First of all, let’s talk a little bit about industrial design. This branch of design is in charge of the creative activity that consists of devising a product to be mass-produced by industrialized means. Its purpose is to improve products, communicate and document ideas with a simple and effective language.
If you are still studying at university or are an industrial design professional, in this guide we present you with the best options to consider when choosing your work tool: the laptop you will use for your work as an industrial designer.
| Ranking | Name | Best Features | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSI PS42 Modern 8MO-023ES | RAM memory of 16 GB, Intel Core i7 processor | ||
| Huawei Matebook X Pro | Intel Core i7-8550U processor, 10-point LTPS touch screen (3K resolution) | ||
| Lenovo Y520-15 | 16 GB of RAM, Intel i7-700HQ processor, NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti graphics card | ||
| ASUS VivoBook S15 | Lightweight, slim and powerful, Full HD frameless screen | ||
| HP Pavilion 15-bc450ns | 8th generation i5 processor, 4 GB NVIDIA GeForce graphics card |
You must have some idea about what you are looking for in your perfect laptop to work as an industrial designer. And if you don’t, don’t worry! Here you will find everything you need to consider when comparing a laptop that is suitable for designing products.
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We will talk about the specifications needed to never suffer when delivering a project on time and the best advice from the best designers with a lot of experience in the field.
The laptops that we present here have been approved by experts, as we have considered the opinions of the customers who have purchased them, the price-quality ratio for the different budgets that may exist and the gross performance that they offer.
And if you are wondering: Which is the best laptop that fits my needs as an industrial designer? Here you will find everything you need to know. Don’t rush to buy a laptop that in time will not meet your expectations. Be smart and read this guide that will help you.
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Contents
- 1 Laptops for Industrial Design Review
- 2 What Should We Take Into Account?
- 3 What are the Characteristics that a Good Laptop for Industrial Design should have?
- 4 The Best Quality/Price Laptop for Industrial Designers
- 5 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- 5.1 Do the comparison laptops for industrial design include design programs?
- 5.2 Won’t my laptop hang up using AutoCad or other design programs?
- 5.3 How much RAM does a laptop need for industrial design?
- 5.4 Can any laptop use 3D design programs?
- 5.5 What are the minimum specifications for an industrial design laptop?
- 6 References
Laptops for Industrial Design Review
1) MSI PS42 Modern 8MO-023ES
A laptop whose execution speed predominates. It is ideal for design work in terms of its specifications because it has a RAM memory of 16 GB and a 512 GB solid disk. It has a 4-core processor that reaches a speed of up to 4.6 GHz.
It has good level specifications that give it power in execution. Intel Core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB SSD. Its weight is ideal for transporting it from one place to another and its battery gives us up to 6 hours of autonomy to work.
Let’s talk about features of this laptop that could be improved.
Its sound is weak, it has no bass. It only supports Windows 10, which is bad news for Linux users. You can install Ubuntu but you lose the full experience. The size of the screen, only 14″, may be a little uncomfortable.
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Other than this, it is one of the best laptop for industrial design use.
2) Huawei Matebook X Pro
The quality and costs and this laptop is the proof of it being one of the best for industrial design use. The Matebook X Pro is a good level invention from Huawei. Inside we can get an Intel Core i7-8550U processor with up to 4 GHz Intel Turbo Boost 4-core speed, 8 GB RAM, a 512 GB SSD solid disk and a 2 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce MX150 graphics card.
It includes a good quality touchpad. It is a fast, quiet and very good design laptop. Its weight is very light, ideal to move around without realizing that you have it on you. It has a 10-point LTPS touch screen with 3K resolution.
Let’s talk about features of this laptop that could be improved.
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The battery may not last more than 4 hours of continuous work. But if it is for work, it is ideal to have a power source nearby. Its price may be a bit higher.
3) Lenovo Y520-15
A laptop with a good size, sleek design, stylish colors and good specs
Lenovo Y520-15 comes with 16 GB of RAM and an Intel i7-700HQ processor plus an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, this is a good quality laptop. Its execution speed is the strong point and how not, with what it has inside.
Let’s talk about features of this laptop that could be improved.
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The battery may not last long if you use it constantly. It only comes with an HDD hard drive, which makes it slow to boot up. But, this can be solved by adding an SSD memory.
4) ASUS VivoBook S15 S510UF-BR452T
ASUS VivoBook S15 S510UF-BR452T laptop is a lightweight, slim and powerful ultrabook. ASUS brings us this high-end laptop at a mid-range price. Its specifications are ideal to perform in any work field or simply for gaming.
It comes with a good quality Full HD frameless screen. The battery life is very good, and can be used for about 6 hours continuously. It has a backlit keyboard with 3 levels of brightness.
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Let’s talk about specifications and features of this laptop that should have been better.
It does not have expandable RAM and The battery can get a little warm with continuous use.
5) HP Pavilion 15-bc450ns
This laptop is the best choice for everything it offers. Good for gaming but highly optimal for industrial designers. Any HP branded product can assure us a seal of quality. And this one is no exception.
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HP Pavilion 15-bc450ns laptop comes with a 15.6″ screen with an 8th generation i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM, hybrid hard drive and a 4 GB NVIDIA GeForce graphics card gives us the assurance of a powerful laptop at the best price.
The best of this laptop are its technical specifications that together give us a good machine for any job.
Following are few features of this laptop that should have been better.
It is made of a weak material such as plastic. It can also present problems with the battery and it is to be expected due to the power it demands. It does not come with an operating system but it can be easily installed.
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What Should We Take Into Account?
The best laptops for industrial design are those that will never leave us in the lurch when it comes to rendering, exporting or importing very large files or simply not hanging around during our daily work.
That is why it is important to take into account laptops that meet minimum specifications in order to perform optimally when designing. Everything depends on the level at which we are going to work: from a few designs in AutoCAD to more complicated designs in 3DS Max to mention some of the most known programs.
Because the software needed for industrial design needs much more powerful specifications than that of a normal computer, laptops used by industrial designers are usually not as economical. But don’t worry, in this guide we take into account each and every budget.
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That’s why we present you from the best laptop with the best specifications to the ideal laptop in terms of quality-price for tight pockets, so that no matter what you do, you get the best laptop adapted to your needs.
Henry Cole is considered the pioneer in industrial design as he wants to eliminate the gap between industry and design. His best known work in industrial product design is a white tea set inspired by Greek pots. He also designed the first Christmas card.
What are the Characteristics that a Good Laptop for Industrial Design should have?
We will answer this question in parts, because there are several things that a laptop must have to be considered a good laptop for industrial design.
Operating System
Nowadays, industrial designers are more inclined to use laptops with the Windows operating system, specifically Windows 10. This is because this operating system is compatible with most of the industrial design programs on the market such as
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- AutoCAD
- Revit
- 3DS Max
- Autodesk Inventor
- Maya
Just to mention a few, since there are also programs that can be easily executed in other operating systems such as MacOS or Linux.
At the end of the day, the operating system is to the consumer’s liking because it is the environment in which we are going to operate.
It is always good to review the operating systems that allow us to work on the programs we need.
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The recommendation we give you is to choose Windows 10 for Windows and MacOS Sierra v10.12.
RAM Memory
RAM (Random Access Memory) is the memory that allows the laptop to quickly access data that it retains momentarily. This memory is the one that takes care of the information we need at the moment and not the one we want to keep permanently.
It is very important that our laptop has a lot of RAM memory because we will be constantly exchanging data with industrial design programs and these are not light. For this reason, developers give a minimum of RAM necessary to be able to execute industrial design programs without problems.
The basics to be able to work without problems would be 8 GB of RAM in our laptop, because they are enough to use most of the programs we have mentioned above.
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However, if we want to have a laptop that allows us to run more than one design program at a time, or run very large files we will have to opt for a 16 GB RAM memory as it is recommended to work with programs that require large computing capacity.
Processor
The processor is the engine of our laptop, and is the one that performs all the actions that we ask. Obviously, the newer the processor, the faster it tends to run. In our case, we are looking for a processor with a speed of no less than 3 GHz.
A processor can include several cores which boost its performance enormously. As an industrial designer the top option you should be looking for is a processor with up to 8 cores. These are the ones we would like if we are looking for a super powerful laptop.
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But there are few 8-core processors on the market. That’s why with a multi-core processor, whether it’s 2 or 4, it’s enough to have the power needed to run industrial design programs at full performance.
We don’t want anything that is not at least Intel Core i5. We recommend that you look for a laptop with this generation of processor or even higher. And if you are an Apple consumer, an Intel multi-core processor should be the minimum to consider.
Storage
The storage is the hard disk memory, the one where all the data we decide will be stored. This can be of two types: Hard Drive Disk (HDD) or Solid-State Disk (SSD). The first one has been the basic storage type since the beginning of the computer and the second one is the same, only faster because of the way it works.
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The important thing if we want speed of execution: SSD. The operation of this type of hard disk that is called a “solid state” hard drive makes that wanting to open AutoCad only takes a few seconds. The only thing this type of hard disk has against is that it is more expensive than a HDD type.
For industrial designers, speed is important, be it for data transmission, program execution or simply for starting up the laptop,
A “hybrid” storage is most recommended. What is a hybrid storage? You may be wondering, because it is when our laptop has both a HDD and an SSD hard disk.
This third type of storage is the best because it offers us more memory as well as higher speed of execution.
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Screen
Now, let’s consider a very important feature for every designer who cares: the screen.
When we talk about the screen of our laptop we refer to the size in inches of it, the resolution it can support and whether or not it has a dedicated graphics card to give vast industrial design programs.
As for the size: the bigger the better. If we do not have the possibility of connecting our laptop to an external screen that allows us to observe our design better, we must have a few inches that allow us to work comfortably. The ideal would be 15.6″ since it is a good screen size.
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The resolution is another very important aspect since the industrial design programs require a minimum to work well. A screen of 1920 x 1080 is the minimum required for our laptop since it is the one most of the executables ask for.
Graphics
There are several dedicated and integrated NVIDIA branded graphics cards that ensure optimal clarity and resolution. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 card is a good option because it offers a high level of performance.
This card has 4 GB GDDR5 which is excellent for working with industrial design programs. On the other hand, we must also consider that if we want to work with 3D designs, we must add a 3D graphics card with a minimum of 1 GB of memory. We can obtain this one separately.
A very important aspect for an industrial designer is how they see the colors that the products they mold. This is why it is important that our laptop has a minimum of 1920 x 1080 with true color.
It is advisable to acquire a laptop with 4K resolution up to 3840 x 2160 in 64 bits that a suitable graphics card can offer us.
Type and Number of Ports
This feature for our laptop is very important. Why? Many programs cannot or should not run using the laptop’s touch pad. That is why it is necessary to have at least one USB port that allows us to connect a mouse type pointing device with 3 buttons, with or without a wheel.
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It is also almost mandatory today to include an HDMI port because with this port we can connect the laptop to an external screen that allows us to work better or expose our designs in a meeting.
The Best Quality/Price Laptop for Industrial Designers
Now that you know what you should take into consideration when buying your work tool, such as your laptop, we present you with an option for people with a somewhat tight budget.
The HP Pavilion 15-bc450ns laptop is a candidate to take into account due to its quality-price ratio, which is what we look for when investing money in our work: that our money lasts over time.
Its specifications are great because it offers us: a 15.6″ FullHD screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080, an Intel Core i5-8300H processor with a maximum speed of 4 GHz Turbo Boost 4 cores, 8 GB DDR4 SDRAM memory together with a 1 TB hard disk plus 128 GB SSD memory and a 4GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX1050 graphics card.
Not convinced? need your money to pay off? This laptop is the perfect choice for you, a young or experienced industrial designer, who wants to keep his work unaffected by his computer.
A hybrid storage, good size screen, quality NVIDIA graphics card, amount of ports needed and an eighth generation processor are all the reasons I give you to make the HP Pavilion your new laptop.
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The only bad point is that it doesn’t include an operating system, but nothing that we can’t solve ourselves or with the help of a technician. Are you going to pass up this bargain?
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Do the comparison laptops for industrial design include design programs?
No. These laptops may or may not come with your factory operating system. If you have an operating system, you must find the drivers on your own to install the programs you need.
Won’t my laptop hang up using AutoCad or other design programs?
If you chose one of the laptops in the comparison, it shouldn’t happen. Although you must remember that it all depends on the applications you have running simultaneously. These laptops were chosen to run industrial design programs in parallel with one or several other programs, depending on your needs.
How much RAM does a laptop need for industrial design?
We recommend 16 GB of RAM or more, since graphic design programs are heavy and require a lot of data when running them. But equally, 8 GB RAM is also good.
Can any laptop use 3D design programs?
No. To be able to make industrial designs in 3D, our laptop must have a dedicated card for this purpose. It must be Direct3D compatible and have at least 8 GB along with at least 6 GB of available storage space.
What are the minimum specifications for an industrial design laptop?
Specifications vary from program to program, but most are based on the following: Windows 10 64-bit operating system or macOS v10.12, a 2.5 GHz multi-core processor speed, 8 GB RAM, a 1920 x 1080 resolution with true color, dedicated graphics card of at least 1 GB, free 8 GB or more of storage either HDD or SSD and compatible 3-button mouse ports.
Keep visiting our website to learn about the features and specifications of laptop you’re planning to purchase.
References
https://academics.design.ncsu.edu/it/kb/industrial-design-computer-requirements/
