When you combine the best laptops for drawing and sketching with the best stylus, it feels a lot like making marks on paper, but with the benefit of working in digital. Many also have 360-degree hinges or detachable screens, allowing you can use them like a tablet when that suits.
We've put our experts to work, testing and reviewing a range of the best devices, in order to pick out the very best laptops for drawing. We've standard benchmark tests to test them scientifically, as well as actually drawing on each device using different software, to find out what it's like in practice.
We've paid particular attention to the colour accuracy, resolution and responsiveness of the screens, as well as considering overall performance, battery life and price. However, if drawing is more important to you that typing and you want to ditch the keyboard, have a look at our list of the best drawing tablets out there.
This is our top pick for the best laptop for drawing because of its brilliant screen, generous battery life, and high performance, especially when you team it with a Surface Slim Pen 2. Read more below
Want to save cash? Offering excellent value for money, the Acer Chromebook Spin 514 has a glorious screen, a handy USB-C port (great for connecting a stylus) and zippy performance. Read more below
More tablet than a laptop, the Surface Pro 9 still offers a fully-fledged Windows 11 experience but with added portability, and and you can add an optional keyboard. Read more below
The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) has truly stunning screen. This 3K OLED touchscreen display offers a 120Hz refresh rate, a 100% sRGB colour gamut and 1.07 billion colours. Read more below
The HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) is a high-end 2-in-1 laptop that's great for drawing thanks for its responsive OLED touchscreen, powerful internal components, and included stylus. Read more below
This 2-in-1 laptop is unique in its versatility, with a handy second screen for references or quick access to other apps. It also boast powerful specs and solid build quality. Read more below
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Our testing determined that this is the best laptop Microsoft has made to date, and we think it's a great laptop for drawing thanks to a lovely 3:2 touchscreen, with a very nice mechanism for positioning it like an easel.
On many hybrids, the screen folds back to convert the laptop into a tablet. But the Surface Laptop Studio works in a different way, with a split hinge design that allows the screen to be slid over the keyboard. It can also be propped up in an easel-like position, which we found to be great for drawing and eliminates the need to buy a stand or use the screen flat, if you want to use it hands-free.
The screen is bright – we measured 505 nits when we reviewed the laptop, and we found the 3:2 screen size is convenient for drawing too. We also found stylus support to be very responsive thanks to a zippy 120Hz refresh rate, which eliminates any frustrating lag when laying down digital ink. Just note that the Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus is sold separately.
More generally, we were impressed with the performance upgrades on this second gen model, with powerful 13th Gen Intel processors and up to Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics. Memory support has been boosted to a hefty 64GB too. We found battery life to be another highlight, giving us 12 hours of use. It could do with more ports, but overall this is a gorgeous laptop for drawing and other creative work.
Screen: 35.6 cm (14") Full HD (1920 x 1080) 16:9 Touchscree
Storage: 128 GB Flash Memory
Reasons to buy
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Incredible Full HD screen
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Fast performance
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Multi-stylus compatibility
Reasons to avoid
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Flash memory
If you're happy with a Chromebook, we think the Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is brilliant option for drawing. It's zippy enough to run light to midweight software in the cloud with no issues (those with more demanding workflows will need a bigger hitter), but most importantly for drawing is the excellent screen.
We loved the 14-inch Full HD touchscreen, and especially appreciated the 16:10 ratio – giving extra space for drawing. Plus, the USB-C port made connecting a stylus much easier than on portless Chromebooks.
The laptop also spins fully into tablet mode, which makes the perfect canvas for drawing. The build quality is also excellent, meaning it's a mid-price Chromebook with some premium features.
Yes, strictly speaking, the Surface Pro 9 is a tablet rather than a laptop, albeit one that runs Windows 11, allowing you to use fully fledged desktop software on a compact device. However, attach the optional Type Cover keyboard, and you've basically got a fantastic thin and light laptop. Of course an iPad can also do this, but we haven't included iPads in this guide since they don't run desktop software.
We found Windows 11 to run fast, and the screen offers an excellent drawing experience with the Surface Slim Pen 2. The design works well. We recommend the optional keyboard since we find Windows awkward to use using touch alone, but whether you go for the Type Cover or not, the solid stand provides adequate support to hold the device upright when drawing at a desk, while you also have the benefit of being able to use this handheld and draw on your lap.
We like the range of colours available too: Graphite, Sapphire, Forest and the original Platinum, and these are matched in the keyboard. Note that like with the Surface Laptop Studio 2 above, the stylus is sold separately.
The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) is a high-quality, lightweight laptop with many benefits, but probably its biggest highlight is its truly stunning screen.
This 14-inch 3K OLED touchscreen display offers a 120Hz refresh rate and excellent colour accuracy. Artists can also benefit from a 100% sRGB colour gamut, 1.07 billion colours on display; response time of 0.2ms, and while the brightness is just 500 nits, the OLED tech makes it feel much brighter and sharper than that in reality. In the words of our reviewer, "It's the finest laptop screen on sale right now, and it worked perfectly throughout my testing".
It's a capable and powerful laptop too, thanks to the team of Intel's latest Core Ultra processors with integrated AI capabilities (NPU), offering performance comparable to some higher-end laptops. Improved integrated Intel Arc Graphics are very capable of handling gaming and creative tasks too.
All this comes in a thin and light package, weighing only 1.28kg and measuring 1.49cm thick. Our reviewer also liked smaller but no less important features like a virtual numpad on the trackpad and ASUS Pencil 2 stylus support. And while it's let down by limited port selection (2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, 1 USB-A, and HDMI), it's competitively priced, undercutting similarly specced MacBook Air models. In short, this is an excellent choice for digital drawing.
The HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) is a high-end 2-in-1 laptop that's great for drawing thanks for its responsive OLED touchscreen, powerful internal components, and included stylus.
Our reviewer found this hyrbid laptop benefited from some excellent design touches, including a robust hinge that allows it to transform into a tablet mode. Another highlight was the 14-inch HDR OLED display. This high-resolution screen (2880 x 1800 pixels) offers a 120Hz refresh rate, which provided a bright picture, with the deep blacks and vibrant colors characteristic of OLED technology.
It's protected by Gorilla Glass with an anti-reflective coating, which helps to reduce glare and increase durability, and covers 100% of the P3 color gamut, making it perfect for art and design work. And in practice it worked well with the HP Rechargeable MPP2.0 Tilt Pen for both drawing or writing tasks.
The laptop is equipped with Intel's latest mobile processor, ample RAM, and storage, making it suitable for business use and travel too. Battery life is solid, lasting around eight and a half hours under typical workloads.
The ASUS ZenBook Duo 14 is a unique laptop for drawing on thanks to its dual-screen design, which has been taken to the extreme in the latest version. Not content with one screen, or even the previous generation's one-plus-a-smaller-screen setup, the latest Zenbook Duo has two full-size 14-inch screens, with one cleverly hidden underneath the removable keyboard.
When we reviewed it, we found the two touchscreens with stylus support allowed an incredibly versatile use, with different layout options making it supremely adaptable to different drawing tasks. As well as the unique design, the laptop comes with powerful internals and solid build quality.
In our tests, both screens performed well, displaying 97% of sRGB, 73% of Adobe RGB and 72% of the P3 colour gamuts. They hit 395 nits of brightness at 100%, and provided all the sharpness and saturation you expect from OLED.
We've done a lot of the legwork for you in my top picks, but there are a few things that are up to you to make the final call on. The most obvious one is budget; which is why we’ve included products at a variety of price points. For instance, the powerful Surface Laptop Studio is obviously a very different price point to the more affordable but less powerful Acer Spin Chromebook 514.
A touchscreen is obviously key when choosing a laptop for drawing so you can draw onto the screen, and artists will especially appreciate laptops that can be turned into a tablet fully by spinning or sliding them into place.
The right choice for you depends how much you'll use it for drawing compared to other tasks, and how portable you want your laptop to be. For example, the HP Spectre x360 has a lovely big 16-inch OLED screen; a great canvas for drawing. But that makes it physically larger than other options on our list.
How we tested the best laptops for drawing
All the laptops in this guide have been tested by a Creative Bloq hardware expert, and every laptop we include as a top choice for drawing has been tested using drawing and artworking software. We run different benchmark tests on each device we get depending on its intended use by its maker, but the laptops we've included in this particular guide have all been run through the following:
• Cinebench R23/2024 - this assesses the performance of a computer's CPU and GPU using real-world 3D rendering tasks
• Geekbench 5/6 - this tests the CPU's processing power, both by using a single core for a single task at a time as well as all the CPU's core to see its ability to multitask
• PCMark 10 - this test assesses a computer’s ability to run all everyday tasks from web browsing to digital content creation, testing app launch speeds, running drawing and animation software, performing 3D rendering, and it also tests its battery life
But perhaps more importantly than technical benchmarking, we evaluate machines in real-world situations, pushing them to the limit with multiple applications running to see how they perform in real project-like conditions. Power, speed, portability, and what a laptop looks and feels like are all criteria in our reviewing process.In addition, every laptop we recommend for drawing has to have a good screen that's comfortable to work on for extended periods.
We do much more than simply unpack a test unit, run some benchmarks and then pack it up again; we have lived and worked with all of the above computers, running them in real-life scenarios and completed projects relevant to the subject of this guide, otherwise, we wouldn't recommend these models to you. For more details, see our article on How we test.
FAQs
Why should I use a touchscreen laptop for drawing?
Generally speaking, when it comes to digital drawing, your options are using a graphics tablet with a laptop or PC, a tablet with a stylus or pen display, or a touchscreen laptop. Some artists may prefer the feeling of graphics tablets, but the technology isn’t perfect, and the need to coordinate your hand separately from your screen can be disruptive when you’re in the flow of things. They’re not as portable as all-in-one devices. They are, however, very affordable, and purpose-built to deliver precision.
The best tablets and pen displays with a stylus are generally the easiest devices for drawing, and are supremely portable - but they can get pretty pricey if you want something durable and robust, and they often lack the versatility to serve for functions other than drawing.
Touch screen laptops, on the other hand, are easily the most versatile for their price point when you consider the functionality they offer.
Do I need a hybrid laptop for drawing?
No, you don’t need a hybrid laptop for drawing, but it can certainly help. Also known as 2-in-1 laptops, these devices are growing in popularity thanks to how versatile they can be. And with touchscreen technology improving year on year, you’ll be hard-pressed to find such flexibility at such a low price point in any other kind of device.
Generally the ability to switch the laptop to tablet mode, getting the keyboard out of the way, provides better support and lets you draw in more situations. Take a look at our guide to the best 2-in-1 laptops for creatives for more details.
What are the cons of using a hybrid laptop for drawing?
There are, of course, cons to hybrid laptops. Although software is becoming more accessible and popular for drawing, you won’t get the same experience as you would on a pen display or tablet. If you specifically want a laptop for drawing, hybrid laptops are generally the way to go, though. Drawing on a regular touchscreen laptop can be a little awkward and uncomfortable due to the obstructive lower half of clamshell, and many laptop screens will move slightly under pen pressure if they don't have the support of an easel mount.
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Beren has worked on creative titles at Future Publishing for over 13 years. Cutting his teeth as Staff Writer on the digital art magazine ImagineFX, he moved on to edit several creative titles, and is currently the Ecommerce Editor on the most effective creative website in the world. When he's not testing and reviewing the best ergonomic office chairs, phones, laptops, TVs, monitors and various types of storage, he can be found finding and comparing the best deals on the tech that creatives value the most.
