3 Best Laptops for Urban Planning in 2024
From this article, you will know what are, in our opinion, the best laptops for urban planning you can buy and use in 2024.
Urban planning is the process of designing and developing urban areas where communities live. It usually involves the practice of several disciplines (architecture, public health, sociology, finance, engineering, etc) with the main objective of maximizing the life quality, economic development, natural resources utilization, and infrastructure usage of those communities.
Some tools can help us do excellent urban planning work. Among those tools, a laptop is probably one of the most important ones for many urban planners. This is because a laptop can help us use software that can make urban planning work easier and better while also giving us the flexibility to do that work anytime and anywhere we want thanks to its portability.
If you do urban planning work and want to use a laptop to help you but don’t have a capable laptop yet, you might be interested in buying a new laptop. However, it can be confusing to pick the right laptop for urban planning work from many laptop models and specification choices out there. This is why Compute Expert has tried to compile a list of the best laptops for urban planning that you can make as your laptop-buying reference.
Want to learn more about the laptops we recommend to support urban planning work? Let’s get on the list right away.
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| Image | View on Amazon | Product |
|---|---|---|
| Lenovo ThinkPad P1 | ||
| Asus ROG Strix G16 | ||
| Dell Alienware M16 |
Table of Contents:
What are the Best Laptops for Urban Planning?
Now, let’s take a deeper look at the laptops we recommend to do urban planning work with. Using one of these laptops should give you the laptop support you need as an urban planner to smoothly run the software you use in your work.1. Lenovo ThinkPad P1
Lenovo ThinkPad P1 is an excellent workstation laptop we think can be great to use for urban planning work. Coming from the popular Lenovo ThinkPad series, this laptop seems to have everything you need to design your urban area planning well.The main performance specifications of this laptop are a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and 32GB RAM capacity. They should be adequate to run typical software that urban planners need to use like SketchUp or ArcGIS. The RAM capacity, in particular, is quite large and should provide the memory space needed for many urban planning projects.
To help you with the graphic processing that urban planning software often needs, there is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPU with 12GB VRAM and 80W TGP in this laptop. Although not too powerful looking at its TGP, the GPU should still perform well for the 3D modeling that urban planning work usually needs. To make your eyes not get much strain when you work with this laptop for long hours, there are friendly-to-the-eye technologies (IPS display, no PWM for its brightness adjustment, and an anti-glare screen) that this laptop uses on its display.
Additionally, you can stretch this laptop up to 180 degrees so you can view its display in a more comfortable position for you when you work. All in all, this Lenovo ThinkPad P1 can be just the laptop you need to do your daily activities as an urban planner splendidly.
Key Features
- Screen Size, Resolution: 16 inches, 2560 x 1600 pixels
- Processor: 13th Gen Intel Core i7 with 14 cores and speed in the range of 2.5-5.2 GHz
- RAM Capacity: 32GB
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 with 12GB VRAM and 80W TGP
- Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD
- Battery Life (Estimation): up to 6 hours of usage capacity
Pros
- Excellent specifications to support urban planning work
- Solid build
- Portable design
- A full range of ports with two Thunderbolt 4 ports
- Good friendly-to-the-eye display
- Stretchable hinge (up to 180 degrees)
- Comfortable keyboard to type on
Cons
- Can get hot under an intense workload
2. Asus ROG Strix G16
Asus ROG Strix G16 is the next laptop that can be suitable for an urban planner to use. It is a nice gaming laptop from Asus with specifications that seem good for urban planning work.The processor of this laptop is a 13th Gen Intel Core i9 processor. With a powerful processor like this, running software you need to use in your work shouldn’t be a problem for this laptop. As for the RAM capacity, there is 16GB and you can upgrade it up to 32GB when you need to later.
For graphic processing, you can use the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU with 8GB VRAM and 140W TGP in this laptop. It should be capable of supporting the modeling work that you need to do for the urban areas you develop. There is also MUX switch technology with NVIDIA Advanced Optimus that can improve the graphic processing efficiency of this laptop and, thus, enhance its performance in your 3D modeling software.
This laptop has good keyboard quality as well so you can type comfortably whenever you need to input something to the software you use for your work. Overall, this Asus ROG Strix G16 seems to be a splendid laptop for doing work related to urban planning.
Key Features
- Screen Size, Resolution: 16 inches, 1920 x 1080 pixels
- Processor: 13th Gen Intel Core i9 with 24 cores and speed in the range of 2.2-5.6 GHz
- RAM Capacity: 16GB
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 with 8GB VRAM and 140W TGP
- Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD
- Battery Life (Estimation): up to 4 hours of usage capacity
Pros
- Excellent specifications to support urban planning work
- USB-A, USB-C, and HDMI ports with one Thunderbolt 4 port
- MUX switch technology with NVIDIA Advanced Optimus
- Good friendly-to-the-eye display
- Good speakers
- Comfortable keyboard to type on
Cons
- No SD card reader slots
- Average webcam quality
3. Dell Alienware M16
Dell Alienware M16 is the last laptop we recommend on this list. Considering its specification quality, this laptop should perform adequately when you use it to support your urban planning work.To run its operations, this laptop has a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB RAM capacity. These are good performance specifications for a laptop to have and should handle tasks related to the software you use smoothly. As with our two previously discussed laptops, you can upgrade the RAM capacity later if you think you need more (up to 64GB for this laptop).
The GPU of this laptop is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU with 8GB VRAM and 140W TGP. With its capabilities, the 3D models you create should be processed rather quickly. When you need to connect to external devices, there is a full range of ports with two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the sides of this laptop ready for you to use.
There is Wi-Fi 6E technology too so you can browse, work online, or do video calls more optimally with the internet connection speed you get from your Wi-Fi network. All in all, this Dell Alienware M16 is a nice laptop you might want to consider buying and using for your urban planning work.
Key Features
- Screen Size, Resolution: 16 inches, 2560 x 1600 pixels
- Processor: 13th Gen Intel Core i7 with 16 cores and speed in the range of 2.1-5 GHz
- RAM Capacity: 16GB
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 with 8GB VRAM and 140W TGP
- Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD
- Battery Life (Estimation): up to 6 hours of usage capacity
Pros
- Excellent specifications to support urban planning work
- Sturdy build
- A full range of ports with two Thunderbolt 4 ports
- Good friendly-to-the-eye display
- Good webcam
- Comfortable keyboard to type on
Cons
- Fans can be loud
What are the Things We Should Consider When We Want to Buy a Laptop for Urban Planning Work?
Here are the things we think you should consider when you want to buy a laptop to support your activities as an urban planner.- Operating System (OS). Some software programs you may need to use for your urban planning work, such as ArcGIS, seem to only run or run best in Windows OS. Thus, to avoid software compatibility problems later, we recommend you buy a Windows laptop instead of a MacBook or a Chromebook
- Processor. Urban planning software can be quite demanding for a laptop to run. Thus, the laptop you buy better has an excellent processor so it can run the software you need to use smoothly. We recommend a laptop with at least a late-generation i7 or Ryzen 7 processor for this
- RAM capacity. You should have a large RAM capacity in the laptop you buy as urban planning work can take up a lot of memory space on your laptop, especially if you work on rather complex projects. We recommend a laptop with at least 16GB RAM for this
- Graphics Card. If you do 3D modeling in your urban planning work, then your laptop should have a dedicated GPU so the 3D models you build can be processed much more smoothly. We recommend you buy a laptop with a dedicated NVIDIA GPU as one of its specifications for this
- Storage. You may need to store some large-sized files internally on your laptop so you can access them much more easily later. Thus, the laptop you buy should have adequate storage space to accommodate those files. We recommend a laptop with at least 512GB SSD storage space for this
Wrap Up
When you want to buy a laptop, you may want one that can help you do your urban planning work smoothly. However, it can be confusing to pick the right laptop from many laptop choices out there. This is why Compute Expert has created a list of the best laptops for urban planning to help you.To summarize, here are three laptops we recommend for urban planners.
We hope our list can help you buy the best laptop to support your urban planning work process!
Read also:
- Best laptops for 3D rendering
- Best 2-in-1 laptops for architects
- Best laptops for remote desktop connection
