If you’re a professional video editor and are looking to step up your game, then you have to get yourself the best laptop for video editing. The key points to consider when buying a laptop for video editing is the processing power, RAM, hard drive size and screen size.
Photo editing software can be pretty intensive, especially if you're working on high resolution raw files and getting stuck in with advanced effects, so you'll want to make sure you get a laptop for photo editing that is powerful enough.
That’s why we created a list of the best laptops for photographers and photo editing. In this guide, we’ll go through all the best laptops and Ultrabooks that can help photographers, no matter which photo editors you’re using – whether it’s Adobe Photoshop or GIMP.
One of the first things you need to look for is dedicated graphics, as a powerful GPU can do a lot of the heavy lifting while rendering high-resolution images. You should also consider how much you need to move around, and thus how light your laptop needs to be.
At the end of the day, the best laptops for photo editing can rival traditional desktop hardware when it comes to raw horsepower, and unlike laptops of old, many boast pixel-perfect displays with stunning color, as well as wide contrast to keep highlight and shadow detail consistently visible.
To make things as easy as possible, we've rounded up the best laptops for Photoshop that take all of that into consideration, so you can find the best Photoshop laptop for your needs. When we’re done going over all the best laptops for photographers, we’ll go into all the details photographers need to be on the lookout for when buying a new laptop.
1. Apple Macbook Pro with touchbar
CPU: Dual-core Intel Core i5 – i7 | Graphics: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 – 650 | RAM: 8GB – 16GB | Screen: 13.3-inch, (2,560 x 1,600) IPS | Storage: 256GB – 1TB PCIe 3.0 SSD
The best Macbook Pro ever
Expensive
If you're after the latest and greatest laptop from Apple, then this year's 13-inch Macbook Pro with touchbar is a brilliant choice if you're looking for a laptop to edit photos on. It's the best laptop Apple has ever made, and builds new features into the classic design. Of course the headline feature is the touchbar - it's a thin OLED display at the top of the keyboard which can be used for any number of things, whether that be auto-suggesting words as you type or offering Touch ID so you can log in with just your fingerprint. This makes it an excellent laptop for photographers using Photoshop, as it has a number of Photoshop shortcuts, such as being able to quickly select a color or change the opacity of a layer by swiping your finger, features that all the other laptops on this list lack.
Read the full review:Apple Macbook with touchbar (13-inch 2018)
See more like this: The best Macs and Macbooks 2018
See more like this: The best Macs and Macbooks 2018
2. Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina
Retina display model is still the best option for photographers
CPU: Dual-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i5 processor | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 256GB SSD | Screen: 13.3-in IPS display (2,560 x 1,600 pixels)
Faster processor
Base storage feels small
Apple's Retina display revolutionised laptop screen quality – and while the competition now sports Retina-rivalling panels, the MacBook still offers the best viewing experience. Its brightness, contrast, saturation and detail are all sublime, and Apple's factory colour calibration is the most accurate. Although its 2.7GHz processor is technically faster than the dual-core chips in the Dell and Microsoft laptops on test here, real-world performance is almost identical, and nothing very special. Our MacBook configuration lasted a mighty 12 hours 12 minutes in our video loop test, thrashing all but the Surface Book. It may be an obvious choice, but this is still a brilliant all-rounder.
Read the full review: Apple MacBook Pro 13' Retina
3. Dell XPS 15
CPU: Intel Core i5-7300HQ - i7-7700HQ | Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 1050 with 4GB GDDR5 | RAM: 8GB - 16GB DDR4 | Screen: Up to 15.6-inch Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) InfinityEdge touchscreen | Storage: 1TB HDD - 512GB SSD
Amazing power
Slim design
If you're looking for a larger and more powerful laptop for photo editing, then the Dell XPS 15 could be for you. Packing the same InfinityEdge technology as the smaller XPS 13, the screen extends right to the edge of the machine which means it's as small as it's possible to make a 15-inch laptop. It's quite pricey though, depending on which version you get. The very top end version has a 4K color-accurate display, which makes it one of the best laptops for photo editing. You'll be able to see your photos in crisp detail as you edit them, and the impressive specifications means it will keep up with edits you make to the largest photos in your collection. A new version of the Dell XPS 15 is coming out in 2018, which looks set to further improve this already excellent laptop.
Read the full review:Dell XPS 15
4. Huawei MateBook X Pro
A brilliant laptop for photographers
CPU: 8th generation Intel Core i5 – i7 | Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620 , Nvidia GeForce MX150 2GB GDDR5 | RAM: 8GB – 16GB | Screen: 13.9-inch 3K (3,000 x 2,080) | Storage: 512GB SSD
Fantastic display
![Best Non Mac Laptop For Video Editing Best Non Mac Laptop For Video Editing](/uploads/1/2/5/2/125256133/404175324.jpg)
No SD card slot
The Huawei MateBook X Pro has proved to be a truly brilliant challenger to more established brands like Apple and Dell. This is a gorgeously-designed laptop with a stunning screen (albeit with a rather odd aspect ratio), and it comes packed with cutting edge components that allows it to perform brilliantly, and a battery life that runs rings around many of its rivals. It also has a very competitive price, giving you features, design and performance for quite a bit less money. The combination of brilliant screen, powerful components and (relatively) affordable price makes this one of the best laptops for photographers in 2019.
Read the full review: Huawei MateBook X Pro
5. Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch)
An amazing laptop that does even more as a tablet
CPU: Intel Core i5-7300U - Intel Core i7-8650U 1.9GHz | Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620; Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (2GB GDDR5 VRAM) | RAM: 8GB – 16GB | Screen: 3,000 x 2,000 (267 ppi) PixelSense display, 3:2 aspect ratio | Storage: 256GB – 1TB SSD
Unrivaled display
No Surface Pen included
The Surface Book 2 is Microsoft's followup to its popular 2-in-1 device, and it remains an excellent laptop for photo editing, and with a full version of Windows 10 installed, it can run Photoshop with any issues. It comes with boosted components, and its screen remains gorgeous. Only Apple's marginally better colour calibration gives the MacBook's image quality the edge, but Microsoft fights back with a superior 3,000 x 2,000 resolution and an ideal aspect ratio for viewing APS-C and full-frame images. The screen's touch-sensitive, but its real party trick is its ability to detach from the rest of the laptop to become a tablet. It's a shame that the Surface Pen stylus doesn't come included, as we'd definitely recommend buying that to accompany this excellent photo editing laptop.
Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch)
6. Dell Precision 7720
CPU: Intel Core i7 processor | RAM: 16GB | Storage: 512GB SSD | Screen: 17-inch IPS display (3,840 x 2,160 pixels)
Very big screen
Not easy to carry
As with most of Dell's laptops you can configure the Precision 7720 to meet your needs, and we recommend that, as the base spec is a bit under-powered for Photoshop. However, by boosting the processor, screen and GPU of this laptop you'll get an excellent laptop for Photoshop. The 17-inch screen (which can be upgraded to 4K), is brilliant for photo editing, but it does mean that it's a bit larger and heavier than other machines on our best laptop for Photoshop list.
7. Dell XPS 13
Touchscreen can streamline photo browsing and culling
CPU: 8th generation Intel Core i5 – i7 | Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620 | RAM: 8GB – 16GB | Screen: 13.3-inch FHD (1,920 x 1,080) – 4k (3840 x 2160) | Storage: 256GB – 1TB SSD
Decent power and screen
Expensive
This laptop's claim to fame is being the smallest 13.3-inch laptop on the market. It's slim screen bezel helps contribute to a svelte 304mm x 200mm x 15mm form that needs to be held to be truly appreciated. The XPS 13's screen is touch-sensitive, and it boasts a similar resolution and pixel density to the MacBook and Surface Book. Image quality is more in line with the ZenBook though, falling slightly short on colour and contrast intensity compared to Apple and Microsoft's displays. A highly portable package with little compromise other than battery life.
Read the full review: Dell XPS 13
8. Lenovo ThinkPad T460s
It's no photo editing wonder, but a decent general purpose machine
CPU: Dual-core 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor | RAM: 8GB | Storage: 256GB SSD | Screen: 14-in IPS display (1,920 x 1,080 pixels)
Thin and light
Relatively screen quality
The ThinkPad T-series is a no-nonsense design with a focus on robustness over style. Even so, the T460s' 18.8mm thickness is within 1mm of the MacBook, and it's actually lighter at 1.4kg. But despite packing an identical processor to the Surface Book, the T460s' Cinebench score was 30% slower, making it the slowest on test. While the Full HD screen looks good in isolation, colour saturation and contrast are noticeably more muted than the competition, and it's less crisp. On the up side, it's got the rare addition of an anti-reflective coating. Good, but the same money can buy you a better screen and more power.
Read the full review: Lenovo ThinkPad T460s
Key things to look out for
Watch the video above for the top 7 things to consider when buying a laptop.
It's easy to get bogged down in the tech and spec soup of computer terminology, but there are a couple of key areas photographers need to think about.
The first is the quality of the screen. This used to be more eye-sore than eye-candy, with appalling contrast and viewing angles, but thankfully IPS display tech fixes this and you shouldn't settle for anything less.
An SSD (solid state drive) is a must as your primary storage in any new laptop. A conventional hard disk drive will bottleneck performance like flat tires on a Ferrari, and while dedicated graphics cards are great for gaming, they're not a necessity here. Today's processors can fill in for them, and they pack enough pixel-pushing punch for photo editing.
The MacBook is favoured by many photographers, and for good reason. But don't rule out comparably priced laptop PCs, which can offer more bang per buck with better upgradability.
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TechRadar has teamed up with Adobe to offer a special discount on Creative Cloud All Apps membership. For the first year, you'll pay just $45.04/£42.46 per month – down from the regular price of $52.99/£49.94. You'll get access to Adobe's full suite of creative apps, including Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator, plus 100GB cloud storage for your projects. Offer ends August 26 2018.
- Want more choices? Check out our list of the best laptop 2019
Whether you’re making a quick video about your cat’s latest antics or you’re a professional videographer producing ads for major corporations, there are likely times when you’ll want to edit a video while you’re on the road.
Video editing has some very specific requirements, however, and calls for a specific set of features and capabilities if it’s going to be done efficiently and with acceptable performance. That’s why we surveyed the Digital Trends videographers and put together this list of the best laptops for video editing.
Our Pick
Dell XPS 15
Dell’s XPS 15 clamshell laptop has been one of our favorite portable workhorses for a couple of years. It’s incredibly well-built, with a solid aluminum chassis and comfortable carbon fiber keyboard deck. It also provides some serious power, with up to Intel’s 8th-generation six-core i9-8950HK CPU. This is a fast, full-power (45-watt) processor that can provide some serious power for things like encoding video. The XPS 15 is also available with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU that should help considerably with live editing and encoding performance.
You can configure the XPS 15 all the way from an entry-level model with an entry-level i5-8300H CPU up to the aforementioned i9-8950HK , up to 32GB of RAM, up to 2TB of very fast PCIe solid state drive (SSD) storage, and up to that gorgeous 4K UHD display. You’ll get a machine that also provides tons of high-speed connectivity, including a USB-C with full-speed 40 GB/s Thunderbolt 3 support, along with a solid keyboard and touchpad with the option of a fingerprint scanner for secure login via Windows 10 Hello.
Best Mac
MacBook Pro 15
While Adobe’s Premiere line of video editing applications has become an industry standard, Apple’s Final Cut Pro X is on the rise again. That means that the Mac retains its place in the hearts of many creative professionals, and videographers are no different. For high-end users, that likely means the latest MacBook Pro 15-inch with Touch Bar.
This laptop provides Apple’s usual excellence in design and build quality, but also some serious power. The just-released high-end models can be configured with up to the incredibly fast Intel 8th-generation six-core i9-8950HK, up to 32GB of fast RAM (which will make power-users happy), and up to a massive 4TB of fast PCIe SSD storage. You can also opt for a dedicated AMD Radeon Pro 560X GPU to help with live editing and encoding.
In addition, the MacBook 15 offers up a very high-quality 15.4-inch IPS display at a sharp 2,880 x 1,800 resolution. In short, it’s a video editor’s dream display. Note that the top configuration maxes out at a mind-boggling $6,700, while it starts at $2,400.
Best 2-in-1
Microsoft Surface Book 2 15
The Surface Book 2 comes in two versions, one with a 13.5-inch display and one with a larger 15-inch panel. The latter takes our spot as best 2-in-1 for video editing.
We’ll start with performance. The Surface Book 2 15 uses Intel’s eighth-generation quad-core processors that are both efficient while doing the usual productivity work and very high performance when running at full speed. The highest-end model, which the Surface Book 2 15 utilizes as its only option, is the i7-8650U that boosts to 4.2GHz Max Turbo. Microsoft pushes the CPU beyond its 15-watt base power, and while it’s not quite as fast as the 45-watt CPUs in our other premium laptops, it’s nevertheless powerful enough for most video editing needs. Up to 16GB of RAM and up to a 1TB PCIe SSD can be configured.
In addition, Microsoft has packed in an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, which is an extremely capable chip for churning through high-end video editing tasks. Just note that if you’re using the discrete GPU for encoding video, you can see some battery discharge thanks to a power supply that can’t quite keep up.
The best budget option
Asus ZenBook UX330UA
Not everyone has the money for a high-powered machine like the ones above. For those people, we have a budget recommendation that may not be the most powerful laptop around, but that gets the job done with a minimal investment: The Asus ZenBook UX330UA.
The ZenBook UX330UA has been our favorite budget laptop since it was first introduced, and its most recent refresh hasn’t changed our perception. Even thought it’s well under $800, it still provides a solid metal build quality with a simple but attractive design. It’s relatively thin and light, and it offers up a good keyboard and touchpad experience.
For such a low-cost machine, performance is still good enough for all but the heaviest video editing workflows. You can opt for an eighth-generation quad-core Intel core i5-8250U the provides excellent performance for the price to go with great efficiency. Although it doesn’t have a discrete GPU like the Acer Aspire E 15, you get 8GB of RAM, which again should be good enough for lighter video editing tasks, and a 256GB SATA SSD that’s not quite as fast as the PCIe variants but still much faster than spinning hard disk drives (HDDs).
How We Test
We spend a tremendous amount of time reviewing notebooks of all shapes and sizes — and that’s saying something today, when notebooks come in so many shapes, sizes, and configurations. To make sure our recommendations provide real value to our readers, we live with the machines for a time and use them in writing our reviews, to make sure we can assess how they’ll work for real users.
![Best non mac laptop for video editing free Best non mac laptop for video editing free](http://www.e-greenstar.com/worldsummit/laptop.jpg)
But we do have a method to our madness in conducting these reviews, and you can look behind the scenes here. Hopefully, it will be obvious that our reviews are real labors of love — or hate, depending on the notebook – and therefore you can at least recognize that we don’t arrive at our conclusions without some serious consideration.