me
hesitate if it can take unity or not!

And about the games I want to make, well, mostly 2D, but also some 3D at about the level of quality of clash royale. And 3Ds max, I use it for viewing and modifying my friends’ models, which again at most an animationic (!) human, to best fit in game.

I saw topics with almost the same questions but neither they’re so up-to-date (I want it to have nearly the latest configs, like kaby lake) nor I got the answer I wanted.

So given this info, is zenbook 3 (or UX490UA aka Deluxe) good for me? Or do you suggest me buy another with less money, if available? (consider the weight a lot, though, because that’s an important one! And I’m spending all the money I have collected for many years!! So I want my choice to be as good-inexpensive-light as possible!)

Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

2

If money isn’t an issue for real, a tricked out 15" MacBook Pro is more than powerful enough to handle everything you mentioned running smooth as butter… at the same time, even. Although plenty powerful, it’s super light and easy to port around. You’re looking at close to $3k for a new top tier one, but you can get one a few years old (mine’s a top of the line 2015) for substantially less.

3

I will be recommending 2 Laptops - One Windows and the other is Mac.

Windows 10 Laptop -
HP 15-ay013nr - Around $450, this is pretty much the best laptop for programming. Win 10, 15.6" HD Screen, 8 GB RAM and Intel HD 520 integrated Graphics. All that you need for programming for a decent price. It’s a bit heavy (2.13 Kg), but is the best laptop for programming as far as I can see.
FULL Specs-
Screen Size - 15.6-Inch

Screen Resolution - 1920×1080

Touchscreen - No

Other Display Specs - Anti-glare coating, TN display tech (narrower viewing angles than IPS)

Processor - Intel Core i5-6200U 6th Gen “Skylake” Dual-Core 2.3-2.8GHz 3MB Cache (~3,900 PassMark benchmark points)

Graphics - Intel HD 520 Integrated Graphics

RAM - 8GB

Storage - 128GB SSD, 1000GB (1TB) HDD

Optical Drive - DVD Writer

Input - Multi-Touch Trackpad with Physical Buttons, Non-Backlit Keyboard with Numeric Pad

Speakers and Audio - Combo Mic and Headphones Audio Jack, Stereo Speakers

Cameras - Front

Wi-Fi - 802.11AC

Ethernet LAN - Yes

Bluetooth - Yes

USB - 2 x USB 2.0 + 1 x USB 3.0

Video Ports - 1 x HDMI

Media Card Reader - Yes

Battery - “Up to 7 hours and 15 minutes” of battery life

Weight - 4.7 pounds

Height - 1″

Width - 15.1″

Depth - 10″

Windows Version - Windows 10 Home

Warranty - 1-Year

Mac -
Apple MacBook Pro MF839LL/A - This is a bit expensive ($1299). Although you can get it at $1199 on Amazon.com. 8 GB DDR3L RAM, 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 processor (overclocked at 3.1 GHz),13.3" HD Display (better resolution than HP), Intel Iris 6100 Graphics and Light Weight (1.5kg). This one is a bot more overpriced, but meets all your requirements.

Full Specs-
Screen Size - 13.3 inches
Screen Resolution - 2560 x 1600
Max Screen Resolution - 2560x1600 pixels
Processor - 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
RAM - 8 GB LPDDR3
Memory Speed - 1866 MHz
Hard Drive - PCIe
Graphics Coprocessor - Intel Iris Graphics 6100
Chipset Brand - intel
Card Description - integrated
Wireless Type - 802.11A, 802.11 A/C, 802.11B, 802.11G, 802.11n
Number of USB 3.0 Ports - 2
Average Battery Life (in hours) - 9 hours
Other Technical Details
Item Weight - 3.5 pounds
Product Dimensions - 8.6 x 12.3 x 0.7 inches
Item Dimensions L x W x H - 8.62 x 12.35 x 0.71 inches
Computer Memory Type - DDR3 SDRAM
Flash Memory Size - 128 GB
Battery Type - Lithium Polymer (LiPo)
Power Source - AC

I personally recommend the HP one if you are on tight budget and want to get the best.
Although I am not a Mac-lover, If you want you can buy it as it is both light weight and powerful.

4

Unity itself won’t be a problem. I’ve successfully ran it on laptop hardware from eight years ago. What determines if you will have a problem or not is the actual game you are developing with it. If you’re developing a resource heavy game you’ll likely want that dedicated card, but one that isn’t would be fine on integrated.

With the weight requirements you’re specifying you may want to check out the Microsoft Surface line of tablets. We have a number of developers on these forums that have been successfully using them for game development including the coding aspect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface

4 Likes
5

Don’t waste your money on HP laptops. Buy a MacBook Pro and use bootcamp to install Windows. So two stable OS in a single laptop and it works really well.

I have an HP and I’m facing a lot of driver issues with it, and having hard time getting the drivers. And I do have a MacBook Pro (13", i5, 256/8GB) in it I’ve installed windows 10 via boot camp. Unity works really well in both OS and the switch from one OS to another and back would only take less than minute.

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6

I have been using all software you are mentioning with the cheapest pc I can find on market as long I have enough ram. I don’t even look at specs now unless I’m doing CG level of render, IMHO now for the average case creative labour SSD and RAM stay the most important factor. And cheap cpu force to optimize regularly ONLY if you do heavy game, that’s a win fore me, but maybe that’s just me :stuck_out_tongue: and graphic heavy game can be perfectly developed on cheap GPU as long as you polish the graphic last, which is imo a better workflow anyway, embrace the limitation, it’s good for productivity!

7

Honestly, I’ve gone through 4 HP laptops in 4 years. I would not at all recommend HP.

The build quality just sucks and they fall apart.

I picked up an MSI last year - not lightweight - but the quality in every aspect is fantastic.

8

I use Unity on my Surface Pro 4, and it works great. Extremely light weight. (only 786g). 16GB, SSD and be sure to get the i7 so you have the iris pro graphics. It’s not a gaming powerhouse, but it’s great to carry around, and the battery lasts a long time. I use Blender, Photoshop, and Unity, usually all open at the same time.

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cheapest macbook at least makes all platforms targetable and you can be sure windows will work on it too.

10

I don’t know guys, but I hv been using HPs for 10 years. I had a Compaq first, and now i hv a Split x2. I don’t find HP laptops bad. But it’s personal experience, though.

No Offense bro, but I do think MSI is seriously over-priced. I know that they are “damn good” Laptops with superior build quality and all, but still, if you see the specs, it’s seriously overpriced.

I strongly agree with people who are saying “Surface”. Surface Laptops are the best that you can get in light-weight category. And they look pretty damn cool.

11

It was the cheapest machine that had the specs that I wanted. I just searched newegg by hardware. Maybe it’s overpriced from factory, but you can find very good deals.

12

Compare these two nearly identically specced laptops (ignore the 4K res. Off sale the HP laptop is almost a thousand dollars more expensive and yet you’re labelling the MSI laptops as seriously overpriced…

Not Found: 404 Error - HP - $2,098 Sale ($2,623 Off Sale)
Not Found: 404 Error - MSI - $1,649

Just something to note I purposefully included an MSI with just a 1080p display despite the HP having a 4K one because you cannot do 4K gaming with a GTX 1060. It simply lacks the ROPs to drive it at 60 FPS regardless of game quality. If there were an HP model that supported a 1080p display I would have linked it but they don’t make one with it.

13

I am not saying that MSI is the only over-priced laptop brand out there, but if you see the specs, it really costs a lot.

14

Only if you compare it to a laptop that is seriously underpowered. Spending less than $1,600 on a laptop will not get you a good GeForce 10 series card (you’ll get the significantly weaker 900 series), you won’t get a Core i7 (usually you’ll get a Core M or a Core i5 if you’re lucky), you won’t get an SSD (or if you do it won’t have an HDD as well), etc.

For the specs they provide - and you will need these specs if you want to develop a heavy 3D game - they’re the most reasonably priced laptops that I know of and they’re known to be very good quality too.

15

Well, I think you misinterpreted me. If you make a custom PC with that price, you are going to get a PC Wayyyy more powerful than that. You can get GTX 1070, 4K & VR and Even more in $1500.
I am getting a custom PC made, and I find it much cheaper than a laptop.

16

Same here. You do know the whole point of this thread though is that someone wants a laptop and not a desktop, right?

What you won’t get is mobility.

No, I suspected you were heading down the “buy a desktop” path.

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Yeah, but you can’t, you know, carry a PC around or put it a lot of places because it takes up so much space. This isn’t a thread about building your own PC, it’s a thread about buying a laptop.

18

Yeah, It was just to defend my point XD
Sorry for going off-topic

19

Best case if you did manage to build an ultra portable desktop (my solution would involve the following case - supports full length GPUs - with a small monitor screwed to the side of it), you would still be restricted by the power requirements.

3098601--233924--mini-itx.jpg

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I recently bought an MSI laptop. It was the best value for the performance that I needed. It is not the best build quality in the world (at least compared to macs) but it is a very nice computer.

A year or two ago, I bought a $500 HP laptop for my wife to replace her dying macbook. Performance wise, it was a gazillion times faster than her Macbook but she hated it. I ended up returning it and giving her my old 2011 macbook pro.

I love the build quality of the macbook pros but the value for the money has dropped since I bought my last one. The build quality is worth a premium but I still think they are overpriced (although I haven’t checked out the ones that were announced this week.)