Believe it or not, your laptop is more or less like an actual person, your chosen partner. You need to pay attention to their set of skills, personality and all that for various purposes; meaning you do not ask your grandmothers to do some coding, or your low-food standard friend to be the chef for your upcoming party.
Simply put, you have to consider what the particular requirements are before purchasing a laptop for a specific purpose unless you do not mind wasting a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.
More so for the best laptop for AutoCAD, I wish it was as simple as picking a small notebook just to watch YouTube, but you need to spend a lot more effort than that.
Criteria for the best laptop for AutoCAD
Many people usually jump straight to hardware specifications such as RAM, graphics card, and all that, but I think the operating system is also an essential factor here. That is why I would like to start with the OS first and move on to others.
Operating system
So why is the OS so vital that it needs to be mentioned here too? That is because it dictates how your laptop runs in all kind of situations. From the moment you activate your browser, access the internet, run an application to your computer encountering an internal glitch, your OS dictates the way things run from start to beginning of all these commands as well as all other things including running AutoCAD function. Hence, consider the following most relevant aspect of the OS when trying to pick your laptop for AutoCAD:
Compatibility
It appears to be a no-brainer, and I am sure most you are aware of it, but it is also extremely crucial nonetheless. That’s why I thought it would be best just to put a brief reminder here. Make sure you check that the OS is compatible with whatever AutoCAD application you are using.
In case the AutoCAD application you are using specifies that it is compatible with all operating system and does not give much advice on which OS it works best with, then hopefully the following tips would help.
Windows
The one operating system that kick-started the computer industry, millions of applications have been built based on this OS following the massive success of Mr. Gate. That is why the majority of applications are compatible with this OS, including AutoCAD applications.
Therefore, if you just want to make sure compatibility for any other AutoCAD applications which you might end up using, Windows is your girl for the job.
Mac
Surprisingly, as a piece of device that even has an occult-like fan base, for some reasons, Mac is not as widely compatible with numerous AutoCAD application as Windows OS. True, it is partly due to the strict control over the ecosystem, but I do not think to alternative coding and making a different version for Mac is extremely difficult.
Perhaps it is due to other entirely unrelated reasons such as demographic and so on. Regardless, many claims that Mac does offer the sensation of professionalism and futurism, which they believe to be quite vital to their creativity.
Linux
If you are absolutely certain that, you desire nothing else, apart from complete compatibility of every AutoCAD applications out there on the market, consider Linux.
As an OS that takes its pride on being open source, developers around the world have since partially, if not entirely, switch to Linux for design-related work.
Linux will completely eliminate the issue of compatibility between AutoCAD programs and OS, as well as compatibility issues between AutoCAD applications themselves.
Hardware specification
Processing power
The task you do as an AutoCAD user throughout days and nights would be rendering objects. With small objects with lesser details, any laptop could do.
However, you have to take into consideration the processing power of your laptop if you are looking to render objects with great size and great details.
To ensure optimal performance for most rendering tasks, I would recommend at least 4GB of RAM and 500 GB storage to run whatever AutoCAD application it is you are using, and an i3-core or above for fast rendering of any objects of any size and details.
Graphics card
This is another question that does not have a definitive answer because it is dependent on many other factors.
However, generally, I would recommend looking for a laptop with a graphics card with the same juice as an Intel HD 4000 or above. It should be enough to display the rendering models with better resolution and sharper textures.
Monitor
As much as I want to emphasize that at least a 24 inches monitor is required, I have seen some of the co-workers using 17 inches monitors and never complain. So I am guessing you could see as low as 17 inches.
Conclusion
That concluded my article on tips and bits of advice for the best laptop on AutoCAD. Some parts of this article might differ to the advice others will give, due to a different perspective, but generally, that would be my minimum for laptops soon to be used for AutoCAD applications.
You do not have to take it as gospel, some points for references to get a broad picture of what to be expected is the purpose of my article.
Hope you have learned something new from this article, good day folks and good luck with your laptop shopping trip!
