Best Laptop for Drawing 2020

Best laptops and tablets for drawing and artwork in 2022

Best Laptops for Drawing and Artwork
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With the best laptops and tablets for drawing and artwork, you can draw on the go - on a touchscreen, no less. Having the power to directly interact with your creation, and having the battery life to manage doing this all day, wherever you are. That's the dream, right? Well, if you're an artist, it could be.

With that in mind, we looked at the vast array of options open to you with a particular focus on performance (those high end drawing apps do need a fair amount of power), portability, battery life, and the quality of the display. We also looked at how much storage the devices offered, screen size, keyboard quality, and connectivity options, among other aspects.

Thankfully, we at TechRadar have been checking out computers for years, and have amassed a substantial number of reviews, meaning you could use the handy search field to locate the device that would be right for you. But we can't let you wander down this rabbit hole on your own, so we thought we'd locate what we feel are the best laptops and tablets currently out there, perfectly suited for drawing and artwork, and gather them here for your reading pleasure.


The best laptops and tablets for drawing and artwork in 2022 in full

HP Spectre x360 (2021)

(Image credit: Future)

Best laptop for drawing and artwork with long battery life

Specifications

CPU: 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-1165G7 (quad-core, 8MB Intel Smart Cache, up to 4.7GHz with Turbo Boost)

Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated)

RAM: 16GB LPDDR4 (3200MHz)

Storage: 512GB SSD (PCIe, NVMe, M.2)

Screen: 13.3-inch FHD (1,920 x 1,080) touch

Reasons to buy

+

Gorgeous design

+

Excellent battery life

+

Great performance for day-to-day work

+

Large, comfortable keyboard

Reasons to avoid

-

Pricey

-

Fans can get noisy

-

Not great as a tablet device

This computer attempts to bridge the gap between a laptop and a tablet, by being either, whenever you need to. On the surface, it looks like a sleek traditional portable computer, but you can flip the screen entirely back, and use it as a touchscreen enabled tablet-like device.

The biggest upgrade on the HP Spectre x360 (2021) over the previous model are its components and performance, with the laptop being a showcase for Intel's latest mobile processors. Overall, as a result of the new CPU, along with a hefty 16GB of RAM, this machine is a great little performer, with Windows 10 feeling fast and responsive. Multi-tasking, with numerous apps open at once, alongside plenty of Edge tabs too, didn't really slow down its performance, either.

One of the biggest quality of life improvements Intel is pushing with its Intel Evo platform is long battery life, and the HP Spectre x360 doesn't disappoint here. It lasted an excellent 11 hours and 22 minutes in our own battery life test, which loops a 1080p video file at 50% brightness until the battery dies.

Overall it's a great and powerful portable machine, albeit pricey, which will do whatever you need it to.

Read the full review: HP Spectre x360 (2021)

Dell XPS 17

(Image credit: Future)

Best premium laptop for content creators

Specifications

CPU: Intel Core i7-11800H (8-core, 24MB Intel Smart Cache, up to 4.6GHz with Turbo Boost)

Graphics: Intel Iris Plus; Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060

RAM: 32GB DDR4 (3,200MHz)

Storage: 1TB SSD (PCIe, NVMe, M.2)

Screen: 17-inch UHD (3,840 x 2,400) touch

Reasons to buy

+

Thin and light

+

Great keyboard

+

As beautiful as ever

+

Excellent performance

Reasons to avoid

-

Expensive

-

Not enough ports

This Dell's 4K display is simply incredible. Dell sent us the 4K touch version, and while the OLED Dell XPS 13 is still better – it is OLED after all – this is still one of the best laptop displays we've used, and it's excellent for media work

Because this laptop is packed with an 11th-generation Intel Core processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, it probably shouldn't be super surprising that it absolutely chews through most workloads.

Where this laptop really shines though, is in creative workloads, where that 4K display can really shine. Whether you're working in Adobe Premiere, Photoshop or Blender, you're going to save more time on this laptop than with the latest MacBook Pro, and that's largely thanks to the CUDA cores in the RTX 3060 here.

Combine the powerful discrete graphics with the RAM and the powerful, high-wattage H-series processor and this is a laptop you can use to edit video in 4K on the road without making it a total exercise in frustration.

The only major downside, like its competitor above, is that all this power and performance comes at a price, but you do get what you pay for.

Read the full review: Dell XPS 17 (2021)

Acer Spin 5

(Image credit: Future)

Best budget laptop option for drawing and artwork

Specifications

CPU: Intel Core i7-1065G7

Graphics: Intel Iris Plus Graphics

RAM: 16GB LPDDR4X

Storage: 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD

Screen: 13.5-inch FHD (2256x1504) VertiView IPS Display

Reasons to buy

+

Highly portable

+

Fantastic battery life

+

Feature rich stylus included

+

Powerful 10th-Gen Intel CPU

+

3:2 display perfect for note-taking

Reasons to avoid

-

3:2 display not ideal for 16:9 video

-

Bloatware includes desktop pop-up ads

-

Gaming isn't great

-

Sound is so-so

Typically, 2-in-1 laptops have a 16:9 aspect ratio, which means they're nearly twice as long as they is wide, making them feeling cramped when writing or drawing on them. Not so with the Spin 5: its 3:2 ratio is absolutely fantastic in that regard.

The included stylus is small and can feel a bit flimsy, but since it's got its own charging and housing port on the side of the laptop, it's much less likely to get lost or broken than those shipped with other 2-in-1s.

Arguably one of the stylus' most useful features, should it run out of power, is the ultra-fast charging system: just plug it back into the laptop for around 15-20 seconds, and you'll get about 90 minutes worth of charge.

The Spin 5 doesn't look like it's going to be as powerful as it actually is. Squeezed into its slender chassis is the latest Intel Ice Lake mobile processors with Intel's new Iris Plus integrated GPU, which does a respectable job for integrated graphics.

As for multitasking, the Spin 5 is a champ. These processors chew through all but the most demanding apps without breaking a sweat. What's more, the 16GB of RAM are going to make memory-hungry apps like Adobe Photoshop much more manageable.

Read the full review: Acer Spin 5

iPad Pro 12.9 2021

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Best tablet for multitasking

Specifications

CPU: Apple M1

Graphics: 8-core GPU

RAM: 8GB / 16GB

Storage: 128GB / 256GB / 512GB / 1TB / 2TB

Screen: 12.9-inch Liquid Retina XDR Mini LED LCD 2048 x 2732

Reasons to buy

+

Phenomenal power

+

Fantastic display

+

Strong battery life

Reasons to avoid

-

An almighty price

-

128GB storage feels limited

-

Lackluster color options

The iPad Pro 2021 12.9-inch tablet isn't for everyone. The biggest caveats are that it's incredibly expensive, and that it's an overwhelmingly large device for those who don't need a screen this big (although which artists will be complaining about the latter?).

The new Liquid Retina XDR Mini LED display is gorgeous, with max brightness levels unseen on other tablets – this slate can compete with the likes of Samsung's Galaxy Tab S7 Plus, which felt like a major upgrade for tablet screens only recently. The screen is one of the best for watching movies on, and it'll also suit you well for everyday tasks.

Much has been made of Apple's M1 chipset, and this is the first time the company has included its new, desktop-power silicon in an iPad. Do you absolutely need it? Probably not, but if you want some truly impressive power that blows every other tablet out of the water, again the latest iPad Pro is a great choice.

You likely won't appreciate having this much power on tap unless you're intensively gaming, using power-hungry design apps, or pushing the tablet to its multi-tasking limits. It will load apps faster than before, but in most cases the differences are only noticeable to the average user when powering up the App Store's most intensive experiences.

Battery life is solid – in our testing we found that the tablet would last for around 10 hours on a full charge. Your mileage will of course vary depending on what you're doing, but this is great battery performance that no one should be disappointed by.

Read the full review: iPad Pro 12.9 (2021)

Surface Pro 8 outside on a table showing Windows 11 desktop

(Image credit: Future)

Best all-rounder for drawing and artwork

Specifications

CPU: 3.0GHz Intel Core i7-1185G7 (quad-core, 12MB Intel Smart Cache, up to 4.8GHz with Turbo Boost)

Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics

RAM: 16GB LPDDR4x

Storage: 256GB SSD (PCIe, NVMe, M.2)

Screen: 13-inch QHD (2,880 x 1,920) touch

Reasons to buy

+

Faster processor

+

Gorgeous new design

+

Bigger display

+

Thunderbolt 4

Reasons to avoid

-

More expensive

-

No more USB Type-A

-

Type Cover still sold separately

With a device that's meant to be as portable as the Surface Pro 8, performance is always a difficult balance to strike. You want it to be fast, but you don't want to push it so hard that battery life goes down the toilet and it becomes too hot to handle.

Using Cinebench R15 - a test we've retired and replaced with Cinebench R23 - the Surface Pro 8 is nearly 50% faster than the Surface Pro 7, which is a pretty incredible generational increase. The difference isn't as stark in GeekBench 4, but it's still noticeably faster.

What's more impressive, though, is how the Surface Pro 8 fares against its big sibling, the Surface Laptop Studio. The tablet is just 12% slower than Microsoft's so-called creative workstation in Cinebench, and just 5% slower in GeekBench. This is all in spite of the fact that the Surface Pro 8 is half as thick as the Laptop Studio and nearly half the weight, making it a fantastic and powerful tablet for its size.

Testing the Surface Pro 8 battery life using PCMark 10, we managed to get 8 hours and 15 minutes out of it, making this a device you can totally use to work all day without needing a charger. If you're an artist, the Surface Pro 8 is just as good as ever for illustrators, graphic artists and more, especially if you pair it with the Surface Pen. This is an essential device for any artist on the go.

Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Pro 8

We've also featured the best business laptops and the best business tablets

How to choose the best laptops and tablets for drawing and artwork for you?

The best laptops and tablets for drawing and artwork offer a lag-free creative experience to users. You'll want to pick a device based on your content creation requirements.

If you plan to use graphics intensive apps for your creative work, look for a laptop with a powerful CPU and plenty of RAM to boot. For those who're often on the road, long battery life and high screen brightness are crucial. Make sure to assess the device's weight and size if you want a light and portable carrying experience. Also, if you have additional devices to connect, check whether the laptop offers the right type of connectivity options for you.

The best laptops and tablets for drawing and artwork: how we test

To select the best laptops and tablets for drawing and artwork, we took into account their performance, portability, storage, and screen size and quality.

We looked at their CPU and RAM and how well they handled different graphic-intensive applications, like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. We evaluated their battery life while running different types of applications, like video players, web browsers, etc.

Along with creative apps, we checked how well the laptops ran games, and the sound quality of the speakers. We also considered whether the laptop/tablet included accessories like a stylus, among other aspects.

Steve has been writing about technology since 2003. Starting with Digital Creative Arts, he's since added his tech expertise at titles such as iCreate, MacFormat, MacWorld, MacLife, and TechRadar. His focus is on the creative arts, like website builders, image manipulation, and filmmaking software, but he hasn't shied away from more business-oriented software either. He uses many of the apps he writes about in his personal and professional life. Steve loves how computers have enabled everyone to delve into creative possibilities, and is always delighted to share his knowledge, expertise, and experience with readers.

gagehorwill.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.techradar.com/best/laptops-and-tablets-for-drawing-and-artwork

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