Best Laptops For Video Editing 2023

Video editing is one of the most demanding tasks for a laptop, requiring a powerful CPU, a generous complement of system memory and capacious storage. The best laptops for video editing—including our pick the Apple MacBook Pro M1 16—have these attributes in spades, and they are among some of the most powerful laptops you can buy (right up there with the best gaming laptops).

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo 15 OLED is a striking laptop for video editors, with a fantastic design.

Asus

The Apple MacBook Pro M1 16 is still the gold standard for video editing for most needs. An M2 refresh was just announced, and we will evaluate that model for our next update. You don’t have to edit on a Mac though, if you don’t want to. The Asus ZenBook Duo 15 OLED offers amazing detail in its 4K display, making it a better choice if you’re editing video on-the-go. The ZenBook Duo also has some unique touch controls, including a second touchscreen display that runs along the top of the keyboard.

We combined firsthand experience with research to determine our picks for the best laptops for video editing.

Best for: Handling any kind of video editing tasks.

The Apple MacBook Pro 16’s vibrant, bright and large screen is perfect for creative work. It has plenty of space for you to view multiple audio tracks when editing audio, and expansive timelines when editing video. With excellent color accuracy you can more easily color grade and correct your video, while ensuring you see it at close to native 4K resolution (you can output images to a 4K monitor at 60HZ, too). The smaller MacBook Pro 13-inch has an M2 processor, but video editing is best on a larger screen. Apple just announced an M2 version of the MacBook Pro 16, but it’s not shipping at this writing. Look for our take in our next update. In the meantime, you get this M1 generation now, and with a discount over the new model.

This model’s battery life lasts up to 21 hours, which is incredible for a laptop of this size and compute power. It has a wide range of ports—including three Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports, an HDMI port an SDXC card slot and a MagSafe 3 port—so you won’t be stuck using an adapter or hub to plug in your camera and other external devices, either.

Pros:

Strong performance
Gorgeous display
Much improved connectivity

Cons:

Expensive
Lacks the performance of newer MacBook Pro 13-Inch

Best for: Editing 4K video.

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo 15 is a worthy Windows alternative to the MacBook Pro 16, with top-tier performance, one of the best laptop displays you can find, and a secondary one that has some impressive utility through unique touchscreen functions and timeline management. It has a super-powered Intel Core i9 12th-generation CPU, and 32GB of fast DDR5 memory. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 makes this laptop capable of handling 3D transitions and 3D design work, and if you want to use this laptop for gaming, it has all the power you need for that, too. Battery life isn’t the best, though—especially when using the hardware to its full potential—so be sure to keep the charger handy.

The ZenBook Pro Duo’s 15.6-inch primary display is a 4K OLED touchscreen; it delivers crisp and vibrant images, and it supports 100{fa54600cdce496f94cc1399742656d2709d9747721dfc890536efdd06456dfb9} of the DCI-P3 professional color space for impressive color reproduction. The secondary touchscreen, called the ScreenPad, display sits on the top of the keyboard deck, and it gives you the ability to use a range of different controls while editing. Alternatively, you can extend the display vertically, letting you put editing elements like your video timeline on the secondary display, for example.

Pros:

Powerful processor and GPU
Vibrant 4K OLED main display
ScreenPad gives unique control options

Cons:

Sub-standard battery life

Best for: Video editing on a big screen.

If you want plenty of screen space for your video editing needs, the Dell XPS 17 is the laptop for the job. Its display is 4K+, with extra vertical resolution perfect for browsing long websites, reading documents and fitting in more timeline space during video editing. The touchscreen display is bright, with a 500 nits rating, but it’s not as vibrant or as contrasty as an OLED. Backing up this high-end display is the top-tier Intel Core i9-12900HK CPU, with 14 cores and 5GHz boost clocks, making it incredibly fast for video editing tasks like viewing raw video or navigating through your timeline.

There’s also 32GB of fast DDR5 RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics and 1TB of fast SSD storage—enough space to store all of your footage. The battery life is good enough to last a full day of work and then some. You might not get the rated 12 hours if you’re doing demanding editing, though, so keep the power cable handy if you want to maximize performance and battery life.

Pros:

Display is big and bright
Great performance from powerful hardware
Solid battery life

Cons:

Screen lacks contrast of OLED

Best for: Guaranteeing color accuracy of your footage.

The professional-grade Asus ProArt StudioBook 16 targets video editors and creators who need accurate color. Its 16-inch OLED display is factory calibrated to meet Pantone Validated color accuracy standards. The display has 100{fa54600cdce496f94cc1399742656d2709d9747721dfc890536efdd06456dfb9} coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, and with OLED contrast and vibrancy, the colors on this laptop not only look spectacular on-screen, but they’re accurate for professional video and image editing. The Asus ProArt StudioBook has powerful components, with an Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 graphics. Plus, you get a whopping 2TB of fast SSD storage, too.

Unique to this ProArt StudioBook is a handy, built-in programmable dial, for fine input control when navigating timelines or adjusting levels. If you want to attach any other accessories, you get a wide selection of ports, including two USB Type-A and two USB Type-C, as well as an HDMI output for connecting to larger external displays, gigabit ethernet and an SD card slot.

Pros:

Pantone-rated OLED display
Great selection of ports
Powerful components

Cons:

Expensive
Unimpressive battery life

HP Zbook Fury 16 G9 Mobile Workstation PC Wolf Pro Security Edition

Best for: The most demanding video editing tasks.

For the ultimate video editing machine, the HP Zbook Fury 16 G9 is in a class of its own. Its Intel Core i9-12950HX is a 16 core CPU with the highest clock speeds possible on modern laptops. That’s paired with an incredible 64GB of fast DDR5 memory, making this laptop capable of handling or outputting up to 8K footage. The powerful Nvidia RTX A3000 professional GPU packs a powerful punch in terms of video processing power and video memory—perfect for managing complicated 3D transitions and special effects. This model has a 1TB SSD, a good start for storing your high-resolution footage.

Ports include USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, Thunderbolt 4 with USB4 Type-C and a 3.5mm headphone jack. In a unique twist, this laptop supports both HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.0 outputs, making it capable of outputting to any kind of external display at up to 8K resolution. You won’t be able to do that on the laptop’s display, as it is only 1080p, but the anti-glare display covers 100{fa54600cdce496f94cc1399742656d2709d9747721dfc890536efdd06456dfb9} of the sRGB color gamut for accurate reproduction of your footage on screen. That lower resolution helps boost battery life, too, which is an extensive 15.5 hours, plenty for a full day of work and then some.

Pros:

Powerful components
Lengthy battery life
Multiple external display connection options

Cons:

HP Zbook Fury 16 G9 Mobile Workstation PC Wolf Pro Security Edition

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