Best Laptop for Animation 2022 – Animation made Easy

In this article
We have reviewed the best laptops for animation, selected after thorough research based on their performance, hardware specs, display, and other essential features for animation and modeling. Further, we have also discussed all of those specs in detail, which makes a laptop great for animation purposes in the guide section. Apart from this, relevant questions have been answered in the FAQs section so that you have complete knowledge about animation laptop before purchasing it.

Best Laptops for Animation 2022

1. Asus ZenBook Pro Duo UX581
2. MSI P65 Creator-1084
3. Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2021)
4. Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
5. Dell Precision 5520
6. MSI Creator 17M
7. ASUS ROG Zephyrus S
8. Asus ZenBook 15
9. LG Gram 17
10. Acer Aspire R 15

Worth a Read:
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Best Laptop for Drawing
Best Laptop for Graphic Design

All the animation students and professionals who seek best laptop for animation, we will escort you. You may know that to achieve a cardinal result, you need a laptop with a very powerful configuration. As you have to work on software like Blender, 3ds Max, and MotionBuilder, so to balance the requirement, your laptop should come with a fast processor, sufficient RAM capacity, strong dedicated graphics card, and huge storage capacity. Only then you will be able to create absolute animations.

All the laptops that you will find on this page have the required features for animation. Plus, they will take your work to the next level. We also have not ignored the fact that it is difficult for beginners to spend on luxurious laptops. Therefore, we have included some reasonably priced laptops for users with limited budgets as well. In addition, if you can’t decide which laptop is right for you, then the recommended configuration portion will help you find the most appropriate laptop.

Our Top 3 Picks

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Choosing the Best Laptop for Animation

Hardware Specs

If you are a professional animator, you will definitely need such a laptop that has housed top-of-the-line specs to easily and efficiently run all of the high-end animation softwares be it 2D, 3D, VR, and AR. Animation applications like Harmony, After Effects, Blender, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Adobe Animate, Maya, 3ds Max Design, Vyond, Cinema 4D, or other softwares need a powerful laptop.

• CPU
  The processor is one of the vital hardware components in a laptop for animation. Although animation seems to be a visually demanding task but it’s the CPU where all the calculations about the scenes, rigs, simulations, soft body dynamics, or hair splines take place. As you know that a powerful CPU is a must component for an animation laptop. But which CPU feature makes the CPU great for animation; Is it the clock speed, number of cores, cache size, or just the brand: Intel or AMD?

  Well, to keep it brief, it’s the CPU’s clock speed, which makes it great for animation. Further, the CPU’s clock speed is more important than having multiple cores or getting a specific brand. More, if your CPU comes with a low clock speed, your Viewport will become very sluggish, and you won’t be able to animate in real-time. In addition, the CPU should have a higher Base clock speed and a higher Turbo-Boos clock. Now, if the CPU has a high Boost-clock, then it will definitely speed up your Viewport’s snappiness while animating considerably.

  Now which CPU models are best for animation laptop? Well, it depends on the performance needed for the animation softwares on which you are working. But, if you want to get maximum and smooth performance from your laptop for running high-end animation applications, then it should be equipped with at least a 9th or 10th Gen Intel i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 processor. Although an Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 processor can run these applications but you will not get that performance which an Intel i7 or Ryzen 7 provides. Moreover, if you don’t have for spending on such high-end processors, then you could go for lower-tier CPUs. But be sure to go for such a CPU that offers maximum Base and Boost clock speeds.

• RAM
  Another essential factor is the RAM for an animation laptop. Also, the RAM speed isn’t that much of a factor, but it’s the RAM size because if you get a laptop with less RAM, you will see significant drops in frame rates and firmness. But suppose you are working on complex scenes, multiple characters, long animations, and high-resolution meshes & textures. In that case, a higher RAM will do wonders.

  Hence, an 8GB RAM will do the job done but for a much better experience and optimal performance, get your hands on that laptop that has housed 16GB RAM. Additionally, 32GB RAM will help you in some cases like extremely complex scenes, animation simulations, and large textures that are not keyframe-driven but will need to be cached. Plus, more RAM helps in running the memory-intensive applications smoothly.

• GPU
  Since all these animation applications use graphics for creating animated videos, pictures, and gifs. That’s why a dedicated GPU is very important for handling all these graphical needs. Moreover, the GPU helps in displaying textures and other shaders and Real-time effects such SSAO, Realtime Shadows, Anisotropic Filtering, Anti-Aliasing for a more realistic experience. For example, the Maya Viewport 2.0 uses such effects very heavily, and for this, you will need a solid GPU.

  Furthermore, if you are working on basic modeling & animation and don’t rely on a realistic Viewport but mostly animate in shaded low-quality wireframe preview modes without any fancy effects, then a low-tier Nvidia graphics card, i.e., GTX 1660 Ti, GTX 1660 Super, GTX 1650 Super, GTX 1650, GTX 1080 Ti, GTX 1080, GTX 1070 Ti or GTX 1070 would be a great choice. But if you are into some serious animation or modeling and plan on using GPU Render Engines like Octane, Vray-RT, FurryBall, or Redshift, then you should have to invest in a better and powerful GPU like the Nvidia RTX 20 or 30 Series graphics cards. Because these Render Engines utilize graphics cards instead of a CPU for rendering scenes.

  Moreover, We have tried our best to list out the laptops with powerful GPUs so that you will never face any performance issues.

Display

The larger and higher resolution will be displayed, the better you can deal with animation tools. But depending on how you use your laptop, you should choose the display accordingly. So, if you are a student or animator who works at different places, go for a smaller display. A 15 inches display is the perfect size in this regard because you will have more portability. Also, a 14 inches display is ideal for animation as long as the laptop is powered by powerful internals.

On the other hand, if you work from a single place where you don’t need much portability, a 17 inches display gives you more details. However, if you want an even better display, the laptops included here come with an HDMI port to connect them to an external display.

Storage Capacity

You may know that a laptop either comes with SSD or HDD to store your data. HDD is preferred by users because it is cheap and provides enormous storage capacity. On the other hand, SSD is faster, but storage capacity is low and expensive than HDD. Here we are talking about animation laptops, so do not even think about traditional HDD no matter how enormous it is. In the case of SSD, never accept anything less than 256GB. Whereas, if the laptop comes with a hybrid drive like 1TB HDD and 128GB SSD, it is also acceptable.

Battery Life

The longer the battery life, the more comfortable you will feel while working for a longer session. But as animation laptops are very powerful, so finding a laptop with longer battery life is difficult. Fortunately, except few, all the laptops included in our list have more than 8 hours of battery life. Hence you should not worry about it at all.

Users who give more importance to portability should give special attention to this factor because carrying a laptop around and worrying about a charging station is annoying. Nonetheless, even the portable laptops that you will find here come with solid battery life.

Also Read:
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Best Ultrawide Monitors
Best Graphics Cards

Best Laptop for Animation 2022 Reviews

1. Asus ZenBook Pro Duo UX581

Best dual screen laptop

Asus ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 REVIEW: Ever have seen a laptop that offers two screens? ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 is that nice-looking beast mainly designed for animation. You know what’s different in this laptop for animation, it’s the addition of ScreenPad Plus which makes performing different tasks at the same time easier. Moreover, the screen is 15.6-inch and comes with thin bezels, making the screen wider. Whereas, the 4K UHD touchscreen makes everything easy as it’s sufficiently bright, detailed, sharp, and color-rich. Speaking of the hardware, this laptop is packed with the 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processor alongside a powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card which is a perfect combination for designing lag-free animations. On the other hand, the limitless 32GB RAM on the ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 speaks for itself. It keeps the multi-tasking smooth. Also, the keyboard is springy and provides a good typing experience. In short, the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 is one hell of a beast loaded with the required hardware for designing animations.

2. MSI P65 Creator-1084

Best 4K display

MSI P65 Creator-1084 REVIEW: MSI has participated in all fields and here’s one best of the best performers from them on the side of the animations, the MSI P65 Creator-1084. It might not look as stunning as the other laptops for animation look but still, its decent looks are acceptable to some extent. More, the 15.6-inch UHD display is almost bezel-less, delivering resolutions of 3840 x 2160 pixels. On the other hand, the display has anti-glare technology and is quite colorful and bright. Further, this flagship is as powerful as the other laptops for animation are, as it’s housed with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, 9th Gen Intel CPU, and 32GB RAM. The combination of these hardware components makes it a complete beast not only for creating animations but also for almost everything you throw at it. As for the keyboard of the best laptop for animations, it offers a comfortable typing experience. A long story short, the MSI P65 Creator-1084 is one fine flagship for all purposes.

3. Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2021)

RTX 30-series GPU

Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2021) REVIEW: The Razer Blade laptop lineup is well-known for its solid graphical and gaming performance because of its robust internals. The addition of the latest Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2021) perfectly completes the lineup. Loaded with a QHD display, powerful processor, and latest RTX-series GPU along with other amazing features, the Blade 15 Advanced is a perfect and excellent package for professional animators. The laptop looks gorgeous and is quite portable. Sporting a QHD display that offers a 165Hz refresh rate, gives a super-smooth and immersive viewing experience. Thus, takes your animation and creativity experience to a whole new level. As it’s configured with an 11th Gen i7 CPU, powerful RTX 3070 GPU, and 16GB RAM, the Blade 15 delivers ultra-fast and realistic graphical performance. On top of all this, it features a comfortable RGB keyboard and Thunderbolt 4 ports which allows you to connect the laptop with external displays for better animation.

4. Asus ROG Zephyrus G14

Best powerful laptop

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 REVIEW: Surely Zephyrus G14 is a gaming laptop but the 120Hz bright display, robust specs, and long battery life are those features that make it the best laptop for animation. Plus, professional creatives will love it for the performance that it offers despite how memory-intensive and graphics-hungry applications you run on it. Further, G14 looks attractive and gorgeous with the Moonlight White finish on the magnesium alloy chassis that also gives it more durability. ROG Zephyrus G14 sports a 14-inch display that provides a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The FHD display is very color-rich and bright and the produced images are vivid, sharp, and clear. Moreover, you will be surprised by the solid performance of this portable laptop and it’s because of the latest AMD Ryzen 9 CPU which is accompanied by a GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q graphics card with 6GB of VRAM. Hence, this beast can efficiently handle all types of graphics-intensive applications.

5. Dell Precision 5520

Best design

Dell Precision 5520 REVIEW: Dell Precision 5520 is the best laptop for animation in 2022 and has secured a position on our list. The reason behind it is the powerful specs and excellent display. The screen is surrounded by almost unnoticeable bezels giving the laptop a premium look. The typing experience is made even better by it’s backlight keyboard offering 1.4mm key travel and require 58 grams of actuation force. Plus, the touchpad provides a solid feel to each click and smooth navigation. Further, the 1080p anti-glare display is vivid, bright, and sharp. Precision 5520 is a productivity powerhouse for animations, professional 3D modeling, CAD, and other intensive tasks as it is armed with an Intel Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM, and Nvidia Quadro M1200M graphics card. Moreover, this laptop offers a long-lasting battery backup of up to 12 hours, which is very rare to find for such a powerful beast. Thus, if you are in search of best laptop for animation and graphic design, Dell precision 5520 should be at the top of your list.

6. MSI Creator 17M

Best 17-inch laptop

MSI Creator 17M REVIEW: Wider display, FHD resolutions, sporting a nice-looking design, and powerful hardware is what the MSI Creator 17M is offering to its users. As for the display, this laptop for animations has a 17.3-inch display, 1920 x 1080 pixels resolutions and above that, it’s featuring IPS technology. Whereas, the display on the MSI Creator 17M has a decent refresh rate of 120Hz and low response time. What makes it the best laptop for animations is its powerful hardware components which include a 9th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX1660 Ti graphics card with 6GB GDDR6 memory. All these components make the MSI Creator 17M a perfect beast for animations and other memory-hungry intensive tasks. In addition to these, Creator 17M has housed a large backlit keyboard with NumPad that offers decent key travel and enjoyable tactile feedback. So if you’re planning on changing or buying a new laptop for creating animations, the MSI Creator 17M can be your next flagship.

7. ASUS ROG Zephyrus S

Immersive 144Hz display

Asus Rog Zephyrus S REVIEW: ASUS ROG Zephyrus S packs powerful specs and a gorgeous display in a very thin chassis. The lid is made of aluminum and below it is the sleek cutout for the hinge, which in turn provides extra ports and LED indicators. More, the keyboard uses a forward-facing layout and utilizes RGB backlit which gives the laptop an astounding look but the low key travel and positioning of keys make the keyboard a bit uncomfortable. Also, the touchpad which turns into a number pad with a click of a button is responsive and accurate. Further, The 15.6 inches FHD display of Zephyrus is outstanding with a 144Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. Along with this, the IPS panel is very bright, detailed, and color-rich. Besides, the best laptop for animation sports a 3.9GHz Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card, so performance is just world-class. And by weighing 4.63 pounds and thickness of 0.6 inches, Zephyrus S is one of the lightest and slimmest laptops. Hence, if you want the best laptop for 3D animation, go for ASUS ROG Zephyrus S.

8. Asus ZenBook 15

Best ultrabook

Asus ZenBook 15 REVIEW: Yet another ZenBook from ASUS designed for animation creators and graphic designers. The screenPad 2.0 on the Asus ZenBook 15 Ultra-Slim is one fine feature that you won’t find on any other best laptop on the market except the Zenbooks. On top of that, the laptop is slim and easy to carry around. But you know what’s more interesting about flagship? No? it’s a long battery life of over 8 hours which is really helpful during long business trips. More the 1080p display of ZenBook 15 is sufficiently vivid, colorful, and bright, and on top of that super-slim bezels make it more immersive. Talking about the performance of the best laptop for animation, ZenBook 15 offers top-of-the-line performance that will please the animators and this is due to the 10th Gen Intel i7 processor and the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics card along with 16GB RAM. Furthermore, the snappy and well-placed keys make the keyboard of ZenBook 15 ideal for typing.

9. LG Gram 17

Best mid-range laptop

LG Gram 17 REVIEW: As you know that the larger the laptop screen, the heavier it is. But LG has changed this concept. With the release of the new version of LG Gram 17, a 17-inch laptop that weighs less than 3 pounds, it is remarkably the lightest and portable laptop. Yet you have to make a compromise on its average battery life and flexing lid & keyboard. The manufacturer has used a special metal alloy comprised of nanocarbon and magnesium as a build material which makes it a durable one. In addition, the typing experience on the full-size keyboard is comfortable with 1.2mm key travel. The best laptop for animation features 17 inches display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600. Also, the panel is sharp, colorful and very bright. So, you will love creating animation on such an immersive display. Although LG Gram is not the fastest laptop because it lacks discrete graphics, yet performance is admirable with an Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and Intel UHD 620 Graphics. Hence, if you want a 17-inch laptop with great portability, LG Gram is the best option.

10. Acer Aspire R 15

Best 2 in 1 laptop

Acer Aspire R 15 REVIEW: Acer Aspire R 15 is a 2-in-1 laptop that comes with better performance and display at a very reasonable price. Both lid and deck are made of aluminum, which you rarely find in this price range. Plus, the 360 degrees hinge, let you use it in laptop, tablet, and display mode. In addition, you will love the backlight keyboard while typing because it is snappy and responsive with a strong tactile feel which you can’t find on most competitors. Further, the 15.6 inches FHD display of Aspire R 15 is sharp and colorful. Also, the panel is very bright with 310 nits. Along with this, the touchscreen accurately registers inputs while drawing or sketching. Moreover, the best laptop for animation is equipped with a 7th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU, 12GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics card for robust performance. Thus, if you are looking for a powerful 2-in-1 laptop that offers great performance for animation, good battery life, portability, and on top of that, a reasonable price tag then do not miss Acer Aspire R 15.

Do animators need dedicated GPU?

Obviously, a dedicated GPU is one of the important specs that the animation laptop should have. As you should know that animation softwares/programs need enormous resources and are also graphics-hungry in nature. Also, dedicated GPUs increase the visual performance of a laptop which is the need of every animator. That’s why it is advisable that every animator should have a dedicated graphics card on their laptop for experiencing an outstanding visual performance.

Is 144Hz screen helpful for animation?

A screen having a higher refresh rate means that it will become your overall animating experience concise. More, a display with a better refresh rate helps you when you are working inside a complex interface and needs the smoothest experience. Also, when designing games, it will help you to test the games at a higher quality.

Are gaming laptops good for animation?

As gaming laptops are equipped with powerful and high-end internals, which makes them great for gaming. But this doesn’t mean that they are specifically manufactured for gaming. Gaming laptops can also be utilized for animation works and content creation because gaming laptops are loaded with all those features and specifications needed for animation or content creation. So, yeah, gaming laptops are best for animation.

Is SSD storage necessary for animation laptops?

Certainly, because SSD is way more faster, and it increases the overall performance of a laptop. Further, SSD offers a fast and convenient experience which is essential for any animation laptop. Along with these, any animator wants better rendering times which can be achieved by having an SSD in their laptops.

How effective are mini laptops for animation works?

For animation works, mini laptops are not that much effective and productive because of two drawbacks; first, mini laptops have a small screen, and secondly, they do not provide powerful performance because of their low-end internals. While for animation, a larger screen i.e 15.6 or 17 inches, and powerful performance, both are necessary.