Best laptop for graphic design in 2023

Professional and budding creatives alike will spend hours poring over online reviews of the best laptop for graphic design. And that's a seriously dangerous pastime when you have a good budget burning a hole in your pocket, as the best laptops don't always make the best designer's laptop. Understanding why is all about the very precise features and functions that designers need - sometimes missing from normal laptops.

Although a laptop with touchscreen might also seem handy for design work, in many cases, a designer will want to avoid putting finger marks all over the window to their creative world. And on the subject of screens, it's probably the most crucial component of them all to get right. After all, no amount of RAM or CPU power will make up for a display that has poor colour accuracy and obtrusive reflections. So, we're here to help you find a laptop to match your artistic needs.

Best laptop for graphic design in 2023 at a glance

• Best overall laptop for graphic design: ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo OLED UX582HM - View at Amazon
• Best budget laptop for graphic design: Acer ConceptD 5 CN515-71 - View at Amazon
• Best large-screen laptop for graphic design: MSI Stealth 17 Studio - View at Amazon
• Best tablet-style laptop for graphic design: Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio - View at Amazon

Given a large enough budget, you'll be spoiled for choice. Having endless options often means gaining in one area and sacrificing in another. Thankfully, our experts have weighed much of this up for you, but you'll still need to avoid painting yourself into a corner and plumping for the wrong basic spec. Remember, a laptop deal is only a good deal if it'll enable your creativity. Design laptops are specialism, so we have a buyer's guide and more are at the end of the article.

For those of you who prefer larger screens, we have some 17-inch laptop options, as well as more compact models for designers travelling light. You'll even find a few budget-conscious options here too. We've chosen several contenders for the best laptop for graphic design and made a custom palette for you to sample. So, select that eyedropper tool and let's get creative.

Best laptop for graphic design in 2023

Best laptop for graphic design in 2023: Buyer's guide

List your creative needs first

Not every designer will be bothered with a touchscreen or even a stylus - there are plenty who use a mouse for more technical design work. Others will immediately see the benefit of a laptop which can convert into a tablet-like form. Some may need to store work with massive file sizes, and lots of it, to an equally huge internal SSD. Others may prefer a lean and lightweight machine with external storage instead. Not every designer is running the resource-hungry Adobe suite either. The point here is: Cut your cloth to fit. That way you'll be making sure you're targetting your budget into the right features for you.

Pay special attention to an included stylus or pen

If you are a digital pen user (and most creatives probably will be) you'll probably have an external graphics tablet, such as those made by Wacom. But, if you're going to one of our picks that has tablet-style functionality with a touchscreen, these will most likely come with their own pen or stylus. So, read the specs carefully. For design this should be an 'Active Stylus' - They offer superior functionality, including excellent precision and, in many cases, pressure sensitivity. As a result, they can be used for writing, annotating, illustrating, or any other advanced graphics tasks.

Don't skimp on the essentials

Larger price tags really come with the territory when it comes to the best laptop for graphic design. After you've ensured you've got a ton of RAM, a stack of SSD space, and a large screen, it's really tempting to forget about the simple essentials. Yes, screens should be large enough to work on with excellent colour accuracy, but without an anti-glare coating and good viewing angles, you'll be cursing the day you bought it.

Always check and double-check any laptop specifications against the needs of any particular software you use. All of our picks have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to software and hardware capabilities. Lastly, RAM and graphics card capabilities are only half of the story - keep an eye on the CPU specification. They're never a good read, but the difference between an Intel Core i3 and a Core i7 could be the difference between being able to work smoothly or not being able to work at all.

Protect it from damage and dirt

Aside from getting a robust laptop backpack or an impact-proof case to protect your gorgeous new design tool, it's essential to invest in some simple laptop care accessories. One such addition is a screen cleaning kit - especially important for keeping your view of your work smudge and dust-free. Touchscreens are, of course, really prone to marks - even if you use a stylus religiously.

Privacy: Consider a VPN

If you're using the best laptop for graphic design it stands to reason you may also be a professional. That means that your laptop is your livelihood, so definitely look for security suites such as Bitdefender or McAfee if you don't have one. However, that will only protect you against threats to your machine - but what about your privacy and personal data? A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a secure tunnel to the internet that hides your IP address as you go about your online business. That means that would-be data snoopers can't identify you or your location and your incoming and outgoing data is secure. Our experts highly recommend getting an affordable VPN for extra security.

Best laptop for graphic design in 2023: Frequently asked questions

Are laptops for graphic design worth it?

Yes, there's no doubt that any professional designer or creative hobbyist will reap the rewards of the right design laptop. Over and above the high-end machine specs needed (and the ability to draw fluidly and accurately) specialised additions also make a huge difference. Features like extra screens for control panels and tools, being able to fold the screen back completely for a more tablet-like experience, and colour-accurate high-res screens are indispensable.

Can you do graphic design on any laptop?

Yes - and no. While the vast majority of laptops running Windows, ChromeOS or MacOS will support and run popular creative applications, that doesn't mean they'll work well enough. Unless you've chosen wisely, the screen may have terrible colour accuracy, poor viewing angles and a low native resolution. The RAM and CPU may also not be up to scratch, turning your carefully considered airbrushing into jagged lines with lots of lag.

The harder you push any laptop, especially with graphic design applications, the slower and more unusable they will become. They're resource-hungry programs too. So, while more basic apps exist that might run on a substandard laptop, you're not likely to get the functionality and features you need.

Do all laptops for graphic design come with a stylus?

No, these are most common with touchscreen laptops, some of which fold into a more tablet-like form. But even some of those only support third-party styluses. Also, be wary of laptops that come with simple versions. Unless they're the 'Active' type (more on that in our FAQs below) they probably won't be pressure-sensitive - an essential feature for designers.

Unless your choice of the best laptop for graphic design is super-high-end, we always recommend going for a separate drawing tablet, such as the Wacom Intuos Pro. They're pressure-sensitive and come with a range of nibs and advanced settings that work with popular creative apps.

Best laptop for graphic design in 2023: Jargon buster

HDR

A screen that supports HDR - or High Dynamic Range - will benefit from higher contrast levels and a wider colour palette than standard screens. This means over a billion colours are available instead of the roughly 16 million colours that you get without HDR.

HDR comes in slightly different flavours with HDR (HDR10) and HDR10+ being closely related; each has a slight improvement over the other.

Colour gamut

The colours in a digital image are rendered in a certain colour range; most commonly sRGB, Adobe RGB and P3. The closer a monitor can matching these standards, the more accurate your laptop screen will be for design work. When that work is printed, it's going to look much closer to the original design.

Aim for a higher percentage for the gamut you think is more suited to you. 100% is the ideal figure and will give the most realistic colour display. That's why designers prefer monitors that are calibrated or certified to universal colour standards, like sRGB or Adobe RGB and other colour certifications.

Resolution

Resolution is the number of pixels on a display, expressed as height x width. The greater the number of pixels, the sharper the detail of the image. Some of the more common ones are below, but for a more comprehensive view, read our guide to TV and monitor resolutions.

HD = 720p - 1280 x 720 pixels

Full HD = 1080p - 1920 x 1080 pixels

Quad HD (QHD) = 1440p - 2560 x 1440 pixels, often referred to as 2K

4K UHD = 2160p - 3840 x 2160 pixels, also referred to as ‘Ultra HD resolution’

Refresh Rate

This is the number of times the screen refreshes the entire displayed image, per second. Measured in Hertz (Hz) a 60Hz laptop screen will refresh an image 60 times, and a 120Hz screen will refresh an image 120 times. Therefore, the higher the refresh rate, the smoother the moving image appears to the eye. This is particularly important for gamers, designers using a stylus pen, or those who edit videos.

Solid State Drives (SSD)

Older thicker laptops housed a regular spinning disk hard drive. Thankfully, SSDs are newer technology that uses no moving parts. It's faster, a lot smaller in size and runs more efficiently, which is why you'll find them in the majority of modern laptops. They write and read using electronic flash memory, much like USB flash drives. Data is stored in grids and blocks. The available space is utilised more efficiently too.

CPU

A Central Processing Unit, or CPU, processes and executes instructions. They often consist of multiple cores - the higher the number of cores the more processes it can carry out, improving performance. CPUs have a 'clock speed' that is measured in GHz - the frequency of the number of operations. In theory, the higher the GHz number, the better and quicker a computer can operate.

RAM

Random Access Memory, or RAM, is short-term memory. It temporarily holds information for quick access by the CPU as it runs various programs and services. The more RAM available, the more quick-access information there is for the CPU, thereby improving computer performance.

GPU

A GPU is a Graphical Processing Unit - the central component of a graphics card. It handles the rendering of images to the computer screen

Chris Duffill is a Tech Product Writer for What's The Best. He specialises in audiovisual, computing, and gadgets. He also writes for Yours.

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