The best touchscreen laptops can be invaluable tools for digital artists and content creators. While Apple disdains form factors (no, sadly, you won’t find any MacBooks on this page), laptops with touchscreens are useful because of their versatility.
A good touchscreen laptop provides a quick and tactile way to interact with your work. You don’t need to use a keyboard or trackpad, you can quickly select the window you want to focus on with just one tap. Some people find scrolling up and down pages with their fingers or using gestures to zoom in and out, more intuitive, and for digital artists, a 2-in-1 touchscreen laptop with a keyboard that can be flipped around behind the screen (or removed entirely) can really make a difference The rules of the game allow you to lay it flat and draw with a stylus.
To help you choose the best touchscreen laptop for your needs, below we’ve selected our own favorite laptops for different needs and budgets, based on reviewer experiences and spec comparisons.
We think the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio is the best touchscreen laptop digital creatives can buy right now. It has a premium build, a gorgeous screen, and a sleek finish and feel that even Mac lovers might be impressed with. The way it transitions from laptop to tablet and back is one of the smoothest and most flexible we’ve experienced. The screen doesn’t fold down on itself like many do, but slides forward over the keyboard. This gives you an extra spot – easel mode, where the screen is angled nicely for watching movies or working on digital art.
The 3:2 screen size is taller than the usual widescreen format, allowing for extra vertical space, which can be effectively boosted whether you’re drawing, editing photos, or just writing and reading documents. With a 120Hz refresh rate, it can even be used as a reasonable gaming laptop.
When we reviewed the Surface Laptop Studio, we were impressed with the performance: it can be configured with up to 32GB of RAM, so you should have no problem using heavy image editing or 3D design programs. We also got a solid 12 hours of battery life in our tests.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook combines two form factors into one while keeping an impressively low price. That’s because this touchscreen laptop runs Chrome OS — a lightweight operating system that can run on lower-power (and cheaper) hardware. That makes Chromebooks like the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet a great option for those on a budget.
Since it’s a Chromebook, it also has an impressive battery life of almost 22 hours – so you can get through multiple workdays on a single charge. For the price, naturally sacrifices have to be made — the keyboard is small, the trackpad isn’t as reliable, and the charger and headphones share a port.
The touchscreen means you can draw or write with a stylus, and while Chrome OS doesn’t have the same level of app support as Windows or macOS, there are some great drawing and creative apps available, and you can also install Android apps to make You can access thousands of apps and games.
While Samsung is a big player in smartphones, it hasn’t had the same impact on laptops — until now. The Galaxy Book 2 360 brings some of the style and build quality we’ve come to expect from the company’s flagship smartphone, and it’s a touchscreen laptop that’s a joy to use — and it doesn’t cost too much.
It has a stunning AMOLED display, and while it has a modest 1080p resolution, it still looks incredible, with rich, vibrant colors and contrast. It also has some decent components and can continue to perform most tasks, although in our review we found that battery life drains quickly when you’re using a lot of apps at once. If long battery life is a top priority for touchscreen laptops, then check out the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook above.
HP is one of the most trusted brands in the world for laptops, including touchscreen laptops. With the HP Envy x360, it’s easy to see why. It’s a great-looking touchscreen laptop with a solid aluminum build and integrated Bang & Olufsen speakers that sound great, definitely a step up from the tinny sound many laptops offer.
Its 13.3-inch HD touchscreen display looks equally impressive, offering 400 nits of brightness and 100 percent sRGB, and Corning Gorilla Glass NBT means you don’t have to worry about scratching the screen while using it (or carrying it around).
Performance is good – and battery life is great – but if high-end gaming is something you unwind at the end of the day, this 2-in-1 might struggle. The 2p webcam is also a bit disappointing. And since the keyboard doesn’t detach (it just folds round), the HP Envy X1 feels a bit bulky to use in tablet mode.
The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel Pro isn’t for everyone, but if you’re looking for a touchscreen laptop that can handle some serious creative workloads, but also offers the convenience of a touchscreen interface, then this might be perfect. It looks beautiful, and once you fire it up, things get even better. When we reviewed it, we found that the Pantone-validated 4K IPS display delivered brilliant true colors.
It also comes with a rather novel hinge that attaches the screen to the keyboard, which gives you the added option of setting the touchscreen in an easel-like position. The laptop is backed up with some serious hardware, too, and can be configured with powerful Intel processors and Nvidia graphics, with up to 32GB of RAM. Basically, it should be able to handle anything you throw at it. So why is it at the bottom of the list? Well, starting at $2,500/£2,500, that’s not even an option for many of us.
