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The Best Laptops for Digital Art and Artists comes with a touchscreen that lets you draw directly on the screen with a digital stylus. In other words, you won’t need a separate graphics tablet to see your work come to life. In recent years, we’ve seen stylus support improve significantly, so even on a laptop, it’s now possible to enjoy a natural and easy drawing experience. In this article, we’ve gathered together the best of the bunch.
As ever, we’ve used our methodical testing processes and expert reviews to decide which devices to include on our list. (See our guide to how we test laptops, PCs and workstations for more details on our process.) We’ve paid particular attention to the responsiveness of the screens when using a stylus, as well as the battery life each laptop has to offer.
The laptops below are all brilliant for drawing, and of course they’re great for other purposes too. Which is why some of them also appear in our guides to the best laptops for animation and the best laptops for graphic design. If you’re looking for something more specific, we also have a guide to the best 2-in-1 laptops for creatives. Or, if you’d rather not use a laptop to make art at all, check out our guide to the best drawing tablets instead.
Best Laptops for Digital Art and Artists Comparison Table
| Product Name | Display Size | Resolution | Processor | Graphics | RAM | Storage | Operating System |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acer Aspire 5 | 15.6″ | Full HD | Intel Core i5-1135G7 | Intel Iris Xe Graphics | 8GB | 512GB SSD | Windows 10 Home |
| Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 | 14″ | Full HD | AMD Ryzen 5 5500U | AMD Radeon Graphics | 8GB | 256GB SSD | Windows 10 Home |
| Microsoft Laptop Studio | 13.5″ | Full HD | Intel Core i5/i7/i9 | Intel Iris Xe Graphics/ NVIDIA® GeForce® | 8/16GB | 256GB/512GB/1TB SSD | Windows 11 |
| Microsoft Surface Pro 9 | 13″ | Full HD | Intel Core i5/i7 | Intel Iris Xe Graphics | 8/16GB | 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB SSD | Windows 11 |
| Apple MacBook Pro | 13″ | Retina | Apple M1 chip/Intel Core i5 | Apple M1 chip/Intel Iris Plus | 8/16GB | 256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB SSD | macOS |
| Microsoft Surface Book 3 | 13.5″/15″ | Full HD | Intel Core i5/i7/i9 | Intel Iris Plus/ NVIDIA GeForce | 8/16/32GB | 256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB SSD | Windows 10 Pro |
Acer Aspire 5 15.6 Full HD Laptop
| Specifications | Details |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i5-1135G7 |
| RAM | 8GB DDR4 |
| Storage | 512GB NVMe SSD |
| Display | 15.6-inch Full HD IPS |
| Graphics | Intel Iris Xe Graphics |
| Battery life | Up to 8.5 hours |
The Acer Aspire is the least expensive choice on my list of the Best Laptops for Digital Art and Artists in 2023. For the price, it does a pretty good job. The processor, graphics, RAM, and solid state storage are all very fast, so any artist, even animators and filmmakers, can get into their creative flow and stay there without any delays, glitches, or snags.
And with the newest Intel i5 processor, you can run any art software without any problems, even the most powerful and advanced expert programs. This laptop is big for a laptop, with a beautiful 15.6-inch full-HD screen, so it takes a little more work to carry it around. At the same time, the screen’s great color depth and vibrancy, brightness and contrast, and amazing sharpness and detail make all artwork and other things look their best.
The Good
- A reasonable price
- The job was done well.
- Sleek design
The Bad
- Limited ability to upgrade
- Typical battery life
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 2-in-1 Laptop/Tablet
| Specifications | Details |
|---|---|
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 5 5500U |
| RAM | 16GB DDR4 |
| Storage | 512GB NVMe SSD |
| Display | 14-inch Full HD IPS Touchscreen |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon Graphics |
| Battery life | Up to 10 hours |
The Lenovo Flex 5 is a great and very cheap 2-in-1 notebook/tablet computer with a touch screen. It has a 14-inch screen, which is big enough to work on with real control and precision but small enough to make it easy to carry around.
And the Flex 5 is made so well that you can throw it in a backpack or art bag and take it with you without worrying. The touchscreen display is a joy to use because it has great clarity, color, energy, detail, and the Lenovo Active Pen digital stylus works well with the screen.
This is a very useful and valuable painting tool. It has a lot of memory and an SSD storage drive that is at least big enough. This and some of the other computers on our list are great for artists because they have a hybrid design. It lets you work beautifully on any kind of digital art or picture and use it on a laptop as you would a regular personal computer for your commercial art business.
The Good
- Versatile 2-in-1 design
- Work done quickly
- Lasts a long time
The Bad
- Average speakers Average webcam
Microsoft Laptop Studio
| Specifications | Details |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i7-11800H |
| RAM | 16GB DDR4 |
| Storage | 512GB NVMe SSD |
| Display | 14.4-inch PixelSense Touchscreen |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti |
| Battery life | Up to 19 hours |
The Surface Laptop Studio from Microsoft isn’t just the Best Laptops for Digital Art and Artists. It’s almost the best laptop that Microsoft has ever made. It has a beautiful, high-quality design, a beautiful screen, and a very nice way to change from a tablet to a laptop. On many 2-in-1s, you can fold the screen back to turn the computer into a tablet. But the Surface Laptop Studio works differently. It has a split hinge that lets the screen slide over the keyboard so that it can be used as a tablet.
It can also be propped up like an easel, which is great for writing and means you don’t have to buy a stand or use it flat if you want to use it without your hands. The 3:2 screen size is good for writing, and it has a fast 120Hz refresh rate and can be used with the Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus, which is sold separately. When we looked at the laptop, its brightness was 505 nits.
The Good
- The performance was strong.
- Good-looking show
- Lasts a long time
The Bad
- Price is high and there aren’t many ports.
Microsoft Surface Pro 9
| Specifications | Details |
|---|---|
| Processor | 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 |
| RAM | 8GB LPDDR4x |
| Storage | 256GB SSD |
| Display | 13.5-inch PixelSense Touchscreen |
| Graphics | Intel Iris Xe Graphics |
| Battery life | Up to 10.5 hours |
Yes, the Surface Pro 8 isn’t a laptop in the strictest sense. It’s a tablet, but it runs Windows 11, which means you can use full PC programs on a small device. But if you add the extra keyboard, which is called the Type Cover, you have a great thin and light laptop. You might be thinking, then, why there aren’t any iPads on this list, since most of them can be used with an Apple keyboard to make them work like laptops.
Apple thinks of the iPad Pro as a tablet first and foremost, so it can’t do things like run macOS. Microsoft, on the other hand, thinks of the Surface Pro as both a laptop and a tablet. The Microsoft Surface Pro 9, which is number 4 on our list, is even more stylish than its predecessor, the still-impressive Surface Pro 8. The new model comes in four colors that all look good: the new Graphite, Sapphire, Forest, and the original Platinum. Accessories, like the great keyboard, also come in a wide range of colors.
The Good
- Easy to carry and not too heavy
- Excellent display
- Very well done.
The Bad
- Costs a lot when extras are added
- The keyboard and stylus are sold separately.
Apple MacBook Pro 16 inch
| Specifications | Details |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel M1 Pro (10-core CPU, 16-core GPU) | M1 Max (10-core CPU, 32-core GPU)i5-1135G7 |
| Battery size | 100Wh |
| Memory | 16GB to 64GB |
| Weight | 4.7 pounds (M1 Pro) | 4.8 pounds (M1 Max) |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Webcam | 1080p FaceTime HD camera |
The Best Laptops for Digital Art and Artists in 2023, in our opinion, is the Apple MacBook Pro. It can run artistic software on the Macintosh platform, store the biggest files and portfolios, and show the work in amazing detail, color, and life. The depth, clarity, and beautiful colors of the MacBook Pro’s screen can help an artist improve their work. It can last up to 21 hours on a single charge, and the 32-core GPU makes it fast for apps that use a lot of graphics.
For all those Zoom calls with clients, it also has a 1080p Facetime HD camera. The Apple MacBook Pro is also very fast and powerful. Design and art apps run smoothly on it. As artists ourselves, we can say with certainty that this MBP laptop will help any digital artist finish their projects and show their art in a way that is both correct and beautiful.
The Good
- Fantastic power available
- Class-leading mini-LED screen
- Great battery life
The Bad
- Heavier than older model
Microsoft Surface Book 3
| Specifications | Details |
|---|---|
| Processor | 10th Gen Intel Core i7-1065G7 |
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR4x |
| Storage | 512GB SSD |
| Display | 13.5-inch PixelSense Touchscreen |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 |
| Battery life | Up to 15.5 hours |
The Microsoft Surface laptop is a well-made piece of technology. It’s light, stylish, and strong. It has a bright, high-definition touch screen, a powerful processor, and enough memory to run even the most complex art or animation software. The Surface Pro laptop has the newest and fastest processors, a Radeon graphics coprocessor, and super-fast DDR4 RAM. This makes it a great choice for complex jobs like animation, high-resolution graphics, and professional photo editing.
It also has an SSD drive that can be taken out, which is good for painters and photographers and makes it easy to upgrade the computer. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 13.5′′ is also available with a smaller screen and slightly different specs and hardware, but it is still a strong and desirable machine for any working worker or fine artist.
The Good
- Unique detachable design
- Good-looking show
- The performance was strong.
The Bad
- Expensive price tag
- Limited ability to upgrade
FAQs
Yes, you can use a regular PC to make digital art, but it might not work as well or be as fun. It is best to buy a laptop made just for digital art if you want to do digital art at a skilled level.
There is no “best” laptop for digital work because it depends on what you need and what you like. Apple’s MacBook Pro, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 9, and Lenovo’s IdeaPad Flex 5 2-in-1 are all good choices.
Digital art doesn’t have to be made on a tablet, but if you use a stylus or pen, it can make the process more natural and easy to understand.