The best laptops for graphic designers in 2024: Expert tested and reviewed

Table Of Content

• Best Laptops With Performance GeForce Nvidia GPUs We've Tested
• 🎒 Portability vs. Power
• Dell Precision 5680 Review
• ✅ RAM (Memory)
• Testing the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra: Plenty of Power for Almost Every Task
• Dell XPS 8960 Desktop – Best PC for Graphic Design and Video Editing
• ASUS ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED — Best Laptop for Graphic Design and Video Editing

Below I share the best based on performance, value, and my first-hand experience making sure they can handle everything from graphic design, to building intricate 3D models and editing high-quality videos. When it comes to video editing laptops, RAM is an important spec to pay attention to. Generally speaking, the more RAM you have, the faster and more responsive your video playback will be, and it'll also help you run multiple applications simultaneously.

Best laptops for graphic design: Top 10 picks for solid performance Mint - Mint

Best laptops for graphic design: Top 10 picks for solid performance Mint.

Posted: Mon, 01 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Best Laptops With Performance GeForce Nvidia GPUs We've Tested

This laptop is the one for those graphic design beginners who also want a portable solution with an industry-leading processor. This laptop has a stellar battery life, which gives you approximately 10 hours of work time when on battery saving mode and an average of 8 hours and 43 minutes for regular use. This laptop offers you around 10 hours of battery life, enough juice to get you through a full workday. This laptop boasts up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD, providing you plenty of room for all your creative projects, while also allowing lightning-fast access to all your files and software. It also highlights its latest Corei9 processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics, giving you the power to store and utilize multiple Adobe Creative Cloud apps without any lags and problems.

🎒 Portability vs. Power

So, plenty of RAM makes it easier to multitask or run intensive programs and processes. We would suggest around 16GB, but this can be rare if you’re sticking to a tighter budget. While you’d be fine with 8GB of RAM in some cases, you’d need at least 16GB for a smooth experience.

Dell Precision 5680 Review

In order to process the high graphical demands of modern games, laptops need to have powerful discrete GPUs, and these require serious cooling to work effectively. AMD and Intel are the two names in town when it comes to processors. These days, there’s little distance between the two brands, and both put out some high quality processors for top-end laptops. Then there’s Apple’s own Apple M1 Chip, which appears in the MacBook Pro 13-inch model and MacBook Air, which has proven to be very powerful. Luckily, laptops are able to offer greater flexibility to designers, without compromising on power (so long as you pick the right one). It’s ideal for replacing a desktop PC without losing any power or high-quality graphics.

As far as the display is concerned, the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3 sports a 12.4-inch screen with a 1536 x 1024 resolution. The display has a peak brightness of 300 nits, which makes it somewhat usable outdoors. Like some of the best lightweight laptops, this one weighs only 2.49 pounds, which makes it portable. It can also serve as one of the best graphic design laptops for students due to its price and portability.

Testing the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra: Plenty of Power for Almost Every Task

Prices start at $1,599 for the base model (which is still no slouch with an M3 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD). The M3 Max configuration will set you back $3,199, but hey, for that kind of power, it might be worth it. Windows 11, on the other hand, doesn't have the greatest selection. No one in their right mind takes Paint seriously as an illustration tool. Things have gotten much better, but base apps on Windows 11 still pale in comparison to what's on macOS.

Dell XPS 8960 Desktop – Best PC for Graphic Design and Video Editing

Weighing just 1.2 pounds, the New Microsoft Surface Go 2 feels like nothing in your bag. Plus, its 10.5″ highly-responsive touchscreen perfectly balances tablet portability and laptop versatility in a sleek little package. This lets you switch between different modes seamlessly to suit your workflow. Its adjustable Kickstand and Signature Type Cover further provide the flexibility to work comfortably in any setting.

ASUS ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED — Best Laptop for Graphic Design and Video Editing

Let’s take a look at the top graphic design laptops on the market right now! Each laptop has been carefully chosen for features, performance, and more. But although that sounds like loads, it can fill up faster than you’d imagine. That’s why I recommend going for at least 256 GB, but 512 GB is preferable for graphic design. This laptop may seem like a basic laptop due to its small design, but it can run graphics software smoothly.

Leading and developing a great team, Adam can still be seen dusting his keyboard off to write articles for the likes of TechRadar, T3 and Tom's Guide, having started his career at consumer champions Which?. The battle between Apple and PC fans has been raging for decades, but as far as which brand is 'best' at graphic design, each has its respective strengths. There are very capable Mac and PC solutions for a range of demanding requirements across the market, but what brand you align yourself with will ultimately boil down to a few personal preferences. Drawing onto a vertical display might not sound like a comfortable experience, but the Surface Studio 2 has a nifty solution to that. The thin display retain its predecessor's magical ‘gravity hinge’, which allows the screen to be lowered to a 20-degree angle, making it much more comfortable to draw on.

It’ll also deliver reasonably fast performance thanks to the AMD Ryzen HS CPU, the AMD Radeon RX6800S GPU, the 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and the 1TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD storage. These components are a phenomenal combination for heavy-duty design work. The keyboard isn’t the best, though, as it feels a bit soft and the backlighting is subpar.

My hobbies are digital photography, fitness, two-stroke engines, and reading. Once we see more of AMD's newer laptop GPUs, this chart should be more exciting as AMD-based laptop reviews come in. For now, unless you're particularly loyal to AMD for whatever reason, Nvidia is likely going to please more than AMD can at the moment at the laptop high end. Here, we bring the same AMD 6650M GPU into the comparison that we did in the previous section, but now alongside the more comparable Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 4060. We've tested lots of laptops with the RTX 3060 and RTX 4060 inside, so keep in mind that this represents several GPUs of one class against the results of a single GPU of the other. AMD's Radeon RX 7000 series hasn't made it to this segment, either, so far.

We particularly enjoy its sturdy, magnesium-aluminum metal chassis allowing the Swift 3 to handle bumps, drops, and scrapes. And the best part is the laptop weighs a measly 2.6 lbs for easy carrying. Its expansive, vibrant display, with minimized bezels, provides an immersive experience for detailed design work without sacrificing the laptop's compactness.

We already mentioned the Surface Studio 2, which is an expensive touchscreen option. The HP ENVY 34 All-in-One is more affordable and one of the best such challengers to Apple's two-in-one that we've tested. A little confusingly, the 2+ is the successor to the Surface Studio 2, which we loved when it was released in 2019. We're not sure why they didn't call it Surface Studio 3 to make things clearer (It's also not to be confused with the Surface Laptop Studio 2).

When it comes to display size, McQuaid said the more you can see, the better. "I edit on a 13-inch [laptop], but often with an external monitor." He travels for work, so he uses a more lightweight laptop with a smaller screen, though he recommends newer editors go bigger. We identified and prioritized essential features and specifications such as color accuracy, high-resolution displays, storage capacity, and connectivity options. These factors are crucial to graphic designers’ workflow and software usage. To sum it up, the ASUS VivoBook S15 has proven itself to be simply the best budget laptop for designers who value color accuracy greatly.