A common mistake when shopping for laptops is to be inclined to purchase the more popular models, or those on sale in a particular week. Users who are going to dedicate a lot of their laptop work to photo editing or graphic design will be sorely disappointed taking either of these two approaches.
Check out the best photo editing and graphic design laptops here
For these specialized applications, you’re going to need to look at the specs of laptops, and particularly pay attention to those with larger screens, high resolution, a fast processor / video card, and a maximum amount of ram on board memory.
There are at least three units which lead the category in meeting all of these criteria.
Best Laptop for Graphic Designing
Although you may not have heard of the MSI GS70 Stealth Pro-210, Taiwan-based MSI is one of the world’s largest tech manufacturers and its laptops regularly receive high praise from gaming enthusiasts. This MSI laptop meets or exceeds the criteria set out above for maximum photo or graphic performance, with its Intel Core i7-47 10HQ running at 2.5 GHz with a 6 MB cache.
The dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX870M Graphics Co-processor with 6 GB GDDR5 VRAM gives you processing power solely for graphics and photos, while the 16 GB of ram and 1 Terabyte (1000 GB) Hard Drive, give you memory capacity for working with and storing huge files.
A 17.3 inch screen provides maximum viewing area as well as depth of colors. Two external speaker ports are available if you are editing sound embedded video, and Windows 8.1 as an operating system provides the easiest interface created to date. The unit is aluminum gray and weighs in at under six pounds.
Best Core i7 Graphic Laptop to Buy
Made by a subsidiary of Dell, the Alienware ALW18-400sLV laptops are built with gamers in mind, which makes them perfect for working with photos and graphics. The huge 18.4 inch screen paired with a dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M Graphics Co-Processor gives you the ultimate in both viewing size and color resolution and definition. Match it with the Alienware’s Intel Core i7 2.5 GHz next generation processor for nearly the fastest refresh time in the industry.
16 gigs of on board memory is ideal for working with mega-sized photo and graphic files – you’re not going to have to downsize or reformat your pics before working on them. For those without confidence in cloud storage, the Alienware’s built-in Terabyte of hard drive storage will let you store all of your files for years to come.
The unit is available with operating system choices of Windows 8.1, or if you’re “old school,” stick with Windows 64 Bit 7.0 Home Premium. While sized and sold as a laptop, with a hefty weight of more than 20 pounds, you might prefer to use this unit as a desktop.
Top Photo Editing / Graphic Design Laptop
The fourth largest personal computer manufacturer in the world, Acer gives us the Aspire V3-572G-70TA as their entry into the world of photo processing and graphics manipulation. Decked out in a handsome Platinum Silver case, the Aspire gives you the processing power and speed you need to work with over-sized photo and graphic files.
The guts are ample, with Intel’s next gen processor, the i7-4510U running at 2.0 GHz, with a 4 MB cache and 8 gigs of SDRAM. Graphics and photo co-processing is deftly handled by the NVIDIA GeForce 840M, with 2 gigs of graphic ram available. A 1000 gigabyte hard drive should provide you with ample storage room for years of photo or graphic work, and if not, three built-in USB ports allow you to hook up to your choice of external storage devices.
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A 1920 x 1080 pixels 15.4 screen gives you great resolution in a compact viewing area, which also makes possible the five pound weight, comfortable enough for toting to the job or on a plane. The Aspire runs with Windows 8.1 which is the latest update to the Microsoft Windows NT operating system, and boasts seven full hours of battery time. Dolby Audio adds “cinema-style” sound to this ultra-thin notebook.