BEST BUDGET LAPTOP FOR GRAPHIC DESIGN 2022

INTRO
If you're looking for the best budget laptop for graphic design 2022 then you have to make sure that you're choosing a laptop with the right performance for your needs now before we get into the detailed specs of what makes up the best graphic design laptop.

We need to see what's available on the market so that when we look at the specs we understand what we're talking about and how it fits into your needs as a graphic designer and yes this is going to work no matter what budget you're bringing to the table but you have to understand what components make up the performance of the laptop that is best for your need

One hint it's not about one singular aspect of the computer it's not just about the cpu or just about the rammer just about the hard drive it's how they all work together so let's get right into the laptop lineup starting from the budget category all the way up to the high end more premium price point laptops and we're going to discuss why the laptops cost much more at the higher end price point versus the budget price point what's the difference here in these laptops.

 

ENTRY-LEVEL GRAPHICS DESIGNER

Now kicking things off at entry level for graphic design laptops you can see a number of laptops that have eight gigs of ram you might say around 700 which seems a little high for entry-level however I will say that if you get down to four gigs of ram you're really not going to have the great performance you see ram is really important to run multiple programs at one time

 It's important to run even a singular program at one time Photoshop can take up to two to eight gigs of ram depending on the complexity of your project and so if you turn on your laptop you're already using one to two gigs of ram and then you open Photoshop you're using anywhere from two to eight gigs of ram so as soon as you open the program you could be maxing out your ram and diminishing your performance which would ultimately give you a bad experience and would not allow you to produce the work that you're needing to produce

So that is why I recommend people kicking things off at eight gigs of ram and with a u-series processor now each of these laptops comes with a u-series processor with anywhere from four to eight cores or six to twelve cores now as you add more cores and threads you'll be able to run programs more smoothly and run multiple programs more smoothly

Now also something you want to keep in mind at this entry-level point is some of these laptops have a lower color gamut range now the color gamut range is really important to make sure that the work that you're working on the colors is accurate according to when you maybe go to print or you go to post it online are they going to be accurate when somebody else pulls up your design work if you don't have a color-accurate screen they may in fact not be now I lean into having a higher adobe RGB but srgb is a great starting point and you're going to see some of those higher level srgbs in more of the entry level category the high adobe RGB is going to come in more of the expensive more premium laptops.

 

Here are some example

•       Asus VivoBook 14
•      HP Envy 13
•      Dell Inspiron 7000
•      Dell Inspiron 5000
•      Acer Swift 

 

MID-RANGE GRAPHICS DESIGNER LAPTOP

Now as we move into the more mid-range category you can see that we're into 16 gigs of ram which is great in my opinion for a graphic designer working in multiple programs at the same time so let's say you're somebody using the affinity suite and you're using affinity designer affinity photo and affinity illustrator or you're in the adobe suite using adobe InDesign adobe photoshop adobe illustrator running all those programs at the same time will be way more possible with 16 gigs of ram

 Will be even more possible with 32 gigs of ram however in this mid-range category 16 is going to be a great starting point for you, especially with the price point of some of these laptops we're seeing them break the thousand-dollar price point but not inch their way up too close to the two thousand dollar price point now

 I like these laptops because we have great performance and higher core and thread CPUs we have a nice amount of ram at 16 gigs and we have five 12 to terabyte solid state drives which give us more storage for the work we're producing and you're also going to see this higher srgbs coming through here in this category we don't see any more of those low srgb so more color accurate screens are what we see on this list

 

Here are some example

• Lenovo Yoga 9i
• Apple MacBook Air M1
• Acer Swift X
• Lenovo ThinkPad 16P
• Lenovo Yoga 6
• Asus VivoBook Pro 15
• Asus ROG Flow

MID TO HIGHER

Now we're up into the mid to higher-end range laptop category as we move up we're going to see laptops with higher build quality more performance and more color accuracy so as you can see on this lineup the laptops are increasing in price but we're getting more performance alongside more color gamut range and the build quality and on-the-go friendliness are increasing so any of these laptops here I definitely recommend for an on-the-go designer who wants good performance and great build quality up.

Here are some example

• Apple MacBook Pro M1
• Samsung GalaxyBook Pro 360
• Microsoft Surface Pro 8 

 

HIGH-END GRAPHICS DESIGN LAPTOP

Until this point, we've seen a number of laptops that are fantastic for graphic design so i kind of put a separation here between the laptops you've seen and the laptops you're going to see will have that increased color gamut range so 100 adobe rgbs 100 dc ip3s for excellent color accuracy

You're also going to start to see laptops with more dedicated gpus and they're going to be like slightly larger laptops and so these are laptops that are going to be great for video editing after effects and gaming so if you're a graphic designer who also dabbles in video editing and after effects and motion design things along those lines the laptops that are moving up from here are going to be great for those

Use cases and then as i just mentioned also somebody who does graphic design but also likes to game this laptop now has multiple use cases for you so let's go ahead and check these out we have a number of laptops here with dedicated gpus high 8 and 16 cores cpus and 16 gigs of ram and then also we're seeing the higher color gamut range

 

Here are some example

• Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED
• StudioBook 16 Ryzen 9 + RTX 3060
• StudioBook 16 Ryzen 9 + RTX 3070
• Razer Blade 15 Advanced  
• Lenovo Legion 7 Slim
• MSI Creator Z16
• MSI Creator M16
• StudioBook 16 Intel 

PREMIUM GRAPHIC DESIGN LAPTOP

Now as we move up into this category we're again seeing more laptops with more capabilities for something like after effects and or video editing and or gaming and of course, the color gamut range continues to maintain a high level of accuracy and so that's the benefit you're getting here no more extra graphic design performance just more of the other things that you might be doing

However, there's one caveat i want to point out on this lineup and that's the pro art studio book 16. It comes with a dial. This dial is actually killer for Photoshop InDesign and illustrator work it allows you to access quickly your tools right from the dial so you can jump into menus you can jump it straight to tools without actually having to go to the menu

Or click the tool on the keyboard or move your mouse and go click it and find it you can program this thing to have your most commonly used tools right at your fingertip it is a game changer in my opinion, not a gimmick so definitely consider this laptop if you want to increase your productivity and efficiency of workflow.