Best 5 large screen laptop for photography in 2020

Back in 2011 when I used to shoot landscape photos with my Nikon D7000, I used to come across one big problem. I had to zoom in to see the minor details. This zooming in used take 2-3 seconds per photo. And I usually shoot 4-5 shots of the same frame and I shoot at least 20-30 frames in a day. By doing the mats, it takes as much as 450 seconds just to zoom in. I’ll tell you why a large screen laptop for photography matters.

To make the problem even bigger, I didn’t have a Full HD laptop back then. Full HD is now a common thing but it was as uncommon 4K is now. You get to see 4K in usually premium laptops.

This made me purchase the Full HD Dell in 2012.

Table of Content

What are large screens laptops?

There’s no definite term of large screen laptops. I am calling all the laptops with a size of at least 15.6″ a large screen laptop.

All the laptops in my list are more than 15.6″ in display size. The largest one goes to as big as 17.3″ in screen size.

Why is it better to have a large screen laptop for photography?

If you don’t already have a large screens laptop then you’re missing a very biggie time saver. If you own a 12″ or 13″ laptop then you usually see that you need to zoom in a lot to see minor details like fringes, dirt, acne, etc.

In large screen laptops with a 4K display, you don’t need to zoom in to see those minor details. You can see them without zooming in.

How did I create the list of best 5 large screen laptops for photography?

I took 9 laptops as a sample and then I started ranking them based on screen quality, CPU, GPU, memory, storage, SD card slot availability, battery performance, and more.

The brands that I included are Apple, Dell, HP, Asus, Acer, Razer, MSI, Gigabyte, and Huawei. They all have a limited number of laptops which are larger than 15.6″.

Out of the 11 laptops that I researched from the point of view of a photographer, these five laptops scored the most.

Best 5 large screen laptop for photography in 2020 at a glance

Here is large screen laptop for photography.

Asus Concept D
Dell XPS 17
Apple Macbook Pro 16″
Razer Blade Pro 17
Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED

Before we begin, here’s the technical comparison.

1. Asus Concept D 9

Technical Specs

Screen: IPS; 4K; 400 nits; 100% Adobe RBG; 17″
Graphic memory: Nvidia RTX 2080 8 GB
Touchscreen: Yes
CPU: Up to 9th Gen i9
Storage: Up to 2TB
RAM: Upto 32GB DDR4
Battery backup: 1.5 hours
Sleek and portable: No
dedicated SD card slot: No
Large touchpad: No
Weight: 4.1 KG (9.9 lbs)
Price: Starts at $3000

Did you notice that it’s very heavy and has such a low battery back? Still, I placed it at the top.

This is because of its screen. For a photographer, the screen matters the most. The screen of this laptop is most calibrated and most accurate among all the large screen laptops for photography.

It has a 100% Adobe RGB 17″ display. It also has a good CPU and GPU which will make sure that you don’t feel lag when you’re editing photos.

Pros: Best screen and ultra-fast GPU

Cons: Not portable, extremely low battery backup, and no SD card slot

2. Dell XPS 17

The laptop is not launched yet but will be my favorite laptop once it’s launched.

It’s large (17″ display) and yet sleek. I personally like the touchpad very much even though it is not as good as the Macbook’s. I am judging the touchpad’s quality by the fact I have used its smaller brother which is XPS 13. They both share the same design (form factor), and the only difference in design is the screen size.

Screen: IPS; 1080p – 4K; 500 nits; super thin bezel; 17″
Dedicated Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti – 4GB;
Touchscreen: Yes
CPU: 6 Core 10th intel i5 – 8 Core 10th gen i9
Storage: 256GB – 2 TB
RAM: 8GB DDR4 – 64GB DDR4
Battery backup: Unknown
Sleek and portable: Yes
Dedicated SD card slot: Yes
Large Touchpad: Yes
Weight: 2.11 KG (4.65 lbs)
Price: Starts at $1500

Pros: 4K display looks very sharp; dedicated SD card slot; cheaper than the laptops in the current segment

Cons: Can’t think of any according to the technical specs.

3. Apple MacBook Pro 16

The best (and only) laptop if you like macOS more than Windows.

Apple has stopped shipping the earlier 15″ laptop and now ships only 16″ laptop. Interestingly, the 16″ version is very slightly bigger than 15″ because it has thinner bezels. You can compare the size below.

Screen: IPS; 3072×1920; 226ppi; 1600 nits brightness; True Tone Display; 16″
Dedicated Graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 5300M with 4GB of GDDR6 – AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB of GDDR6 memory
Touchscreen: No
CPU: 2.6 GHz 6 core i7 with Turbo Boost up to 4.5 GHz – 2.4 GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9 with Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz
Storage: 512 GB – 8TB
RAM: 16 – 64 GB of 2666MHz DDR4
Battery: 11 hours
Sleek and portable: Yes
Dedicated SD card slot: No
Large Touchpad: Yes
Weight: 2 KG (4.3 lbs)
Price: Starts at $2199

Pros: Retina display; macOS; doesn’t reduce performance when unplugged unlike Windows; faster than the Windows laptop of the same segment

Cons: No SD card slot

4. Razer Blade Pro 17

There’s no doubt that the Razer Blade is a beautiful laptop.

The laptop is actually designed for high-end video games but is equally capable of performing other resource-intensive tasks like Photoshop and Premiere Pro. If you use Photoshop filters a lot, this is the laptop you should be looking for.

Screen: IPS; Full HD or 4K; 17.3″; 300 FPS
Dedicated Graphic:s Nvidia 4GB DDR5 Memory MX 150
Touchscreen: Yes
CPU: i7 8 core with a Turbo Boost up to 5.1 GHz
Storage: 512GB – 2 TB
RAM: 16 – 64 GB 2933 Mhz DDR4
Battery: Unknown
Sleek and portable: Yes
Dedicated SD card slot?: Yes
Large Touchpad?: Yes
Weight: 2.75 KG (6 lbs)
Price: Starts at $2599

Pros: 4K display on high-end models; dedicated SD card slot

Cons: More expensive than other laptops of the same segment

5. Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED

Looking for a laptop that is cheap and the screens look beautiful? Here it is. The screen is AMOLED and looks much better and lively than IPS screens.

But make sure that color calibration is a nightmare in OLED screens because all the almost all laptops selling nowadays are using the IPS screen. So, you need to make sure that the OLED screen is calibrated enough so that it looks good when someone is viewing your photos on IPS screens then it should look good.

Screen: UHD 3840×2160 AMOLED
Dedicated Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 – 8 GB
Touchscreen: No
CPU: 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-10750H (2.6GHz~5.0GHz) – 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-10980HK (2.4GHz~5.3GHz)
Storage: 256GB – 512 GB
RAM: 8 – 64GB 2933 Mhz DDR4
Battery: 8 hours
Sleek and portable: Yes
Dedicated SD card slot: Yes
Large Touchpad: Yes
Weight: 2 Kg (4.3 lbs)
Price: Starts at $2000

Pros: OLED display; dedicated SD card slot; has old school ports like USB A and HDMI; cheaper than the laptops in the current segment.

Cons: No USB C port;