These are current recommendations from the Office of Information Technology for employees who are shopping for a personal/home are listed below.  There are recommendations for both PCs and Macs.  

*Note, this is not a University purchase, but a helpful guide for employees who want to buy a home PC for their own use and need advice.

If you are a student looking for similar information, please see the recommendations provided by your academic college.  These recommendations can be found this Knowledge Base Article.

We recommend a 15” laptop if no external monitors are being used and have listed three options based upon budget and desired computing power.

PC Recommendations

Budget:

• 15” laptop
• Windows 10 Professional
• 8^th Gen core i5 processor
• 8 GB RAM
• 256 GB solid state hard drive
• Bluetooth, wireless 802.11ac
• TPM chip to support hard drive encryption
• Web cam with built in microphone
• 3 year warranty with accidental damage protection.

Mainstream:

• 15” business class laptop (Dell Latitude, Lenovo ThinkPad)
• Windows 10 Professional
• 9^th or 10^th generation core i5 processor
• 16 GB RAM
• 512 GB Solid State hard drive
• Bluetooth, Wireless 802.11 ac
• Back lit keyboard
• TPM chip to support hard drive encryption
• Web cam with built in microphone
• 4 year warranty with accidental damage protection

High Performance:

• 15” business class laptop (Dell Latitude, Lenovo ThinkPad)
• Windows 10 Professional
• 9^th or 10^th generation core i7 processor
• 32 GB RAM
• 512 GB Solid State hard drive
• Bluetooth, wireless 802.11ac
• Add in Graphics card
• Back lit keyboard
• TPM chip to support hard drive encryption
• Web cam with built in microphone
• 4 year warranty with accidental damage protection

Mac Recommendations

Budget Model - 13-inch MacBook Air - Space Gray

• Retina display with True Tone
• 1.1GHz quad-core 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz
• 8GB 3733MHz LPDDR4X memory
• 256GB SSD storage
• Intel Iris Plus Graphics
• Backlit Magic Keyboard - US English
• Touch ID
• Force Touch trackpad
• Two Thunderbolt 3 ports
• AppleCare+ 3 year warranty

Main Stream Model - 16-inch MacBook Pro - Space Gray

• 2.6GHz 6‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz
• 16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
• AMD Radeon Pro 5300M with 4GB of GDDR6 memory
• 512GB SSD storage
• 16-inch Retina display with True Tone
• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• Backlit Magic Keyboard - US English
• AppleCare+ 3 year warranty

High Performance Model - 16-inch MacBook Pro - Space Gray

• 2.3GHz 8‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz
• 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
• AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB of GDDR6 memory
• 1TB SSD storage
• 16-inch Retina display with True Tone
• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• Backlit Magic Keyboard - US English
• AppleCare+ 3 year warranty