Tochscreen worth it for designing?

[Texas_Signmaker]

I was looking at a new laptop and wanted to know if anyone finds a touch screen helpful at all in designing? My assumption is it's not but I haven't tried it.


Two laptops I've narrowed down to are an HP Envy with a touch screen but has a low end M150 graphics card and 4 core i7. The other one is dell G7 doest have a touch screen but comes with a GTX1060 and a 6 core i7... I rather go with the better specs but will trade off if touchscreen is helpful.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I was looking at a new laptop and wanted to know if anyone finds a touch screen helpful at all in designing? My assumption is it's not but I haven't tried it.


Two laptops I've narrowed down to are an HP Envy with a touch screen but has a low end M150 graphics card and 4 core i7. The other one is dell G7 doest have a touch screen but comes with a GTX1060 and a 6 core i7... I rather go with the better specs but will trade off if touchscreen is helpful.

Not quite the same thing, but I do have the touchscreen Cintiq (27QHD and the Companion (which is probably the closest that you are talking about)) and while I do like the touchscreen, I still prefer using the stylus for design work. I like the touchscreen for regular computing, don't get me wrong, it has it's perks for that, just haven't quite mastered it for design work. Still a little "clunky" in my opinion. Take it for what that is worth.

 

[equippaint]

I would think itd be clunky and youd end up having a smudged up screen all of the time. Personally I prefer hooking up to a larger 32" external monitor for any design programs and using the laptops as the secondary which would defeat the touchscreen.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Not quite the same thing, but I do have the touchscreen Cintiq (27QHD and the Companion (which is probably the closest that you are talking about)) and while I do like the touchscreen, I still prefer using the stylus for design work. I like the touchscreen for regular computing, don't get me wrong, it has it's perks for that, just haven't quite mastered it for design work. Still a little "clunky" in my opinion. Take it for what that is worth.

Yea, I was thinking it would be clunky too... not too precise not much value for Flexi

 

[Johnny Best]

They have Affinity Designer now for the IPad. Looks interesting.

 

[crny1]

I purchsed the surface pro laptop (best one available and not cheap for what it is) thinking I could use it when flying. I fly 2 times a week and hate that the time flying is wasted time. I can say that the touch screen part of it is pretty worthless with AI and PS. great for regular computer use. Not enough precision. I can use the stylus pen to do some work but even then it feels akward to me. Maybe if I used it more it wouldnt but it sure does now.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Thanks for the input . That was my thinking and I'm reassured that others are confirming it. Going to go with the Dell G7. Higher specs for my price range but no touchscreen.

 

[MJDallas]

Thanks for the input . That was my thinking and I'm reassured that others are confirming it. Going to go with the Dell G7. Higher specs for my price range but no touchscreen.

Good choice. I have a touch screen and rarely use it.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I got it and so far I'm lovin it. If anyone asks, this "gamers" laptop is for work...that's what I need the graphics card for....cause of the graphic type things I do with it...because I deal with graphics..OK??? I just loaded Steam to test it out and make sure it worked OK.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I got it and so far I'm lovin it. If anyone asks, this "gamers" laptop is for work...that's what I need the graphics card for....cause of the graphic type things I do with it...because I deal with graphics..OK??? I just loaded Steam to test it out and make sure it worked OK.

Video cards for gaming isn't always the best for CAD work though. High enough specs version, might be able to "brute" force it to work, but gamer cards tend to focus on things like FPS, which isn't really all that needed for us for CAD work.

I can use the stylus pen to do some work but even then it feels akward to me. Maybe if I used it more it wouldnt but it sure does now.

If you were to try it with a Cintiq tablet, probably be a different story. Surface doesn't have the sensitivity that a good Cintiq does. While there are cheaper alternatives (Huion (sp?))that have "good enough" support (more for the monitor, not so much for tablets (yet)), I don't use those because they don't have built in drivers like Wacom does for Linux.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Video cards for gaming isn't always the best for CAD work though. High enough specs version, might be able to "brute" force it to work, but gamer cards tend to focus on things like FPS, which isn't really all that needed for us for CAD work.

I know this... I was being cheeky.

 

[brycesteiner]

They have Affinity Designer now for the IPad. Looks interesting.

I bought the new iPad 12.9" just because this software came out. It's actually very good. I have been using Affinity Designer on both the desktop and the iPad. It's pretty good. A few quirks that are annoying on the desktop but no less than Adobe applications, just in different places.

 

[Pauly]

I was looking at a new laptop and wanted to know if anyone finds a touch screen helpful at all in designing? My assumption is it's not but I haven't tried it.


Two laptops I've narrowed down to are an HP Envy with a touch screen but has a low end M150 graphics card and 4 core i7. The other one is dell G7 doest have a touch screen but comes with a GTX1060 and a 6 core i7... I rather go with the better specs but will trade off if touchscreen is helpful.

What i have noticed lately is people are not sure of what specs to get their laptops or PCs for Work (not gaming).
Gaming rigs are not for design work use, designing & CAD ect. Even if the hardware is top quality its designed for gaming and you'll never get the full potential out of it.

Those 2 laptops are a no from me for "design work"
I'm going to assume you'll have files that are over 2gb ect. as i work with files bigger than that regularly.

If you want something that will handle design work and not games, you'll need a "work station" Like a Lenovo thinkpad, Dell Precision, HP Zbook ect.
Those laptops are designed for work related tasks and not gaming.
These may be a little more expensive than your budget, but they'll do a lot better of a job than your generic laptop or a gaming laptop at doing design work.

No you dont need a touch screen. it only acts like a tablet with out a pen.
If you want to draw on a screen, get a wacom cintiq pro for your laptop.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

If you want something that will handle design work and not games, you'll need a "work station" Like a Lenovo thinkpad, Dell Precision, HP Zbook ect.

I would suggest the ones with the Xeon processors and ECC ram. Last time I looked, they had the option without those as well.

If you want to draw on a screen, get a wacom cintiq pro for your laptop.

I have one of the 1st gens of the Wacom tablets and it is a good workhorse. Bad thing is that it's 13", but it still does wonders.

 

[Pauly]

I would suggest the ones with the Xeon processors and ECC ram. Last time I looked, they had the option without those as well.

Both Lenovo think pad P and the Dell Precision have those options. (the 2 id go for. im not a huge HP person for laptops)
You'll get people saying you dont need Xeon ect ect the i7s are just as good....
But yes i'd rather have an xeon over an i7, but i7 is fine for a "budget build" as long as you can get a nvidia quadro card in it. you'll have a good work station.
I'd also go for ECC ram.

Understandably i don't think these laptops will be in OPs budget. but maybe squeeze for a base workstation which will be much much better than the ones listed.


I have one of the 1st gens of the Wacom tablets and it is a good workhorse. Bad thing is that it's 13", but it still does wonders.

They're great! unfortunately i have no use for one. i'd love to get one though.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I was mainly wondering about the touchscreen. For what I do my 7 year old Thinkpad was keeping up just fine, with the exception of the small LCD. I'm not an intensive graphic designer, just simple sign layouts on Flexi....

For the more involved graphic designers, that would be good advise.

 

[Pauly]

I was mainly wondering about the touchscreen. For what I do my 7 year old Thinkpad was keeping up just fine, with the exception of the small LCD. I'm not an intensive graphic designer, just simple sign layouts on Flexi....

For the more involved graphic designers, that would be good advise.

being more specific in the first post usually help more when discussing things with many options.

You probably do as much as i do. cut crop ect images except i use photoshop, illustrator ect. I use a fully specd out DELL XPS13. 7th gen i7, 16gb ram ect. just no graphics card as it's a 13". (onboard iris graphics) which does what i need to do fine. (you cannot get 13" work stations and i dont like lugging around 15" laptops hence my decision with a specd out 13")
it has a touch screen. wouldn't notice if it wasn't there.

 

[Bobby H]

I bought a large iPad Pro and Apple Pencil a year ago and like it quite a bit. A bunch of the most popular design applications (such as Procreate) are very inexpensive. If you use Creative Cloud the iPad can be very handy for apps Adobe makes for it. I create a decent amount of hand drawn lettering on the iPad and then bring it over into the desktop version of Photoshop or Illustrator to vectorize. I'll do some other things in Adobe Illustrator Draw and bring those assets straight into sign designs. Adobe is working on a full blown version of Photoshop for the iPad (due out in 2019). They have some other interesting applications in the works.

When I was shopping for the iPad I looked at other alternatives. Microsoft's Surface Studio computer is a very beautiful, elegant all-in-one computer. It looks a lot better than the typical iMac. The screen is outstanding. But it's really expensive, has notebook PC guts in it and the Surface stylus doesn't work as good as it should. Wacom's monitors and tablet computers work very well, but they're expensive. The Apple Pencil works very very well. Great pressure sensitivity, no lag and very smooth operation. The iPad & Apple Pencil combination just seemed to provide the most bang for the buck.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

Touch screens on computers are terrible for sensitivity and accuracy. Plus, it's not the same as a cintiq or even those discount drawing tablets with a monitor behind them ... they are made for chunky finger detection, nothing detailed and precise. For a pc or mac ... something like this is far superior to any 'touch screen pc' they might try to bundle. https://www.amazon.com/KAMVAS-GT-19...=1-4&keywords=drawing+tablet+with+screen&th=1

Even with something like that (which is a decent starter tablet with a screen) ... I would ask if you were illustrating stuff daily or even doing anything that would require more than mouse manipulation. I have one, but I do illustration work and photo cleanup for halftone rendering almost daily. Some of the shops I do work for in-house I had them get small wacom tablets so I could train their daily designers on how to use them for all sorts of work to speed up efficiency so most of the time you don't need $500-$4k pieces of equipment to do art ... just a decent $100 tablet and practice can make the world of difference.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

What i have noticed lately is people are not sure of what specs to get their laptops or PCs for Work (not gaming).
Gaming rigs are not for design work use, designing & CAD ect. Even if the hardware is top quality its designed for gaming and you'll never get the full potential out of it.

This I don't entirely agree with this. Right now there is a trend in pc building not to use decent video cards in 'work pc' builds ... because the Graphics Card market is butchered thanks to bitcoin mining. I have a 7 year old graphics card that is worth more now than when I bought it thanks to this. For design work, gaming pc's utilize really decent graphics cards in them so doing things like rendering large-scale bitmap images or other resource heavy design work isn't bogged down by a subpar graphics card in a work pc. While you save money on basically having a decent graphics card bundled into a pc and making it a 'gaming pc' ... it's no where near the cost savings of a 'work pc' that doesn't have a performance video card. Just have to find what works for you.

That being said ... one shop a buddy owns needed to update their computer systems for his designers and they primarily use just illustrator. So I found an HP work computer that was affordable with an awesome processor and a non-onboard video card (not an awesome one, just one that had dual monitor support for the future and a gig of video ram) ... just lacking ram. So for 4 computers, a giant pile of ram and 30" monitors .. he paid the same amount as 2 gaming pcs with monitors because he didn't need massive video card requirements or the need for 15 usb peripherals. His designers wouldn't know the difference ... but I recently upgraded to a gaming pc (excellent price for the specs) ... and good lord ... I had 4 graphics programs open, and was batch rendering 36 MP images in photoshop in the background of my PC while I was doing some vector illustration work in illustrator on my pen tablet ... no hiccups. I could have built the same computer ... would have cost me an additional $800 thanks to aftermarket pricing and the GPU market being decimated with insane prices, I just have to deal with my computer looking like a decepticon. This all comes in the form of my user requirements needing an awesome processor with a graphics card that can keep up and render all this stuff in real time. ... or I could have had 2 computers for the same cost so I can do the same thing this one computer does daily.