Black Friday: 10 High Laptops and Equipment for Architects and Designers

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Another Black Friday is upon us with the some of the best deals of the year; however, this year the annual shopping bonanza comes after months of disruption by the pandemic. Although the pandemic paused the world for a while, we were able to explore possibilities of working outsides the offices. While technologies never stop developing, devices with sharp graphics and powerful processors have never been so portable, making the hybrid work from home lifestyle even easier for architects and designers.

Whether you have already returned to the offices or are still working on a flexible schedule, there are plenty of tools to choose from that will help boost your productivity and efficiency. We’ve rounded up the top products on sale this Black Friday that can power your creativity where ever you go, with unprecedentedly high quality and versatility. Explore this curated selection of online deals for tech products that will help help to boost your architectural practice without creating too much of a burden on your wallet.

Laptops and Tablets

Creator Z16 harnesses MSI’s latest improvements — and the result is an ever-powerful performance for architects and designers. Taking a different aesthetic approach from its precedent Creator 15, the Z16 laptop features a metallic shell and a thinner profile of only 0.64 inches.

With a 16-inch QHD+ screen of a P3 wide color gamut, it is uniquely capable of showcasing your artistic creations in fine details and highly accurate colors. You can always trust a gaming laptop producer for its ability to provide what you need for up-to-date graphic and animation productions. Additionally, Z16’s Intel Core 11th Gen i7 processor, 8 cores and 4.6 GHz dual-core turbo frequency together with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs facilitate a smooth rendering process either on CPU or GPU.

If you desire both style and performance on an easily portable laptop, Microsoft Surface is a clear top choice. The Surface Laptop 4 comes in both 13.5 inches and 15 inches with responsive touch screens that satisfy different working environments.

Yet, even with the 15 inch model in metal finishes, the laptop weighs just 3.4 pounds, and this figure can decrease for more than half a pound depending on various configurations. It runs on both Intel Core 11th Gen i5 or i7, and AMD Ryzen 5 and 7. Accordingly, you also have choices for GPU, which are Intel’s graphic magic — Iris Xe Graphics and AMD’s Microsoft Surface Edition: AMD Radeon. With an outstanding battery life of over 17 hours, you can record your creativity anywhere you go.

Samsung Galaxy Book Pro is another nice choice for portability, with a much more affordable price. It continues Samsung’s style of mystic blue and silver in a metallic finish. With a super lightweight of only 2.3 pounds and a long-lasting battery that runs for 20 hours, this 11-millimeter-thin book can be with you even when travelling for business.

Implemented with Wi-Fi 6E technology, the computer allows for much faster online communication and browsing experiences with low latencies, securing your internet efficiency no matter you work from home, in the office or on your way. Supporting all these features are Intel 11th Gen i7 processor and Xe Graphics that power your visual works with high quality.

If you long for an even more portable device for your everyday creativity, you may consider Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 or S7 FE. Both tablets display on an LCD screen of 2560 x 1600 pixels resolution, making images slightly more accurate on S7’s 11-inch screen than on the 12.4-inch S7 FE.

That said, the S7 FE still makes a nice deal for a larger screen, while an S7 plus (12.4-inch) costs $270 more than S7 FE. In general, the S7 rings in at a higher rate than S7 FE for its processor Qualcomm SDM865+ processer and 120Hz screen, which offer you extremely smooth working and gaming experiences. Both models feature Samsung’s star product, S Pen that helps you write and draw effortlessly anywhere.

Screen Extensions

A portable monitor can be a game changer for many aspects of your day, ranging from your working hours to leisure time. For instance, it will allow you to work multi-screen in conjunction with your original laptop/monitor, or to enjoy a movie downloaded on your phone on a 15.6-inch 4K screen.

UPERFECT offers this 4K portable monitor at a fair price. Weighing 1.9 pounds, it is flexible and easy to adjust for changing situations. The anti-glare glass, 300 cd/m² brightness and 100% sRGB wide color gamut ensure sharp and accurate visuals under a variety of lighting conditions.

Trio Max Portable Monitor is another choice if you are looking for a screen extension from your laptop. By attaching the case to the back of your laptop, it could easily become a rotatable extension of your screen that can be slid out when you need it. The case can also make the monitor a stand-alone screen that can be either viewed in landscape or portrait mode, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and a brightness of 300 cd/m².

FICIHP Plus Dual Laptop Screen Extender is a lightweight alternative to Trio Max, which comes in 1080p, 11.6-inch and 1.3 pounds while a 12.5-inch Trio weighs 1.8 pounds. Both products connect to your laptop or mobile devices through video transmitting USB-C ports. Similar to Trio, the case of the monitor supports different display modes including landscape mode attached to the laptop, or stand-alone with either landscape or portrait mode.

Portable SSD

As architects and designers, file storing is always a concern when buying computers. Now with SanDisk’s 4TB portable SSD, storing and organizing all the images, model and film files are much easier and flexible even if you work with a computer of small SSD.

SanDisk 4TB Extreme PRO Portable SSD features a water- and dust-proof finishing in a cute size of 0.41 x 2.28 x 4.36 inches, smaller than many phones nowadays. Vastly improved from the last generation, the data reading and writing speed of Extreme PRO can reach 2000MB/s maximum, empowering timely data transfers on both Windows (8 and 10) and Mac (10.9+) operation systems.

VectoTech’s 4TB Portable SSD is a more affordable option for large external hard drives, compared to SanDisk 4TB Extreme PRO. The device’s modern appearance features two plates of durable aluminium 1050, making it scratch-resistant to a good extent while lightweight. On top of this, the device offers a decent reading and writing speed of 540MB/s.

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