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Touch screen Solidworks and drawing workstation

Question asked by Callum Morris on May 13, 2020
Latest reply on Jun 29, 2020 by Frederick Law

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Hello,

I am a product design student and I am looking to buy a new laptop before I go into my final year. I have managed to save up to a point but I am definitely looking below £2000. I do think I'm being fairly ambitious because I would like a laptop I can draw with (.i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator and sketchbook) as well as handle Solidworks, although I doubt my assembles would be as complicated as any engineering or professional work. So convertible laptops are what I'm looking at currently, I have looked at the spectre x360 range and it seems like it could be a possibility but I thought I would post this and see what people advise.

(PS this is my 1st post so apologies if its in the wrong format or thread!)

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Jeff Mowry May 13, 2020 6:16 PM
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Just a lead to check out, since I haven't seen recent versions of these--Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga:
ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 4 | Premium 2-in-1 Laptop | Lenovo US

Previous versions had Wacom-enabled drawing capacity---not sure how well the current ones do with drawing. Similarly, I'm not sure how well the integrated graphics will do with SolidWorks, so maybe search out some of that based on the particular graphics specs for whichever Yoga you look at.

I've had (and sold) several older generations of X1 Carbons and they're great as computers---rugged, quick, and super-light. They don't have on-screen drawing capacity, but since they're somewhat similar/related, I can vouch for my experiences with the Carbon line as a general business-grade laptop I like to use (particularly for travel).
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- Callum Morris @ Jeff Mowry on May 14, 2020 4:41 AM
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  Thanks Jeff, I believe the Yogas are very good with drawing capacity so that wouldn't be an issue. I had a quick look at the x1 carbons before replying and they look like a solid choice if I opt out of the touch screen, although they seemed to have integrated graphics also. I will have a proper look to make sure but this is the the case and you have experience using them then they can obviously cope anyway.
  
  Just out of interest which generation of the X1 did you use?
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  - Jeff Mowry @ Callum Morris on May 14, 2020 12:47 PM
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    No, Callum, I didn't mean to recommend you try using the X1 Carbon so much as to relate that I've had lots of experience for general computing with X1 Carbons (and NOT yet with SolidWorks) and can vouch for their general build quality as relates to the Yoga. So I meant to recommend checking out the Yoga for your price range so long as the screen is capable/worthy of the Adobe and Sketchbook apps, as well as what sort of performance you might expect out of their limited on-board/integrated graphics---which will require some research on your side, since I've seen little published in that regard.
    
    It's possible the Yoga is a horrible choice for one or both, so please do your homework first. AND---please let us know what you find, since this is something I'm quite eager to know about with anyone with first-hand experience (being an industrial designer myself).
    
    Oh---to answer your question, the X1 Carbons I've used have been Gen 1 and Gen 3, deliberately skipping Gen 2 with the touch-interface strip/buttons on top. I have a Gen 4 arriving tomorrow to try out (eBay). I run a computer/tech business locally and have found these little laptops are excellent for general-function tasks for most people. For SolidWorks with an integrated chip? Not for the scale/size usage I need in SolidWorks, I'm quite sure---but maybe OK for on-the-go work in SW.
    
    Please report back what you discover, and good luck!
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- Paul Somero @ Jeff Mowry on Jun 20, 2020 4:32 PM
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  I run my personal seat of SW on my 5th gen X1C. It is pretty dang slow given only two cores and no HW GPU, but its portability makes it worth the hassle. I can pretty much bring SW anywhere I go and only have a 2.5lb penalty in my backpack.
  
  My S.O. had a Lenovo X1 Yoga of the same generation, pretty much the tablet version of the Carbon (very similar specs) and it absolutely struggled to do anything including running excel with very large worksheets with lots of lookups and links between sheets. She's in business operations and we're talking the biggest freakin' excel docs you've ever seen, though. It would not fare well on Solidworks, to say the least.
  
  I wish the X1C had a touchscreen. I used to get the Dell Precisions with touchscreens 10 years ago but gave up because they were pretty much useless in Solidworks. Time to re-evaluate maybe given that they have actual "touch interface" stuff that has been rolled in over the past few years...
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Walter Fetsch May 13, 2020 6:38 PM
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While touch screen is not really a hindrance, I seriously doubt you'll ever use it with Solidworks. Finger pointing is not precise enough for this sort of work.
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Dave Laban May 14, 2020 3:46 AM
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If you want SW compatibility you'll need HPs ZBook range rather than Spectre. ZBook x360 G5 would be my pick if a convertible is what you're after, the Quadro P1000 will be more than enough.

https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=6TW39EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB
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- Callum Morris @ Dave Laban on May 14, 2020 4:48 AM
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  Thank you Dave, that is very helpful! I hadn't seen this laptop yet and it definitely looks more suited and from a first look pretty much perfect. It also doesn't seem significantly more than the Spectre either, although still towards the top end of what I am aiming for, but that is not surprising.
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- Paul Somero @ Dave Laban on Jun 20, 2020 4:35 PM
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  ZBooks suffer the thing all HP hardware products do: the drivers are bloated garbage and render otherwise good hardware nearly useless.
  
  For workstations, Dell vs Lenovo vs HP, I will take a used Dell or a Lenovo with a broken screen before I'd take a brand new Zbook any day. The one place I've worked in the last three years which used HP reaffirmed my long held disdain for their driver writers. The machines were always self-updating and breaking something. So unreliable.
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  - Dave Laban @ Paul Somero on Jun 22, 2020 3:02 AM
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    Very much not my experience. May be corporate IT policy managing driver updates but I certainly haven't had anything self updating causing issues.
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Dave Laban May 14, 2020 4:47 AM
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Also in future the Hardware and Graphics section would be the better place for this kind of question. I think you have the power to move the thread by editing your first post but I'm not sure. No biggie though.
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- Callum Morris @ Dave Laban on May 14, 2020 4:49 AM
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  Okay i will see if I can do that, Cheers
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Patrick Couture Jun 29, 2020 10:57 AM
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Microsoft surface pro 7 can run SolidWorks but it's still integrated graphics. Surface book with performance base would be a better choice but it's very expensive. I don't think you will find a laptop with digitizer and dedicated graphics in your price range. (I've looked for one the last 5 years ) the new surface book 3 with rtx 3000 looks ok (the CPU is a bit disappointing) but the price tag is too much to swallow. I suggest you find a powerful laptop such has the Thinkpad P53 or maybe P53s (cheaper) and buy a wacom tablet digitizer unfortunatley it's not the same experience.
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Frederick Law Jun 29, 2020 11:11 AM
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I use Dell E7240 with touch screen with SW.
Mostly use the touch for zoom, pan, rotate when I don't have 3Dconnexion with me.
Gen 4 i7-4600U, HD4400 Intel graphic, 16GB RAM.
When I work from home, I connect it to 4K TV.
It doesn't support pen.
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Touch screen Solidworks and drawing workstation

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