What laptop to buy for using ArcGIS?

[ChristinMeier]

Hi, (TL;DR below!)

I'm studying Environmental Engineering in Germany and for that I need ArcGIS. My current laptop isn't really a workhorse and it's very heavy, I don't want to carry it around to university everytime, so I'm planning to buy a new one right now.

Besides the work ArcGIS, I'm mainly doing lighter tasks like browsing and watching movies, so the most intense program I'm running will be ArcGIS and I want it to run quite fast and reliable.
Do you have a special laptop recommandation for me or at least what processor & memory configuration would be nice?

My budget is around 1200€ and I've already looked at quite a lot of laptops, but I can't really tell what's best and what might be to overkill.

I've seen a Zenbook 310 for around 1000€ that has an i7 quad core CPU and 8 GB of RAM, but my boyfriend said I'd be good to go with a laptop with an i5 dual core and 8GB of RAM that's half the price, because the simulation probably won't take that much longer on the slower CPU and it's a 50% saving.

Of course he also has no clue about ArcGIS, so that's why I'm asking here.

TL;DR:

What specs should a laptop have to run ArcGIS quite good (e.g. i7 quad core + 8GB @ 1000€ vs. i5 dual core + 8GB @ 500€ still a good laptop?)

[DanPatterson_Retired]

ArcGIS 10.4.x for Desktop system requirements—ArcGIS Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

Video specs are key as is ram.  The minimum * 2 would last a while.

[DarrenWiens2]

I'll just point out the minimum requirements: ArcGIS 10.3.x for Desktop system requirements—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

For my two cents, if you're an undergrad taking ArcGIS classes, you can likely get away with somewhat less than a graduate student/GIS professional analyzing real data, since the classes are likely more about learning ArcGIS than crunching heavy data. It also depends how frequently you're going to be using ArcGIS. If infrequently, you can probably live with some lag, but if you're using it all day everyday, a few seconds/minutes starts to add up. I've got 12GB RAM and use ArcGIS fulltime, and I still complain about it being slow.

edit: you should also check with your university program for recommendations. For example, I bought a fairly nice computer in preparation for my schooling, only to find out that my program used ArcGIS in a virtual environment (i.e. hooking into their computers virtually), so all I really needed was a fast internet connection because I was using their CPU/RAM.