That article is nonsense - at no point does it convey what part of graphic design is in question, it's a huge field.

Processor
Intel models come in i3, i5, i7

There's different generations - denoted by i3 250, i3 2500, i3 3560

note that it goes from 3 digits to 4 - and 2500 is 2nd gen and 3560 is 3rd gen

3rd gen is the best.

i3 is lowest range
i5 is mid range
i7 is top end

The better the more expensive.

You'd want an i7 3rd gen denoted by i7 3xxx


RAM -
4gb is plenty for books, magazines, brochures, flyers and other things

8gb is plenty for large format, like signs, banners, large photos, lots of photo editing, and things like that.

16gb is a lot of RAM and if you're doing video/animation/3D or things along that line then you'll need a lot of RAM.

Graphics Card
For the first two above, either designing magazines or working with large photos, graphics card doesn't really matter, but it's always best to have a dedicated graphics card - not an integrated one.

For video/animation/3d etc. then you'll need something of a better quality, like Nvidia Quadro FX.

Hard Drive:
For smaller things like books, magazines, brochures, flyers etc. then a 7,200 rpm hard drive is plenty fast.

If you're doing a lot of large images, large format items then you might want to consider perhaps a 10,000 rpm hard drive, or an SSD drive.

If you're doing video - then you might want to definitely get an SSD drive, you'll have faster load and save times with large files.

Hard drives are pretty simply, some are mechanical and work on a RPM, ranging from 5,600, 7,200 and 10,000 RPM - the faster it will load and save files and boot the computer.

SSD is faster as it's flash memory, which is much faster than a mechanical drive - and saving larger files and loading larger files will be much better and faster.

Hi Alex and welcome to GDF!

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Are you set on a laptop? You get so much more for your money with a desktop.

Like what?

Compare the bottom of the line MacBook Pro with the bottom of the line iMac.

For the same money, you get twice the RAM, twice the hard drive space, faster processor, better graphics card, and a much bigger screen.

I haven't looked at PCs in many years, but I'd assume the same holds true there.

Oh for Apple - yeh the prices are extortionate, in my opinion.