Best Laptop for Storyline360

Oct 21, 2019

Hello everyone!

I would like to get some advice on which laptop to use for Storyline360? My current laptop is too overloaded when using the software. It is painfully slow when creating courses. I would like to get more of a super computer (laptop), and I would like advice on which is best.

It needs to handle creating animations, Camtasia, Photoshop and Company Outlook, sometimes with 3 applications open at the same time. 

Thank you!

8 Replies
Soren J Birch

There are no "best laptop" for storyline as far as my experience go. Merely "Least worst" :) After using this tool for 6 years, I use a desktop pc with a high performing desktop processor. Storyline is not a very optimized piece of software, and it uses 32 bit, just one core, but it runs quite stable. So I found that I was doing best on a custom built desktop pc with a high single cpu frequency and a fast SSD. Not sure how big an impact your gpu has, but I suspect some.

Core i7 6700K, 16 GB memory, SATA3 speed SSD, GeForce 1060.

Even the newest laptops I have tried from Lenovo, HP, Dell, starts wheezing and perform sluggishly when using Storyline for projects with many shapes and pictures on screen at the same time.

So I use a desktop pc. And for those days where I am on a small laptop, I tend to remote desktop into my workstation.

Ned Whiteley

Hi Camille,

I understand where Soren is coming from and there is no doubt that you get more bang for your buck with a desktop, but if you are prepared to invest those extra dollars, you can get a very capable laptop for running Storyline.

In addition to my laptop, I have a beefy desktop at home with a high-end processor, three screens, two graphics cards, SSD drives and plenty of memory and yet I still prefer to do most of my Articulate work on my laptop. Both machines are easily capable of doing what I need to do, but I like the small footprint and portability that my laptop provides.

When I do my simulation work, I run far more powerful and graphics-hungry software than Storyline and my laptop barely misses a beat. The main advantage with my desktop is that the simulation software accesses multiple screens. However, my laptop can run up to four screens if I need to, although I only ever use one.

I guess the main message from my point of view is that if you do want to get a laptop, make sure you budget accordingly and include:

a.  a high end processor (minimum Core i7 -- e.g. i7 8850U)

b.  a good graphics card (e.g. NVIDIA Quadro P1000)

c.  a minimum of 16GB RAM

d. a minimum of 512GB SSD

I should stress, this is purely my personal opinion and I would advise you to get as much advice from others as you can. You are about to invest several thousand dollars in computer hardware, for which it is well worth investing several hours in research to make sure you get it right.

Happy searching !! :) :)

Soren J Birch

Hi Ned, how heavy is that laptop of yours? I must admit it was 2 years ago I gave up on using a company issued laptop for Storyline work. Things could have improved a lot I guess. But my so-called "workstation" grade Dell, and later HP Elitebook, both wheezed and huffed and puffed under the strain, and large project files became rather sluggish to work with.

Ned Whiteley

Hi Soren,

My laptop is almost two years old now and weighs it at approximately 2 kg and is a maximum of 1.75 cm thick at the rear and 0.9 cm at the front. The normal HP ZBook Workstation is a bit of a brick, however the ZBook Studio Workstation (the one I have) is the slimmed down version, which is much better.

The specs of the latest version can be found here:

https://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=4SQ58PA&opt=&sel=NTB

Fortunately mine cost $1500 less at the time as it now comes with a 4K screen, whereas mine is 1920 x 1080, which is more than adequate for what I need. Note that the price quoted here is in Australian dollars and not US.