Whether you're a budding architecture student, a seasoned graphic designer, or a professional architect, there's one thing you can't go without and that's the best laptop. This is due to the fact that most people are working a few days or permanently from home, combined with the fact that these days most architectural drafting and designing is done on a computer.
So you'd definitely need a computer or a laptop to get your work done, however, with transportability being key, a laptop is preferable. Unlike a desktop, a laptop allows you to move around easily, whether that's going to your art and design class or pitching a project.
When it comes to these professions, there are several key components you will be looking for in a laptop, including the RAM, graphics card, screen size and resolution of the display. You'll need a great graphics card, as this will allow smooth and fast architectural renderings. You'll also need a decent size of RAM, as your architectural software will take a pretty big chunk of it. This is why gaming laptops are excellent choices for architects - as they are built to have impressively crisp displays and feature plenty of RAM, as well as state of the art graphics cards!
Don't worry if you're on a smaller budget or if you've been saving up for a while, as our best laptops for architects guide has it all covered.
The best laptops for architects
Best overall laptop for architects
We've listed this as our top choice for a range of reasons; one of the most important being that it boasts an incredible retina display with true tone technology. This allows for colours on your display to match the ambient light, so that images appear much more natural, helping you create your ideal aesthetic. It also features an AMD Radeon Pro 5300M graphics card, and ultrafast SSD. RAM: 16GB Storage: 512GB
2.
Acer Nitro 5
Best for students
A very close contender is the Acer Nitro 5. Boasting one of the most up to date graphics cards and a powerful processor, the Acer Nitro 5 is an excellent choice. With an impressive speed and a crisp display, it's excellent for creating drafts as well as rendering them. RAM: 8GB Storage: 256GB
Best budget laptop for architects
Another excellent option, especially for anyone on a budget. The HP Pavilion offers you a relatively low price tag. with a 15.6-inch touchscreen display, fast charging and 178-degree wide-viewing angles/ All ideal for presentations and/or if you're on the move to your next meeting or class. RAM: 8GB Storage: 512GB
Best for professionals
This is a pretty powerful laptop, with some impressive features. Aside from boasting an NVIDIA Quadro RTX Graphics card, as well as an excellent display it also has a whole 16GB of RAM - which is ideal for rendering larger images and designs. It is a bit more expensive than some of the other laptops, which is why we think this is best for professionals who truly need and will take advantage of this laptop's powerful features. RAM: 16GB Storage: 256GB
Recommended
If you're on a bit of a budget but don't want to compromise on quality, then the Asus ROG Zephyrus might be the one for you. With a 15.6-inch display and a screen display of 1920 x 1200 pixels, your images and videos will be pretty crisp and clear. It also has an incredible 1TB storage space, which is excellent for anyone with an overflow of media. RAM: 16GB Storage space: 1TB
Best value for price
For those who like to demonstrate their projects and designs on a display, this adaptable, touchscreen laptop is a great option. Aside from having a pretty large screen size and an anti-glare display, it also boasts a whole 1TB of storage and a fast processor. RAM: 8GB Storage: 1TB
What features do I need to consider when buying a laptop?
There are plenty of factors to consider, but the four most important ones would be a graphics card, RAM, screen size, and the resolution of the display.
The graphics card is what will control how fast and how smoothly it processes your drawings and designs. RAM is also pretty important as whatever architectural software you'll be using; Rhino, AutoCAD, Revit, or another, will take up a lot of that space. So always look for a laptop with a larger amount of RAM, such as the HP ZBook Studio G5 15.6 or the Asus ROG Zephyrus Laptop.
When it comes to screen size, a larger screen size between 15 and 17 inches will be best for architectural rendering, so the Apple MacBook Pro would be an excellent choice. Also, the Dell Inspiron 17 3000 series 17.3 Inch would be another great choice.
The resolution of the display shows how many pixels are on the screen. The higher the number of pixels, the clearer, sharper and better the images are shown on the laptop.
What to read next?
Isabel Martins is a Commercial Content Writer for What's The Best, specialising in technology.
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