The right laptop for graphic design work boils down to combination of must-have hardware specifications and components, and a few user preferences. There are hundreds of different laptops for business available on this site, so making a choice daunts even experienced techies. Here we’ll sort through system requirements and specs ideal for pros engaged in design work on a laptop.
Our five picks couple the right hardware with ideal extras and peripherals for designers. For this we’re considering design work on popular professional graphics design applications—Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) and CorelDraw Graphics Suite. Below we list considerations for the major components inside a laptop for design work.
Which CPU works best for graphic design work?
The CPU is the most important component for professionals engaged in design work. If you\’re working in 2D programs like Photoshop, a CPU that runs at a higher frequency yields performance gains. If your work requires you to run several programs at once, having more than four processor cores helps. A budget model laptop for graphic design will have an Intel Core i5 CPU. You will realize performance benefits with an Intel Core i7 processor. The latter is a must if want to edit video or run 3D modeling applications as these tend to utilize 4- and 6-core processors.
Do you need a powerful graphics card for design?
It seems counter-intuitive, but you do not need a super powerful gaming graphics card for design work. Graphics cards for gaming are designed to process high-resolution images dozens of times per second. When you\’re editing photos, you work with one or a few static images at a time. However, for advanced color correction, computers used in professional design do benefit from a workstation graphics card — like a NVIDIA Quadro P600, P1000 or P2000. Note the amount of RAM onboard the graphics card. It should at least 2 GB to experiment with the full range of visuals Creative Cloud.
How much RAM is appropriate for graphic design?
Having enough random access memory (RAM) is important for designers who work with large files. If you do graphic design for print collateral, the high-resolution images you work with might be 1 GB or larger. Working on files of that size in a program like Adobe InDesign or After Effects, your system will benefit from 16 GB of RAM or more. Since RAM is so closely tied to performance, and relatively inexpensive to upgrade, you routinely find professional designers using laptops with 32 GB of RAM on board.
How much storage should a laptop for design work have?
Since designers work with large files, a large capacity hard drive makes a lot of sense. You want a laptop with 500 GB of disk space, in total, at minimum. We highly recommend solid state drive (SSD) storage for design work. You find that programs open faster, a reduction in load time especially for large files, and better overall system responsiveness. A laptop that uses a hybrid storage setup, with one hard disk drive (HDD) and one SSD built in, is a viable option as well. You would install the operating system, web browsers, and design programs onto the SSD along with any frequently accessed files. The HDD would store less frequently accessed files and any archival materials or projects.
What type of laptop display is best for graphic design work?
A full high-definition (FHD) screen or better (QHD or 4K) is requisite for graphic design work. Designers tend to opt for a larger screen due to the nature of the work they do. A medium-size screen (14 inches to 15.6 inches) typifies the low end of their preferences. Above all, professional designers need laptops with exceptional color accuracy. For that, LCD displays with in-plane switching (IPS) panels have distinct advantage over twisted nematic (TN) screens. IPS displays colors more consistently at different viewing angles. TN displays are comparatively limited in color reproduction.
Our picks: Five great laptops for pro designers
Lenovo ThinkPad P1
MSRP: $1,978.99
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Display: 15.6″ FHD IPS
CPU: Intel Core i7-8750H 2.20 GHz
Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro P1000 / 2 GB Video RAM
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Storage: 512 GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Dimensions: 12.30″ x 9.14″ x 0.51″ @ 3.62 lbs.
OS: Windows 10 Pro
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MSI WE63
MSRP: $1,699
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Display: 15.6″ FHD IPS
CPU: Intel Core i7-8750H 2.20 GHz
Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro P1000
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Storage: 512 GB PCIe NVMe SSD
Dimensions: 15.08″ x 10.24″ x 1.16″ @ 5.05 lbs.
OS: Windows 10 Pro
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PNY PREVAILPRO P3000
MSRP: $3,500
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Display: 15.6″ 4K IPS
CPU: Intel Core i7-7700HQ 2.80 GHz
Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro P3000
RAM: 32 GB DDR4
Storage: 2 TB HDD + 512 GB NVMe SSD
Dimensions: 14.96″ x 9.80″ x 0.73″
OS: Windows 10 Pro
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HP ZBook 15v G5
MSRP: $1,967
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Display: 15.6″ FHD IPS
CPU: Intel Core i7-8750H 2.20 GHz
Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro P2000
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Storage: 512 GB SSD
Dimensions: 14.80″ x 10.40″ x 1.00″
OS: Windows 10 Pro
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Apple MacBook Pro
MSRP: $2,299.99
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Display: 15.4″ Retina Display
CPU: Intel Core i7 2.20 GHz
Graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 555X GPU / 4GB GGDR5
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Storage: 256 GB SSD / 256 GB HDD
Dimensions: 13.8 x 0.6 x 9.5″ / 35.1 x 1.5 x 24.1 cm @ 4 lbs.
OS: Mac OS X v10.13 High Sierra
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The general guidance on what to look for here is good. However, I don’t know how some of those finalists made it in the list at the expense of others like the Dell XPS 13/15 and the Microsoft Surface 2. Also, the MacBook Pro is generally still at the top of every other list, and I don’t think they’re wrong.
A good rule of thumb in business solutions: don’t venture more than one standard deviation from the mean. I.e., if most people are using the MacBook Pro, and a few are using the ZBook, why would you go way out on a limb and buy an MSI, unless there were some particularly compelling reason to do so?
Also, your guidance suggests that having 1TB of storage is a decision that comes ahead of HDD/SSD considerations. Wrong! Always, always, must, must have a SSD! The difference is night and day. If you feel you must have 1TB or more with you at all times, yes, a hybrid drive is a good bet. But a solid alternative is to utilize an external drive or storage array for everything but your current work. In this case, a 512 or even a 256GB SSD might prove totally workable, and would shave hundreds of dollars off the price.