Starting Fall 2020, all students are required to follow the laptop requirement. Incoming students should follow Fall and Spring semester requirements each academic year. Current requirements are for new and transfer students enrolling in Fall 2020. Laptops with a webcam are required or a separate webcam, for laptops without inbuilt one, is required.
There are three types of models to consider for Summer 2023 and later:
- Recommended with discrete GPU
- Recommended without discrete GPU
- A minimal functional low-cost under $1000 option
Computer Engineering classes use software only available on Windows–students will not get support from instructors or the department if the computer is running macOS, Linux, or any operating system other than Windows.
All students who qualify for Financial Aid may use received funds to purchase a computer.
The general purpose campus Windows computer labs is available to access from a Web Browser at http://virtual.umbc.edu/ .
Recommended PC with discrete GPU:
- Intel Core i7 (thirteenth generation) or better (or equivalent performance AMD)
- 32GB RAM or more
- 512GB SSD or more
- nVidia discrete GPU (4GB RAM or more)
- Webcam and microphone
- 1920×1080 minimum screen
Capable of running at least Windows 11 and Linux
Example: G16 Gaming Laptop: ($1,949.99) – choose nVidia GeForce RTX 4070, 32 GB RAM, and 1024GB SSD
Optional: 4 year Next Business Day Onsite Service support ($219.00) or 4 year Next Business Day Onsite Service support with optional Accidental damage ($348.00)
Recommended PC without discrete GPU:
- Intel Core i5 (thirteenth generation) or better (or equivalent performance AMD)
- 32GB RAM or more
- 512GB SSD or more
- Webcam and microphone
- 1920×1080 minimum screen
Capable of running at least Windows 11 and Linux
Example: XPS 13 Plus Laptop ($1,999.99) – choose 32GB RAM and 1024GB SSD and 13th Generation Core i7
Optional: 4 year Next Business Day Onsite Service support ($359.00) or 4 year Next Business Day Onsite Service support with optional Accidental damage ($558.80)
Introductory PC model (may need to be replaced with a recommended system after fourth or fifth semester, depending on chosen classes):
- Intel Core i5 (thirteenth generation) or better (or equivalent performance AMD)
- 16GB RAM or more
- 512GB SSD or more
- Webcam and microphone
- 1920×1080 minimum screen
Capable of running at least Windows 11 and Linux
Example: Inspiron 14 Laptop ($949.99). Quality of Dell Inspiron may not be as good as Dell XPS. Mileage may vary.
Optional: 4 year Next Business Day Onsite Service support ($169.00) or 4 year Next Business Day Onsite Service support with optional Accidental damage ($268.00)
All current Apple Macintosh computer models, since the switch to ARM CPUs (M series), have compatibility issues to run certain required applications for classes. Computers need to be able to support x86 64-bit software.