topic Re: Best laptop with touchscreen drawing capabilities & maya for animation? (2D/3D) in Maya Forum

Best laptop with touchscreen drawing capabilities & maya for animation? (2D/3D)

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 01:23:41 GMT

Hi,

I'm working from a desktop from home, which works well, but I found that commuting to my university and back is not working out for my school schedule. I don't have anything portable to use when I'm stuck on campus and I need a laptop so I can work on my projects.

I'm looking for a laptop or equivalent that has decent capabilities such as touchscreen drawing surface (with a pen) and something that can run Maya modeling/rendering/animation for projects while I'm away from my home computer. I'm an animation student who's leaning towards 3D animation; however, I'm in a bit of a predicament as I'm enrolled in a 2D animation course this semester.

I need a laptop that can handle Maya 2019 and beyond, 3DS Max, surface painter, and possibly toon boom. I was looking into the Microsoft surface pro 6 but I've heard vaguely that it can have issues running certain Maya capabilities (No GPU?). I was going to go with the Microsoft Surface Book 2, which seemed the ultimate win, but another user has cited that it has major issues in Maya 2019 and crashes a lot.

I would like to have something portable that can ultimately work in the long run since I don't have a laptop. I plan to use my desktop predominately when I come home but it looks like I will only be using my desktop sparingly. Is there anything you recommend? Suggestions? Should I go with a surface pro since it has capabilities to work on Maya, and at least serve as a drawing tablet? Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

The desktop specs I have at home:

Summary
OS: Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core i7 7700 @ 3.60GHz
RAM: 16.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1066MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard: ASRock B250 Pro4
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Gigabyte)
Storage: 931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (SATA)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD2003FZEX-00SRLA0 (SATA)

Re: Best laptop with touchscreen drawing capabilities & maya for animation? (2D/3D)

barbara.sweeney — Sat, 20 Feb 2021 11:53:34 GMT

Hello,

Did you ever find a solution for this? I'm in a similar situation and looking for the same thing!

Re: Best laptop with touchscreen drawing capabilities & maya for animation? (2D/3D)

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Feb 2021 22:05:18 GMT

I ended up with:

Lenovo C940 (2019) Model with

- 15.6" Touch-Screen Laptop

- Intel Core i7 (9th gen) - 16GB Memory
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ** REALLY IMPORTANT**
-512GB Solid State Drive.

During my research, I found that people should avoid laptops with the UHD Intel Graphics Card, which won't really hold up in Maya. I heard and had some friends with issues rendering in Maya because of the UHD.

Battery life isn't fabulous, and it DOES get really hot, but it does its job! Drawing on it is okay, but I also got a Wacom stylus for it, too.

Predominately I used this for 3D animation, but again it did its job for 2D.

Re: Best laptop with touchscreen drawing capabilities & maya for animation? (2D/3D)

barbara.sweeney — Sun, 21 Feb 2021 11:35:04 GMT

Thank you!