Video editing is a task that requires more than just the best video editing software. You need access to a high-quality display and enough computing power to process large video files. Whether you’re a creative who works on professional-quality videos or you want to launch a YouTube channel, investing in the right laptop will make video editing much easier.
It’s easy to feel confused if you’re not familiar with performance specs. We’ve compared different laptops to select the best computers you can use for video editing. We’ve put together a few recommendations to help you find the right laptop for your video editing needs.
You can also look at our list of the overall best laptops for 2021 for more options.
Top laptops for video editing in 2021
- Dell XPS 17
- Apple MacBook 13 M1
- Asus ZenBook 13 OLED UM325
- Alienware Area-51m R2
- HP Envy 15
- MacBook Air M1
- Acer Swift 3 (AMD)
Dell XPS 17
Why you should buy this: It’s the best video editing laptop.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a fast Windows 10 laptop for video editing — and everything else.
What we thought of the Dell XPS 17:
Dell’s XPS 17 clamshell 4K laptop expands on the excellent XPS 15 that’s been one of our favorite portable workhorses for a couple of years. Literally, the XPS 17 takes the best of the XPS 15 and packs it into a chassis housing a massive 17-inch display, and then ups the ante in terms of performance. The XPS 17 looks a lot like its smaller sibling, with a solid aluminum chassis and a carbon-fiber keyboard deck that makes for comfortable long working sessions, and it’s just as solidly built.
It also offers tons of power, with up to Intel’s 10th-gen Core i9-10885H CPU. This superfast, full-power (45-watt) processor is the ultimate CPU for demanding tasks like encoding video and real-time editing. That chip is featured in other laptops, but according to our tests, it’s among the fastest in Dell’s system. The XPS 17 is also available with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU that should help considerably with live editing and encoding performance.
You can configure the Dell XPS 17 all the way from a base model with an entry-level i5-10300H CPU up to the aforementioned Core i9-10885H, up to 64GB of fast DDR4-2933MHz RAM, up to 2TB of very fast PCI-e solid-state drive (SSD) storage, and up to a quality 4K display that offers high contrast and vibrant, incredibly accurate colors to show off your video projects with real grandeur. You’ll get a machine that also provides tons of high-speed connectivity via four USB-C ports with full-speed 40 GBps Thunderbolt 3 support (USB-C dominates this laptop, which forgoes older USB-A connections), along with a solid keyboard and touchpad with the option of a fingerprint scanner for secure login via Windows 10 Hello.
Apple MacBook Pro 13 M1
Why you should buy this: It’s the best portable laptop for video editing.
Who it’s for: Any user who needs a powerful video editing workstation they can take anywhere.
What we thought of the Apple MacBook Pro 13 M1:
Apple’s ARM-based M1 processor has proven itself to be a tremendous performer, beating out all but Intel’s fastest 45-watt CPUs in demanding tasks like video encoding. If an app is optimized for the M1, then it flies. That makes the M1-based MacBook Pro 13 a great choice for anyone who wants power on the go. Like most of the best MacBooks, it isn’t cheap, starting at $1,300 for 8GB of RAM and a 256GB solid-state drive, and winding up to $2,000 for 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. But it’s worth it.
Power isn’t the only thing the MacBook Pro 13 M1 has going for it. It’s thin at 0.61 inches and weighs just three pounds, making it a good fit for your backpack. And thanks to the M1 chip, the MacBook Pro 13 M1 lasts a long time on a charge, beating out most Windows 10 laptops and making mincemeat of Apple’s Intel-based version. You won’t be carrying around a lot of weight, and you won’t need to worry about making sure you have a charger handy.
The MacBook Pro 13 M1 inherits its sibling’s excellent display that offers a 2560 x 1600 resolution, a productivity-friendly 16:10 aspect ratio, 485 nits of brightness (a lot), a high contrast of 1470:1, and 91% of the AdobeRGB color gamut. In short, this is a display that will let you work in comfort and provide relatively accurate results.
Asus ZenBook 13 OLED UM325
Why you should buy this: It’s the best portable Windows 10 laptop for video editing.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants fast performance and a color-accurate display that’s easy to carry around.
What we thought of the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED UM325:
The ZenBook 13 OLED UM325 is a remarkably thin and light laptop for what it packs inside, at just 0.55 inches thick and 2.5 pounds. That makes it highly portable. What makes it powerful is the AMD Ryzen 7 5800U, an eight-core CPU that’s significantly faster than Intel U-series chips and that can burn through CPU-intensive video editing tasks.
As if that wasn’t enough, this diminutive laptop also sports a 1080p OLED display with 100% of both AdobeRGB and sRGB, with a color accuracy of DeltaE 0.49 (less than 1.0 is considered excellent). It’s not a 4K display, but it has excellent colors, and you’d want more power yet for 4K editing in any event.
Everything else is great about the ZenBook 13 OLED as well, from its excellent build quality to its outstanding keyboard and touchpad. If Windows 10 is your game and you need a portable video editing machine, this is the one for you. Oh, and did we mention that it’s just $900, making it a great value as well?
Alienware Area-51m R2
Why you should buy this: It’s the most powerful laptop for video editing.
Who it’s for: Anybody who wants the fastest possible workflow without investing in a boring portable workstation.
What we thought of the Alienware Area-51m R2:
The Alienware Area-51m R2 is an upgrade to the Area-51m first-gen machine that we reviewed in 2019. The CPUs have been upgraded to Intel’s 10th-gen desktop models up to the Core i9-10900K, and the GPU options top out at the amazingly fast NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super. Add in up to 64GB of fast DDR4-2933MHz RAM and the option of 4TB of RAID via two 2TB SSDs. These components guarantee that the Alienware Area-51m R2 will be the fastest performing laptop for creative professionals, whipping through encoding and live editing tasks. The laptop sports a 17.3-inch 4K display with 500 nits of brightness and 100% AdobeRGB color gamut support, which will ensure you can get your videos produced with high fidelity.
Crazily enough, the Alienware Area-51m R2 is also upgradeable, providing the ability to swap out the CPU and GPU, giving you room to grow — as if you’d need it any time soon. Of course, this isn’t a highly portable laptop, weighing in at over 9 pounds and with its being a whopping 1.7 inches thick at its thickest point. But if you need to carry it from one work location to another, you can if you’ve been keeping up with your exercises.
The Alienware Area-51m R2 has solid connectivity, including Thunderbolt 3, USB-C and USB-A, and HDMI ports. Wi-Fi 6 is also on hand for fast multiplayer performance with this gaming laptop.
HP Envy 15
Why you should buy this: It’s another powerful laptop for video editing.
Who it’s for: Anyone who needs a fast CPU and GPU for complex video editing projects.
What we thought of the HP Envy 15:
HP’s Envy line is aimed at creative professionals, and the Envy 15 is the top of the line. It’s built around the Intel 10th-gen 45-watt Core i7-10750H CPU, a fast processor that excels at complex tasks like video editing. On top of that, it’s available with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU, which can really speed up an application like Adobe Premiere Pro that will make good use of the extra power.
It’s available with up to 32GB of RAM, which should be plenty for all but the most demanding video editors. And it can house two PCIe SSDs, which when configured in Raid 0 can provide up to 4TB of storage. That’s enough for some serious work. Oh, and it offers an OLED display with professional-level color width and accuracy.
The Envy 15 is well-built, looks good, and has an excellent keyboard and touchpad. It’s also hundreds less than many of its competitors, making it a great value along the way.
MacBook Air M1
Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget laptop for video editing.
Who it’s for: Anyone who needs fast components to churn through their video projects but has less money to spend.
What we thought of the MacBook Air M1:
Apple’s MacBook Air M1 uses the same CPU as the MacBook Pro 13, but it’s fanless and so is expected to be slower than its fan-filled sibling. In our testing, though, the MacBook Air M1 fell only slightly behind the MacBook Pro 13, for example, it was just 11% slower in Cinebench R23. That’s while running completely silently and without generating significant heat. Amazingly, the MacBook AIr M1 is faster in many native applications than Intel Tiger Lake laptops and it competes with Intel’s faster H-series CPUs.
The MacBook Air M1 makes this list as a budget laptop because it comes in at $1,000 for the M1, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 2,560 x 1,600 IPS Retina 16:10 display that doesn’t quite live up to the same quality as the MacBook Pro 13’s but is ahead of most Windows 10 laptops at this price. And you get the same excellent Magic Keyboard, a large and responsive touchpad, and a very thin and light chassis that won’t weigh you down. One weakness is connectivity, where you get just two USB-C with Thunderbolt 3, but wireless connectivity is fast with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 support.
Acer Swift 3 (AMD)
Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget Windows 10 laptop for video editing.
Who it’s for: Anyone who needs a speedy Windows 10 laptop for video editing that won’t break the bank.
What we thought of the Acer Swift 3 (AMD):
It’s not often that you find a laptop with a very fast, eight-core CPU with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for under $700. But that describes Acer’s Swift 3 perfectly, which utilizes AMD’s Ryzen 7 4700U for some surprising performance at this price. That’s not AMD’s latest chip, but it’s still incredibly fast and does extremely well with CPU-intensive video editing tasks.
It’s not the most fashionable laptop around but its build-quality is better-than-budget. You also get a very comfortable keyboard, although we found the touchpad a bit mediocre. And the display isn’t the best either, so you’ll likely want to connect an external display for finalizing your work.
But if you’re on a tight budget and need a fast laptop that will help you churn through your video projects, the Acer Swift 3 (AMD) is one of the least expensive you’ll find.
Research and buying tips
Are gaming laptops good for video editing?
Yes, gaming laptops can be great for video editing because they tend to utilize faster CPUs, GPUs, and RAM that creative applications can leverage for superior performance. It’s no coincidence that our pick for the most powerful video editing laptop is a gaming system, the Alienware Area-51m R2. Gaming laptop displays, though, are aimed at different objectives than you’ll find on the best video editing laptops — they’re tuned for speed rather than color accuracy and depth. And so you’ll need to keep that in mind when you make your purchasing decision. One alternative is to add an external high-quality display, to leverage the performance of the laptop and still have the display quality you need for final production work where you’ll want to see your video in all its glory.
How much RAM do you need to edit 4K video?
The short answer is: As much RAM as you can add to your laptop. Most likely, you’ll want at least 32GB of RAM for 4K video editing in order to ensure an efficient workflow. If you can add 64GB, then that’s even better. But the absolute minimum you’ll want is 16GB.
Do you need a 4K laptop to edit 4K video?
You don’t have to have a 4K display to edit 4K video. You can do the editing and rendering without one. Where 4K becomes important is in your ability to view your video in 4K to ensure that it meets your standards and that all effects and changes are applied appropriately. Again, adding an external 4K display can overcome any limitations in your laptop’s display — like our MacBook picks on this list that aren’t quite 4K resolution.
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