Choosing the best laptop for graphic designing is less about brand and more about the specifications. A lot of people complain about their laptops not being compatible and suited for graphic design even if they’re top of the line and the best of their kind. The answer to that is simple: you can have any laptop irrespective of the brand to do your work, but it must fulfill the required criteria for the job. For example, when you think graphic design, you think screen resolution, graphics, memory, and processor. If your laptop has the right amount of everything, it’s perfect for graphic design, even if it’s one of the huge ancient ones.
Graphics Card
Having a dedicated graphics card is very important, especially if you’re going to be doing a lot of high-quality work or video editing. Computers usually come with a graphics card pre-installed, which is excellent for mundane laptop tasks like writing, web-browsing, and the likes. However, when it comes to graphic designing, it is simply not enough. Graphic Cards share the same main system memory as the rest of the components and work in direct relation to the RAM.
Due to this, you lose a good 200 to 300 MegaBytes from the RAM. On top of it all, it also runs much slower since it will have to reach everything the same way the system accesses the RAM. With a separate graphic card, this issue becomes practically non-existent. A dedicated graphics card has its own RAM, which it does not share with the main system memory and, thus, lets you run everything a lot faster. It also speeds up photoshop by a ton and lets you have a higher quality production phase.
Resolution
Resolution requirements for various application may vary. However, better the resolution of a machine better will be the performance. Resolution is practically a no-brainer. You’re designing things graphically, and you will obviously need a high screen resolution to be able to work on the finer details. One problem that a lot of people face here is that they confuse resolution with screen size.
To clear it up, the size of your screen doesn’t matter as long as the resolution is up to par. The minimum resolution you should aim for is 1360 x 768. However, the ideal resolution would definitely be 1920 x 1080 or higher. The higher the resolution, the better the quality and more space to work on. Even if you have a tiny screen, as long as the screen resolution is excellent, there should be no problem.
Memory
Working on graphic design means you’ll be having to store a lot of things that are most probably going to be significantly large due to the resolution. This means you’re going to be needing a lot more storage space than you have already. You can usually make do with 1 or 2 GB of RAM. However, with your line of work, it’s better to have 3 to 4 GB, especially if you’ll be having a lot of stuff going on at the same time. Another tip here is to install more RAM rather than trying to find one with your requirements. Unless you have a MacBook, getting extra RAM installed is relatively easy and cheap with the original company.
Processor
This usually isn’t much of an issue since most laptops come with a decent processor already. Intel Duos work like a charm with not much of a noticeable difference between the GHz. A quad-core processor tends to be a bit excessive, but if that’s what you want, then do it. Honestly, anything other than an Intel Celeron works just fine. It’s essential to get a processor according to your needs. Not more, not less.
To summarize, go for the specifications, not for the fanciest model. Keep an eye out for the RAM, get a graphics card installed, make sure your laptop has a high resolution (not the same as screen size!), and you’re all set. Make sure to spend smart and not in excess because usually, the high paying laptops don’t give you the desired results, especially for a field like graphic design.
