Laptop For Graphic Designer

Huse · October 30, 2020

Hi All,

My sister is looking for a laptop to use for work. She's a graphic designer who has recently been laid off and is trying to do some contract work, she mostly uses Adobe CS6 but will likely upgrade to newer software in the future (InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator mostly I believe).

Her budget is around $1000 CAD (obviously lower is preferred). Are there any good options available? Should we wait for black friday?

Also, she's been in contact with a seller of off-lease/refurbished computers who suggested the following:

$770

Dell PRECISION 7510, Intel i7 6820HQ, 2.7 GHZ, 16GB DDR4, 180GB SSD + 1TB HDD Storage,

15.6" UltraSharp™ FHD IPS (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit

AMD FirePro W5170M with 2GB GDDR5 dedicated memory

1 x SD Card Reader (SD, SDHC, SDXC, supporting up to 64GB);

1 x Thunderbolt® 3 (optional), 4 x USB3.0 with PowerShare; 1 x mDP; 1 x HDMI; 1 x Headphone and microphone combo jack

Wired: Integrated Intel 82580 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet

Intel® 8260 Dual-Band 2x2 802.11 ac (Miracast) Bluetooth® 4.1, Dell DW1820 2x2 801.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1

Width: 14.88” / 378mm; Depth: 10.38”/ 261mm ;Height (front-Rear): Front 1.09”/27.76mm – 1.3”/(33mm)

Starting at 2.79kg (6.16lb)

I thought it was a bit pricey considering its a ~5 year old cpu (even if it is a workstation laptop).

Darkseth · October 30, 2020

Graphic Design is mostly leaning towards Macbook (Maybe wait for the Macbook Pro 13" with Apple Silicon, Nov. 17th? Would allign well with Black Friday), because it has an excellent Display, and most in the industry work with Macs. Also, some Applications are Mac only (Sketch for example).

If Windows, don't bother with anything that doesn't offer a 100% sRGB Panel (or at least close to 100%).

There are many decent <800 Notebooks, but they often come with 250 nits Panels, and have an sRGB Coverage of about 55%~. Really not good for any graphic work.

I personally wouldn't really buy a 5 year old Laptop for that Price. If it's a second Hand model, there could be Macbook Pro 15" 2014-2015 as an option too.

But

On the Windows world, maybe < 3 year old HP Elitebook / zBook models?

Again, focus on a 100~% sRGB coverage.

jaslion · October 30, 2020

29 minutes ago, Huse said:

Hi All,

My sister is looking for a laptop to use for work. She's a graphic designer who has recently been laid off and is trying to do some contract work, she mostly uses Adobe CS6 but will likely upgrade to newer software in the future (InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator mostly I believe).

Her budget is around $1000 CAD (obviously lower is preferred). Are there any good options available? Should we wait for black friday?

Also, she's been in contact with a seller of off-lease/refurbished computers who suggested the following:

$770

Dell PRECISION 7510, Intel i7 6820HQ, 2.7 GHZ, 16GB DDR4, 180GB SSD + 1TB HDD Storage,

15.6" UltraSharp™ FHD IPS (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit

AMD FirePro W5170M with 2GB GDDR5 dedicated memory

1 x SD Card Reader (SD, SDHC, SDXC, supporting up to 64GB);

1 x Thunderbolt® 3 (optional), 4 x USB3.0 with PowerShare; 1 x mDP; 1 x HDMI; 1 x Headphone and microphone combo jack

Wired: Integrated Intel 82580 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet

Intel® 8260 Dual-Band 2x2 802.11 ac (Miracast) Bluetooth® 4.1, Dell DW1820 2x2 801.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1

Width: 14.88” / 378mm; Depth: 10.38”/ 261mm ;Height (front-Rear): Front 1.09”/27.76mm – 1.3”/(33mm)

Starting at 2.79kg (6.16lb)

I thought it was a bit pricey considering its a ~5 year old cpu (even if it is a workstation laptop).

As someone who does digital art as a hobby and on a current semi proffesional/second income level a 6820hq is not great.

I used my laptop (6700hq, 32gb of ram, gtx 970m) for this till a little over a month ago and I struggled with it at the end. Now I am on a cheap desktop and it's so much better :P.

But anyways my laptop was better in every aspect part from a teeny tiny little weaker cpu and that won't matter. I'd say look into some new ryzen 4000 laptops those things are rocksolid even the u series ones they beat that cpu flat out in every way and that will help a lot.

Also 770 is a lot for that laptop even if it's a workstation laptop. That gpu is a potato in todays world even intel hd graphics have more power now.

Also any chance she could use a desktop? Most laptops in that price bracket won't have colour accurate screens which will not be great for the type of work and buying a laptop + extra monitor is gonna be pricey and you kinda lose the advantage of a laptop then anyway unless it has to be on the go a lot.

Anyways a decent laptop to look at is the hp envy x360 ryzen 4000 model. Good screen and has all the things you want + even the lowest end one is better than the laptop you listed here in every way.

jaslion · October 30, 2020

5 minutes ago, Darkseth said:

Graphic Design is mostly leaning towards Macbook (Maybe wait for the Macbook Pro 13" with Apple Silicon, Nov. 17th? Would allign well with Black Friday), because it has an excellent Display, and most in the industry work with Macs. Also, some Applications are Mac only (Sketch for example).

If Windows, don't bother with anything that doesn't offer a 100% sRGB Panel (or at least close to 100%).

There are many decent <800 Notebooks, but they often come with 250 nits Panels, and have an sRGB Coverage of about 55%~. Really not good for any graphic work.

I personally wouldn't really buy a 5 year old Laptop for that Price. If it's a second Hand model, there could be Macbook Pro 15" 2014-2015 as an option too.

But

On the Windows world, maybe < 3 year old HP Elitebook / zBook models?

Again, focus on a 100~% sRGB coverage.

80%+ with decent calibration is good enough really. Most people will be looking at everything on far worse screens anyways. If it's for print it matters more but really you can easily get by with it.

Roswell · October 31, 2020

3 hours ago, jaslion said:

80%+ with decent calibration is good enough really. Most people will be looking at everything on far worse screens anyways. If it's for print it matters more but really you can easily get by with it.

No, that’s not how it works at all.

80% is bad, like... super super bad if you do professional work. Maybe something like 95% is just barely acceptable but definitely not ideal by any stretch.
Just because people use inaccurate screens to view stuff doesn’t make it okay. Your inaccurate display while editing will be further compounded by their inaccurate screen. Instead of one inaccurate pass, you get 2. This leads to some truly awful looking content.
Your point on print is irrelevant, CMYK is a fraction of sRGB and can be covered by just about any potato out there after calibration.

jaslion · October 31, 2020

8 hours ago, Vitamanic said:

No, that’s not how it works at all.

80% is bad, like... super super bad if you do professional work. Maybe something like 95% is just barely acceptable but definitely not ideal by any stretch.

Just because people use inaccurate screens to view stuff doesn’t make it okay. Your inaccurate display while editing will be further compounded by their inaccurate screen. Instead of one inaccurate pass, you get 2. This leads to some truly awful looking content.

Your point on print is irrelevant, CMYK is a fraction of sRGB and can be covered by just about any potato out there after calibration.

I may have phrased it wrong but for print I meant the calibration matters more. I'm fully aware that 80% is not good enough for professional work but this is more a case of what can be afforded compared to what is available. Sure plenty of used systems out there that have better screens but their specs are far behind. I aimed more for a good enough thing and then an external monitor that is far more accurate with it.

I did also just work at a graphics design company and well the stuff we had there to use was just wacom cintiqs and some meh dell monitors. You can get really far on just ok screens and that is something that people don't seem to realize often. I am all for max accuracy do not get me wrong there I have a really accurate display but honestly all my work is basically just done on my wacom 27qhd which does not have the greatest colour accuracy at all and that is totally fine for well anything.

I mean the people that did the digital arts course with me all had varying levels of laptop screens and the ones that finished got into the proffesional art cirquit with just that stuff too. It really matters more that you know what you are doing compared to having the best of the best possible tools.

Lord Vile · November 1, 2020

On 10/30/2020 at 10:25 PM, Huse said:

Hi All,

My sister is looking for a laptop to use for work. She's a graphic designer who has recently been laid off and is trying to do some contract work, she mostly uses Adobe CS6 but will likely upgrade to newer software in the future (InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator mostly I believe).

Her budget is around $1000 CAD (obviously lower is preferred). Are there any good options available? Should we wait for black friday?

Also, she's been in contact with a seller of off-lease/refurbished computers who suggested the following:

$770

Dell PRECISION 7510, Intel i7 6820HQ, 2.7 GHZ, 16GB DDR4, 180GB SSD + 1TB HDD Storage,

15.6" UltraSharp™ FHD IPS (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit

AMD FirePro W5170M with 2GB GDDR5 dedicated memory

1 x SD Card Reader (SD, SDHC, SDXC, supporting up to 64GB);

1 x Thunderbolt® 3 (optional), 4 x USB3.0 with PowerShare; 1 x mDP; 1 x HDMI; 1 x Headphone and microphone combo jack

Wired: Integrated Intel 82580 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet

Intel® 8260 Dual-Band 2x2 802.11 ac (Miracast) Bluetooth® 4.1, Dell DW1820 2x2 801.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1

Width: 14.88” / 378mm; Depth: 10.38”/ 261mm ;Height (front-Rear): Front 1.09”/27.76mm – 1.3”/(33mm)

Starting at 2.79kg (6.16lb)

I thought it was a bit pricey considering its a ~5 year old cpu (even if it is a workstation laptop).

Would an iPad be any good? I don’t know much about graphic design but with the photoshop iOS sorry iPadOS app and the Apple Pencil the new iPad Air might be worth a shout.

Huse · November 1, 2020

hey guys, thanks for your comments - regarding the use of mac/ipads: my sister doesnt seem to like the UI for mac in general so I don't think thats really an option, also they tend to be quite a bit more expensive from what I've seen.

I found a couple options that I'd like your opinions on:

https://www.newegg.ca/obsidian-black-acer-nitro-5-an517-52-72qf-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834316945R

https://www.newegg.ca/fortress-gray-asus-tuf-gaming-tuf506ih-rs74-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834235405

A pricier option (but if its worth the price I might pitch in to get it): https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0863F2HXR?tag=amz-mkt-chr-ca-20&ascsubtag=1ba00-01000-org00-win10-other-nomod-ca000-pcomp-feature-pcomp-wm-8-wm-3&ref=aa_pcomp

I'm not entirely sure how much a discrete GPU is really necessary for graphic design applications, so i might be way off the mark here...

Thanks.