I use my 17' MBP ( with an internal SSD, great for booting and opening apps) but use it with a 23' cinema screen at home, ( on the end of the thundrbolt chain, which also has an aja io express interface) but find that even the 17' on its own is a little small ( old eyes) for editing on loctaion without an external monitor.
If you want to edit video on the go, you’re going to need one of the best laptops for video editing. Luckily, that’s what we’re here for. With this guide, we’ve found all the best laptops for video editing, both in high definition and Ultra HD (4K) resolutions. Finding the best laptop for video editing can be hard, though. This is mainly due to the fact that video editing is extremely tasking on your computer hardware, especially if you’re using a laptop. That’s why we created a list of the best laptops for video editing in 2018, as our expert advice means you can shop in confidence.
We’ve also went ahead and included our exclusive price comparison tool, so you can take advantage of all the best deals across the internet. So, read on to find out what we think are the best video editing laptops in 2018. Check out our list of Apple MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018). Limited expansion capabilities The 15-inch 2018 MacBook Pro is hands-down the best Mac laptop ever designed for video editors. Apple has packed loads of upgrades into this version, offering you the latest generation of Intel Core i7 and i9 processors with six cores, and it now supports up to 32GB of RAM, making this a very adept laptop for video editing. Discrete graphics are provided by a choice of AMD Radeon Pro GPUs, making this the best laptop for video editing. The innovative Touch Bar makes it easier for videographers to intuitively access commands, while the Retina display on the 15-inch model offers more than enough pixels should you want to edit at native resolution in Full HD on the move.
However, if you are editing 4K, then you'll be disappointed by the limited resolution. Webcam not great While Huawei might not be the first company you think of when it comes to laptops, especially laptops you can use for video editing, that should change with the company's phenomenal MateBook X Pro. It is a gorgeously-designed laptop with a stunning screen (albeit with a rather odd aspect ratio), and it comes packed with cutting edge components, and a battery life that runs rings around many of its rivals.
It has plenty of horse power for editing videos, and it's price is very competitive, making it a great alternative to the MacBook Pro if your budget doesn't stretch that far. Read the full review: 3. No option for spinning disks The easily fits in the Ultrabook category with a weight of a tad under 2kg and a thickness of only 18mm, slightly heavier and a smidge thicker than the Precision 15 5000 but more portable and svelte than Lenovo's laptop. Where HP manages to score highly is when it comes to sheer value for money when it comes to powerful components, with a high performance processor and gorgeous 4K screen, which makes it one of the best laptops for video editing. Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch). No Surface Pen included The Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch) is one of the most powerful 2-in-1 laptops in the world. While 2-in-1 laptops may not be the first choice for video editors, the Surface Book 2 has some powerful enough components to handle video editing if you go for a model with a dedicated graphics card.
Brilliant build quality and excellent battery life makes this a wonderful device for using as either a laptop, or as a powerful Windows 10 tablet. The tablet mode is convenient if you want to shoot footage and edit it while out and about. Apple MacBook 12-inch (2017). Expensive Apple's laptops are great choices for video editing, and if you want to save a bit of cash, then last year's MacBook remains a brilliant option, that's a fair bit cheaper than this year's MacBook Pro. You get an Intel 7th-generation Kaby Lake CPU, which brings improved performance and longer battery life while keeping the body thin and light.
The Mac App Store has a large number of video editing programs that play to the MacBook's strengths, and you should be able to get a decent deal now that it's been out for a while. Read the full review: 6. Lenovo ThinkPad P70. ExpressCard 34!
Lenovo’s was one of the first notebooks featuring Intel's Skylake processor, which should give it a boost in performance compared to Broadwell or Haswell chips. Equipped with ample storage and plenty of RAM, an excellent keyboard and a wide selection of ports for connectivity, Lenovo is positioning the ThinkPad P70 as the ultimate workstation that you can take on the go without missing your desktop. Also worth mentioning is the X-Rite Pantone calibration tool, available as an option, which is great to keep your screen accurate for production work, as well as the Quadro GPU that comes with all the P70 SKUs.
MSI GS65 Stealth. Underside gets very hot OK, so the MSI GS65 Stealth is primarily a high-end gaming laptop - with a price tag to match - but it also doubles as an absolutely brilliant laptop for video editing. This is because it comes with an excellent array of cutting edge components, which includes an 8th-generation Intel Core i7-8750H CPU and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU. This means multi tasking and video editing is handled with aplomb - and if you also want to do a bit of gaming on the side, then it's a no-brainer.
Watch the video below for the top 7 things to consider when buying a laptop.
Videoguys by Gary Bettan Avid Media Composer now has a much lower overall total cost of ownership then most editors realize. Avid Media Composer 7 Bundles with Videoguys’ Recommended HP Workstations $3,799.00 $6,999.00 You do not require an expensive HP/Dell workstation or Mac Pro to edit video with Media Composer. Thousands of video editors all over the world are editing video using our guide (and ) as a guideline. We have posted a build, with Thunderbolt, that runs Avid Media Composer 7 great for around $1,500! You can edit with Avid on a laptop or Mac Book Pro, as well as an iMac.
Media Composer does not require any special hardware to run just as long as you stick to the basic requirements outlined on the Media Composer Product Pages. If you are doing professional work, we’re going to recommend you get an workstation When it comes to stability, reliability and performance these workstations set the bar by which all others are judged.
If you’re building a professional post facility, HP z series workstations are the way to go! Tech Note: The new Mac Pro is not yet approved by Avid, but Avid is in the process of certifying it. When they release a new update of MC7 that is certified for the new Mac Pro we will also recommend it. The major determining factor on how much computer you will actually need is the format of your source footage (SD or HD). Editing DSLR, GoPro or AVCHD footage takes a lot of horsepower because these formats are very compressed.
The video quality is spectacular but you need a powerful computer to work with the media. Fortunately, you can find these powerful computers everywhere today. Our DIY 9.5 Avid build is a killer machine and it will handle multiple layers of HD footage. It’s not overkill, but it’s not a budget system either. We feel it really hits the sweetspot for performance and value.
Just add video storage, and your off to the races! Here are our basic guidelines for editing the HD footage mentioned above using Media Composer. Videoguys’ DIY Builds are great for Avid Media Composer 7! Processor: Intel i7 Quad core (or Hex). We feel strongly that the i7s are the best possible solution for video editing today.
You can get by with an i5, but it’s going to be a much more sluggish editing environment. If you are on a PC, check out our article. We recommend ASUS motherboards and suggest that you stick with the same chipsets we used – these combo’s are tried and true. If you’re looking to go with a Hex core CPU, our Avid build from Dec 2013 is still a killer machine. Operating System: Avid Media Composer 7 is a 64 bit application, which requires a 64 bit operating System. For the Mac that means Mac OS X Lion (10.7.x), Mountain Lion (10.8.x) or Mavericks (10.9.x).
For the PC we strongly recommend Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Win 8 is approved for use with Media Composer 7 but we are not yet recommending it for our video editing products at this time.
RAM: 8GB of RAM is the bare minimum. As a rule of thumb, we recommend 3GB of RAM per CPU core, so for best results with an i7 quad core CPU, get 12GB (triple channel) or 16GB (dual or quad channel) of RAM. If you do complex projects with lots of layers and filters and HD, go with 32GB. GPU: This is where the editing application can get finicky.
We strongly recommend for video editing. If you are getting an iMac or Mac Book Pro, you definitely want to step up to the NVIDIA graphic cards. If you are on a PC, we recommend getting an NVIDIA Quadro card. The new is based on the latest Kepler technology, has 2GB of video RAM and is a great choice for under $500. If you are getting a Windows based Laptop, get one that offers an NVIDIA graphics card as well.
Storage: For your system drive you can use a 7200RPM hard drive or an SSD. We’ve become big fans of SSDs for our boot drive. With an SSD (or the Apple Fusion drive) your programs will pop right open, which is very cool. Editors hate waiting for Media Composer or Photoshop or any other content creation software to open with a standard hard drive. For your video storage, a single 7200RPM drive will allow you to do basic editing, even with HD footage but we recommend a dedicated RAID0 or RAID5 for your video projects and media.
You don’t want your storage to become your bottleneck. As drives fill up, they slow down, as it takes more spin cycles to find the media. RAID 0 or 5 gives you plenty of through-put as the media is store in a specific pattern on the drive to handle even the most complex HD timelines. (See our Video Storage recommendations below). What iMac configuration does the Videoguys’ recommend for Avid?
The latest 27″ iMac does a fantastic job of running the latest Apple, Adobe and Avid software. You’ll get outstanding performance and be able to easily handle AVCHD and DSLR footage with some pretty multiple layers of video and fairly complex timelines. We even have customers editing RED footage on their iMacs and MBP w Retina – WOW!
We get asked all the time what kind of computer you need to run the latest NLE software. On the Windows side this is a complicated answer with many options. With a Mac it’s easier to answer. If you go with the higher end model iMacs or Mac Book Pros with i7 quad-core processors you will get excellent results.
If you want the best configuration for a new iMac for video editing, Videoguys recommends the 27 inch iMac with:. Intel Core i7 processor. 32GB RAM.
1TB Fusion Drive. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX GPU This is a fully loaded machine, and it’s going to cost you about $3K, but it will run any Mac based NLE great and has all the power you need for all HD tapeless workflows. If are on a tight budget the first place to look to save is by dropping down to the GTX 675MX GPU which will save you $150, the next place to cut is your RAM, down to 16G, but we can’t recommend going down to just 8GB. That brings the cost down below $2500. If you are serious about editing video on a new iMac, that’s the bottom.
While you can configure the 21.5″ model with an i7 processor, you are limited to the GTX 650M GPU, which only has 512MB of RAM, which just isn’t going to cut it. What about Video Storage and I/O? Over the past year we have seen a revolution in the external storage industry! In the past the only way to achieve throughputs of over 3GB per second required expensive host adapters. Now USB3 and Thunderbolt provide blazing fast data rates that video editors love!
Today’s computers now come with USB3 ports which provide you with 5GB/sec of throughput – which is more than 6 times faster than Firewire800!! Unlike USB2, the new USB3 is a very reliable and stable connection that is 100% up to the demands of post production work. USB3 is more than 1.5 times faster than eSata, and every bit as solid. If your computer has Thunderbolt you can get 10GB/sec data rates – more than 12 times as fast as FireWire800 and twice as fast as USB3! In fact Thunderbolt RAIDs can deliver speeds as fast as expensive RAID controllers costing a thousand dollars or more.
Even cooler, Thunderbolt gives you TWO channels of 10GB/sec throughput!! Videoguys recommend RAID0 or RAID5 for all your video projects and media. A is on sale for $379.
When attached via USB3 you’ll get over 200 MB/sec in sustained throughput! 4TB is enough storage for almost 40 hours of ProRES 422 HQ or Avid DNxHD 220 footage. Check out our external storage solutions from,. If you need to edit 2K footage or beyond, then your storage choice becomes critical. Read the or give our team a call at 800-323-2325 and we’ll be happy to review your storage options and get you in the best storage to meet your budget and needs. I/O options: Avid makes great hardware for getting video in and out of your computer, if you need it. And are definitely the best choices, but they are not your only choice.
Avid is an open system, which means you can use a wide range of 3rd party Open I/O hardware from AJA, Matrox, BlueFish444, Blackmagic and others. If you need to capture or output video from Media Composer, give us a call and we’ll put you in the right hardware for your budget. We offer I/O boxes for workstations, laptops and thunderbolt equipped computers. $975.00 $288.00 $388.00.