Best laptop for video editing 2023

The latest of Apple’s MacBook Pros is a fantastic premium editing machine. The latest M2 Max chipset gives powerful CPU and pretty respectable graphical performance to boot (with its integrated graphics processors). Not only this but it’s highly energy efficient, making it the laptop with the best battery life we’ve ever seen (we’re talking up to 18 hours of general, non-intensive use on battery saving mode).

The 16:10 16-inch screen gives you plenty of screen real estate for your work, has a sumptuous 3024 x 1964 resolution and a fantastically high peak brightness of 1,000 nits (or c.1,600 nits in HDR mode). Although it doesn’t cover the full DCI-P3 gamut sadly, you do get 100% sRGB coverage and terrific color-accuracy. Although MacOS isn’t compatible with most games, for those that are you get a 120Hz maximum refresh rate, meaning nice smooth gameplay. On top of this the ProMotion feature allows you to switch the refresh rate to certain fixed FPS – ideal if you want to sync it with the FPS of the fottage you’re editing.

Besides this you get the unbeatable build quality of any Apple laptop, brilliant aesthetics and a decent 1080p webcam. The biggest downside though is the very high asking price.

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 is a unique dual-screen laptop that ASUS has released for the last couple of years, so is available in a variety of processor and graphics card loadouts.

The most powerful SKUs have the highest Nvidia 30-series / 40-series GPUs and either AMD Ryzen 6000 series or Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, which will absolutely annihilate any rendering workload you throw at them, including in graphical design and color grading. The liquid metal cooling helps to limit thermal throttling when it’s under strenuous load.

Most options come with a superbly bright 1600p mini-LED main display that has great color replication, plus a smaller secondary 4K touch screen between this and the keyboard. You can use this smaller display to put your editing timeline on whilst viewing your footage on the main display, as well as various other uses in creative software that is ideal for the creator/editor. This does mean the keyboard is pushed a bit closer to the user (though an included wrist rest mitigates the difficulty of this somewhat) and the trackpad is shifted to the right hand side, which is alright when you get used to it (if you’re right handed) but it’s no good for lefties.

The biggest downside of this laptop is the fairly eye-watering price, but ultimately you’re paying for a unique machine with features you won’t find anywhere else.

The thinner and lighter, substantially cheaper, but not quite as powerful of Apple’s laptop range – the 13.6-inch MacBook Air (2022) – comes with an M2 chipset which can comfortably handle most video editing and rendering tasks.

The high res display (2560 x 1664) is capable of a 490 nits peak brightness, which is no way near that of the MacBook Pro but it’s still good – enough to be able to use the laptop outdoors. The 100% sRGB coverage and high color accuracy also remains from the Pro – great for color-accurate work. The webcam ‘notch’ which cuts into the top of the screen can be a bit of a distraction, but other than this its an excellent screen.

Again, the battery life isn’t quite as impressive as the Pro, but it’s still extremely good – 14 hours with battery saving settings enabled, and its a similar story for thewebcam, microphone, and speakers – all wel l above average, just not quite as good as the more expensive machine. The build quality and aesthetic design is up there with any laptop out there. Weighing a mere 2.7lbs and with wafer thin dimensions, it’s very easily carried in a small bag – perfect for using on the move.

Once again, there aren’t a great deal of downsides to this machine, and we can even say (amazingly for an Apple product) that the base-model variant with 8GB of RAM and 256GB storage is actually reasonably priced, though if you want to upgrade either the memory or the storage this does cost quite a bit extra.

This 17.3-inch Gigabyte Aero is a great value laptop with powerful components and a top-class display that can be used to both demolish editing workloads (including native 4K footage) and enjoy some high-end gaming.

The laptop comes with a superbly bright 4K mini-LED screen (some models also come with a high-contrast OLED option, which is also great) plus powerful Intel 12th gen CPU options and dedicated Nvidia 30-series graphics cards. Specifically you can get an Intel Core i7-12700H processor, plenty powerful enough for video editing purposes, or if you really want to push the boat out, an Intel Core i9-12900HK – nearly the most powerful laptop CPU of 2022. Similarly you can opt for an RTX 3070 Ti (again – plenty powerful enough for video editing, color grading, or graphical work) or the RTX 3080 Ti if you’ve got the cash or want that premium gaming power. Admittedly it does get a bit loud when put under heavy loads, but if you’re wearing headphones this doesn’t matter too much.

Unfortunately the laptop does lack a MUX Switch, meaning you won’t be able to unlock that extra performance boost that you can in most premium gaming laptops released over the last year or so (whether gaming or rendering). The lack of G-Sync is also a bit unfortunate from a gaming perspective, but makes no difference with regards to video editing. The lack of an SD card reader is more of an irritation for creatives, but you can always buy an external adapter.