Forget choosing between brawn and beauty – the best graphic design laptops seamlessly blend powerful performance with stunning visuals. Here's what to look for: a modern processor, at least 16GB of RAM, ample storage, a breathtaking display, and sometimes, a dedicated graphics card. Sure, these beefy specs can set you back a pretty penny, but consider it an investment in a machine that will churn out graphic design magic for years to come.
We've got options for every camp. Apple reigns supreme with the MacBook Pro 14 M3 (2023) taking the crown for best overall, while the MacBook Air 15 offers a budget-friendly alternative. Team Windows or need a machine that doubles as a gaming powerhouse? Fear not, we've got stellar picks from HP, Lenovo, and Samsung.
Is battery life a concern? MacBooks excel here, making them perfect for campus all-nighters or freelance hustles on the go. For long-lasting Windows options, check out Lenovo's Yoga Book 9i or Samsung's Galaxy Book 3 Ultra.
So, whether you're a pixel-pushing pro or an aspiring design whiz, one of these incredible laptops is sure to be your perfect match. Dive deeper into our top picks to find the ideal machine to bring your creative visions to life.
The Quick List
The best overall laptop for graphic design
The MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 (2023) is an all-around fantastic laptop with its top-tier internals, stunning display, and long-lasting battery.
The best Windows laptop for graphic design
Samsung’s Galaxy Book 3 Ultra features a gorgeous AMOLED display, a speedy SSD, and a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU—and it weighs just under 4 pounds.
The best 2-in-1 laptop for graphic design
The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i is equipped with two vivid OLED displays, a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU, and a great rotating soundbar.
The best 17-inch laptop for graphic design
HP’s ZBook Fury 17 G8 may cost a pretty penny, but you’ll get a stunning 17-inch 4K touchscreen and almost unstoppable performance with its CPU/GPU combo.
The best budget laptop for graphic design
MacBooks can be expensive, but the MacBook Air 15 is relatively affordable and still packs impressive specs and a bright Liquid Retina display.
Best Laptop for Graphic Design Overall
The M3 MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 (2023) is the best overall laptop for graphic design. The new MacBook Pro M3 14-inch is a beast, offering a whopping 17+ hours of battery life on or off the charger. Whether you're designing and editing on a plane, in the office, or conquering deadlines at a coffee shop, this laptop won't slow you down.
Need even more muscle? Upgrade to the M3 Max chip for a mind-blowing 14-core CPU and 30-core GPU. Plus, it boasts a crazy 32GB of RAM (expandable to a ridiculous 96GB!), making it perfect for rendering videos, running complex software, or just bragging to your friends.
Prices start at $1,599 for the base model (which is still no slouch with an M3 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD). The M3 Max configuration will set you back $3,199, but hey, for that kind of power, it might be worth it.
Sure, the design isn't a huge upgrade, but who needs flash when you have this much performance under the hood? The MacBook Pro M3 14-inch delivers the perfect combo of portability and muscle, making it a great choice for creators, and graphic designers on the move. Whichever model you pick, base or maxed-out, you're getting a laptop that won't let you down.
See our full MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 review.
Best Windows Laptop for Graphic Design
If you want a great laptop for graphic design that's not a Mac, check out the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra. It's incredibly light at just under 4 pounds, but it packs a lot of power into that small body. For $2,399 you get a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage.
The Galaxy Book 3 Ultra scored a stellar 12,212 on the Geekbench 5.4 test, well above the premium laptop average of 10,261. It also aced the 3DMark Fire Strike graphics test with a score of 14,307, far higher than the 8,413 category average. So, this laptop is definitely up to the task for graphics-intensive apps and projects.
Graphics design tasks will look great on the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, too, thanks to its incredible 16-inch 2880 x 1800 Dynamic AMOLED 2X display. It averaged with 378 nits of brightness and covered 86.2% of the DCI-P3 color gamut in our testing. That's a bit lower than the premium laptop averages of 88.8% and 393 nits, but you can crank up the brightness to 509 nits with HDR turned on.
Plus, the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra features one of the most color-accurate displays we've ever tested, earning a 0.15 on the Delta-E test compared to the category average of 0.24 (lower is better). You get fairly strong battery life, as well. The Galaxy Book 3 Ultra lasted 9 hours and 3 minutes in our tests, which is slightly below the premium laptop average (9:55), but still more than enough for a full day.
See our full Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra review.
Best 2-in-1 Laptop for Graphic Design
We gave the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i an Editor's Choice award and for good reason – it's one of the best 2-in-1 laptops out there and a great choice for graphic design in particular. The price is a bit high for a 2-in-1 at $1,999, but you get a stunning design featuring dual 13.3-inch 2800 x 1800 OLED touch displays. The Yoga Book 9i also includes a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse as well as a folio case and the Lenovo Digital Pen.
The unique dual display setup of this 2-in-1 makes it a powerhouse productivity laptop for graphic designers. You can use the two displays like a dual monitor setup, fold them to use individually or use both as tablets at the same time. You'll get a fantastic image on these displays, too. In our colorimeter test, the top display covered 136.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut test with the bottom display scoring similarly at 136.7%. That's far better than our premium laptop average of 93.3%.
Inside you get a 13th Gen Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and Intel's Iris Xe integrated graphics. The Yoga Book 9i scored 7,765 on our Geekbench test, just below the 7,767 premium laptop average.
The screen brightness could be a bit better with the top display coming in at 335 nits and the bottom at 344 nits, which is lower than the 392 nits category average. The battery life was also a tad low at 9 hours and 18 minutes, below the category average of 10 hours and 32 minutes. That's still plenty of battery to get through the day, though, especially considering the Yoga Book 9i is powering two displays.
See our full Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review.
Best 17-inch Laptop for Graphic Design
A large display can be great for graphic design, so the HP ZBook Fury G8 is definitely worth checking out. It features a spacious 17.3-inch 4K BrightView LED touch display, an Intel Xeon W-11955M processor, and Nvidia RTX A5000 with 16GB of VRAM, 64GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage.
With those specs, it's no surprise that the ZBook Fury G8 delivered incredible performance in our tests. The display covered 161.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, nearly double the premium laptop average of 84.4%. It also averaged 532 nits of brightness, well above the 392 category average.
The ZBook Fury 17 G8 scored 9,716 on Geekbench, almost double the premium laptop average score of 4,753. Even more impressive, it scored a whopping 20,444 in our 3DMark Fire Strike graphics benchmark, over four times the premium laptop average of 4,351. With scores that high, this is also one of the best workstation laptops, so it can handle data and graphics-intensive tasks with ease.
That performance won't come cheap, though. Our review unit configuration comes in at $6,421. It's also quite power-hungry, lasting only 7 hours and 10 minutes on our battery test, about 3 hours less than the category average.
See our full HP Zbook Fury 17 G8 review.
Best Budget Laptop for Graphic Design
It's no secret that Macs are fantastic laptops for graphic design, but if the M3 MacBook Pro is a bit too pricey for you, fear not. The MacBook Air 15 M2 delivers similar performance at a much more affordable price.
Our review unit configuration goes for $1,499 and included an 8-core M2 processor, a 10-core M2 GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The 15.3-inch 2880 x 1864 Liquid Retina Display averaged 473 nits of brightness and covered 78.9% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. That's a higher brightness than the 345 nits category average but notably lower than the 129.8% color gamut category average. It has a great Delta-E color accuracy score, though, coming in at just 0.17, far below the 2.62 average (lower is better).
The only real drawback of this laptop is the lack of a dedicated GPU. Despite that, the MacBook Air 15 M2 performed great on our Geekbench test, scoring 9,993, which is above the 8,389 category average. It also has more than enough battery life, lasting 14 hours and 59 in our test, far more than the category average of 9 hours and 55 minutes.
See our full MacBook Air 15 review.
How To Choose a Laptop for Graphic Design
When thinking about how to choose the right laptop for graphic design, there are a few key specs to consider. In order to run graphics-intensive programs effectively, your laptop needs plenty of RAM, a powerful processor running the show, a high-resolution and color-accurate display, and a discrete GPU if you can afford it. Then, your laptop needs enough speedy SSD storage to download and store your graphic design files.
Generally speaking, a great laptop for graphic design purposes should have at least 16GB of RAM, at least 512GB of SSD storage, and in a perfect world, a 4K OLED display, but it’s more important to make sure your display is bright, has a good DCI-P3 percentage, and high color accuracy. When it comes to processors, it’s best to stick with at least the latest M2 CPU for MacBooks and either a 12th or 13th Gen Intel Core i7 or i9, an Intel Xeon, or an AMD Ryzen 5000/6000 for Windows laptops.
It’s worth noting that your perfect configuration for a graphic design laptop could be different from someone else’s. If you primarily work with static graphic designs, creating fun pamphlets, engaging infographics, or other non-moving files, you may be able to save some money by choosing less storage space, integrated graphics rather than discrete, and a slightly less beefy processor. If you work with motion graphic design, you’ll need to splurge on a discrete GPU, a powerful processor, and as much RAM as you can afford.
If you plan on using your laptop to work on graphic design projects on the go, you’ll need to ensure your laptop has a solid battery life. For anyone who plans to play games on their laptop as well as use it for graphic design, one of our best gaming laptops may be more up your alley. Gaming laptops naturally share the same specs needed for graphic design software.
How We Test Laptops for Graphic Design
Every laptop we review — which includes each pick on this list — goes through a series of benchmark tests by our dedicated testing team before it reaches one of our reviewers. To find the best laptops for graphic design, we primarily looked at testing results for performance, graphics, and the display.
Performance testing includes Geekbench’s CPU Benchmark and the BAPCo Crossmark test, both of which evaluate the laptop’s ability to handle a variety of different tasks and continue running smoothly. To test a laptop’s graphics capabilities, we use the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark and see how well an older game like Sid Meier’s Civilization VI runs. Laptops with beefier discrete GPUs receive even more demanding gaming tests with newer titles.
When testing a laptop’s display, we look at how bright it gets, how accurately it reproduces colors, and how much of the DCI-P3 color gamut it covers. We use the Klein K10-A colorimeter and Klein’s ChromaSurf software to measure brightness and DisplayCal to evaluate a screen’s Delta-E value and sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamut percentages.
We also measure how hot a laptop gets after watching a 4K or 8K YouTube video for 15 minutes, as well as how long the battery lasts when the laptop continuously surfs the web at 150 nits of brightness.
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