I bought an Envy x360 in 2017. I gave it up in 2020 only because its fixed 12G memory was insufficient as pandemic WFH got underway, with the vastly higher workload I was imposing on it because it became my main conduit to and for work, so it was retired and replaced with something beefier. I gave it to a family member who is still using it, as far as I know.

They’re fine machines.

Gaming laptops suffer from poor battery life when the dGPU is heavily used. When operating on the iGPU – non-gaming, non-GPU-computational work – they should (hm, “should”) perform no worse than a laptop without a dGPU.

There is a certain bad attitude on the part of some against HP. I’ve never understood it. I’ve had a half dozen HP laptops in the last 15-20 yrs and never really had any issue with them.

I recently gained a Lenovo Legion Pro 5i with which I am very pleased. i7 13th, nvidia 4070, 32G, 2x1T. Lower configurations of the 5i can probably be found at your price point (16G, 4050 or 4060, that sort of thing). I’m not a gamer, I work in engineering simulation, but I look for gamer configurations because that’s where I find build quality that’s high enough and component selection at the higher end.

Be kind to your eyes, get a good display. The 5i’s 2560x1600 (16:10) 240Hz is gorgeous.

This page says “[Dell 5570] is no longer available, but Dell offers similar products,” so that’s out of the running.

The 7440…well, it’s got an i5. If I were you, I’d prefer an i7 or i9. But of course you pay for that.

ThinkPads are generally good, quality machines, you really can’t go wrong. Personally, I’ve recently gained a Legion Pro 5i but at the configuration I got (i7 13th, nvidia 4070, 32G, 2x1T) it may be a bit out of your price range (US$1800). You can find slightly lower configurations (4060, 16G) that might get to $1500.

Bear in mind that “bigger” is a virtue when it comes to both storage and memory. Software will bloat, both storage to hold the installation and memory to run it. Anyone selling you a machine these days with just 256G for main storage is … an untrustworthy person. On memory, for any engineering work, avoid 8G machines, it’s not enough. 16G will do for now – probably – but by the time you finish your degree, it won’t.

Also, larger displays will make you happier. The only downside of a 17" vs a 15" is how easily you can pack it away, otherwise the larger display will be much easier on your eyes.

Take it out, attach it to some other machine, copy data from it to somewhere else, detach it, re-insert it into original machine.

It was a great loss to me when HP Omens lost their numpads after the 2020 model year (15-dh series).

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i. i7 13th, nvidia 4070, 16G, 1T NVME, beautiful 2560x1600 240Hz display, and a gaggle of external port connectivity (2 @ USB-C/Tbolt, 4 @ USB-A, HDMI, RJ45 ethernet, …). US$1800.