I'm a video creator with years of experience, which puts me in a good place to pick the best laptops for video editing. Whether it's Final Cut or Premiere Pro, you're going to need three things — plenty of horsepower for those intensive 4K edits, a color accurate display for confidence, and ergonomics for zipping around all those shortcuts.
My team and I review dozens of laptops from the top manufacturers every year. And while it's true the 16-inch MacBook Pro M3 is an obvious choice for its ruthlessly efficient and powerful M3 Max chip and mini-LED display, there are other options that you may not be thinking about.
For example, the Asus ProArt P16 is an absolute beast when it comes to crushing the more complex multi-layered 4K renders on Premiere Pro. And if you need something a little more portable in size, don't shrug off the 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 — that M3 chip is capable of some mini wonders under the pressure of an enthusiast.
Not only that, but we've got social video editing covered too, which is a category that doesn't really require the sheer levels of horsepower mentioned above. If this is your goal, you could actually save yourself some money and grab something like the M3 MacBook Air or even the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro (if you're OK with a refurbished laptop).
For more recommendations, fuller explanations and links to detailed reviews and test results, consult our list below—and consider consulting our guide to the best video editing software for your needs.
The quick list
In a hurry? Here's a brief overview of the laptops on this list, along with quick links that let you jump down the page directly to a review of whichever laptop catches your eye.
Apple's 16-inch MacBook Pro is our top recommendation for the best laptop for video editing because it's sleek, long-lasting and powerful. Plus it's optimized for video work (especially if you spring for the M3 Max version) and offers a great selection of ports.
While the 16-inch model's larger screen is great for home use, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is lighter and better-suited for video editing on the go since it's basically just as capable. However, you get slightly fewer ports than on the larger model.
The Asus ProArt P16 is easily the best creator laptop running Windows 11. The raw horsepower under the hood paired with that gorgeous color-accurate 4K display, and that mean-looking matte black aluminum finish makes this an MVP at video editing.
Jason England brings over a decade of tech journalism experience to the table, alongside years of tinkering and creating with computers (including complex video editing for YouTube).
The best laptops for video editing you can buy today
Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our writers and editors spend hours analyzing and reviewing products, services, and apps to help find what's best for you. Find out more about how we test, analyze, and rate.
The best laptop for video editing overall
Want a great laptop for editing video on the go? Then you may be looking for the beastly 16-inch MacBook Pro, which sports either M3 Pro or M3 Max chips that deliver shocking amounts of performance.
This model features the same gorgeous mini-LED Liquid Retina XDR display as its predecessors and once you get over the notch, you'll be wowed by its contrast and smoothness, especially with its 120Hz refresh rate.
On top of that, you get the return of the ports that pros demand. That's not just the safety-focused MagSafe 3 charging port, but HDMI-out for connecting to displays and an SD memory reader for connecting memory cards for real-deal cameras. Oh, and don't think MagSafe will take USB-C charging out of the picture: the MacBook Pro's trio of Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports also draw power. Plus you get a 1080p webcam, a trio of improved microphones and a stellar six-point speaker system.
Read our full MacBook Pro (16-inch) 2023 review.
The best laptop for video editing on the go
The MacBook Pro 14-inch 2023 is one of the most powerful portable laptops money can buy, and that’s because of the new M3 Pro chip from Apple, which delivers even faster performance than the previous generation. If you need to cut video on the go and don't want to pay extra for the larger 16-inch model, the 14-inch Pro is a great choice.
This laptop turned in class-leading results on multiple tests, including Geekbench, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and video transcoding. Based on our testing, you can blaze through creative work and even play demanding games like Resident Evil Village with pristine graphics and smooth frame rates.
It all looks good too thanks to the 14-inch mini-LED display, and you'll appreciate awesome 6-speaker sound system and comfy keyboard and touchpad. Plus, the 1080p camera is a bit better thanks to a new ISP. The HDMI port now supports up to 8K displays, and you still get an SD card slot.
Read our full M3 Pro acBook Pro (14-inch) review.
The best Windows laptop for video editing
When it comes to the best Windows laptop for video editing, there may be many options. But the Asus ProArt P16 comes out swinging and takes the throne — even being a worthy foe to the MacBook Pro.
The P16 nails this by doing three things incredibly well. First, you need a good canvas for this creativity, which Asus nails with a color-calibrated 4K OLED panel. The 16:10 aspect ratio is great for seeing more verticality of your timeline, and you can be rest assured that any color grading you do is true-to-life with that fantastic vividness.
Second, the ergonomics of this laptop really hold up — the keyboard has a great tactility, the touchpad is massive for moving across clips, that touchscreen is super immediate in its responsiveness, and that DialPad is a marvel for dialling into your finite edits.
Finally (and most importantly), that combination of AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and RTX 4070 GPU is an absolute monster pairing for crushing even the most intensive of 4K animated edits. So much so that it's even faster than the MacBook Pros in Premiere Pro (based on our own testing).
And sure, there may be some of the standard issues you expect from a Windows laptop like battery life, and a surprisingly low SSD loading speed. But these fade into the background when you're in your creative flow on this masterpiece of a laptop.
Read our full Asus ProArt P16 review.
Also tested
We test and review dozens of laptops every year, and just because they don't all make this list doesn't mean they aren't great machines for cutting video on th ego.
No, there are loads of great laptops that don't quite achieve the level of excellence needed to be leaders on this list.
That's why I've listed all the other laptops we've tested and reviewed recently that are good video editing platforms below, so you can get a sense of what else is out there if our top recommendations don't suit your needs or aren't in stock right now.
The Asus ProArt PX13 snuck up on us, but my oh my does it make an impression when it comes to being a mighty yet mini laptop for video editing. And the two obvious reasons it does so is that OLED display that's so colorful you can taste it, paired with the beasty power of AMD's latest Ryzen AI 9 chipset and RTX 40-series graphics.
These assure lightning fast speeds when you are applying edits and doing complex renders, and the color calibration efforts Asus goes to on that screen gives you confidence in any LUTs or color correction you apply to the footage. The DialPad does give you a nice shortcut method to your most used editing features, but we found it to be a little oversensitive to glancing unintended touches.
But all-in-all, this is a fierce machine that would take pride of place in any content creator's arsenal.
Read our full Asus ProArt PX13 review.
The MacBook Air is one of the lightest laptops you can buy, and once Apple started putting its own silicon in these slim ultraportables they became some of the fastest and longest-lasting laptops on the market.
The 13-inch MacBook Air M3 is the strongest example yet, delivering remarkably speedy performance and battery-sipping power efficiency in a svelte, attractive design. It doesn't have the graphical muscle, video editing optimizations or expansive port array of the MacBook Pro, but if you just want something to edit home movies with, the latest Air is more than good enough iMovie.
So if you don't need to do a lot of heavy-duty video editing and don't mind the more limited ports available on the Air, it's a capable little low-power video editing platform that's easy to carry on your next family trip.
Read our full MacBook Air 13-inch M3 review.
Performance test results compared
We test every laptop we review in a number of areas, including CPU performance, so I've taken the liberty of putting together a quick chart here of all the performance scores from the CrossMark Creativity benchmark because its a series of synthetic tests designed to specifically test the same parts of a laptop which are involved with video editing.
CrossMark spits out a numerical score for every laptop we put through this test, and the higher the score the better the laptop performed. So these numbers can give you a rough sense of how well these laptops cut through video, and by comparing them you can hopefully get a sense of which is right for you.
| Laptop | Creativity score |
|---|---|
| MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max) | 2850 |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Pro) | 2472 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) | 2257 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) | 2255 |
| Asus ProArt P16 | 2229 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M1) | N/A |
Battery life test results compared
If you plan to edit video on the go, you want to have a good sense of how long your laptop can last before having to plug in and charge.
That's why we run every laptop we review through a series of battery tests to see how long it actually lasts on a full charge, which is one of the key deciding factors for most people when buying a laptop.
Note that these tests do not reflect real-world use patterns since we have to set every laptop to the same settings in order to do fair comparisons. Thus, while the times listed here are accurate and useful as a comparison point, your own experience with a laptop's battery life will likely vary quite a bit.
This is because when we run our battery test we set the laptop's display to 150 nits of brightness and have it endlessly browse the web via Wi-Fi until it dies. However, when you use your laptop you're likely adjusting brightness on the fly, doing all sorts of different tasks while perhaps listening to music or watching a video at the same time, and generally putting the machine through more of a workout than it gets in our test.
So while I stand by our testing and the battery life results we compare in the chart below, I want to be clear that your own experience will vary!
| Laptop | Battery life (web surfing hh:mm) |
|---|---|
| MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max) | 17:11 |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Pro) | 17:22 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) | 15:13 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) | 15:03 |
| Asus ProArt P16 | 09:32 |
How to choose the best laptop for you
Performance: Editing video requires serious processing power and significant RAM and storage. Every laptop on this list can accommodate you, but only the MacBook Pros really have the horsepower for the big projects.
MacBook Airs are good for basic video editing using iMovie or other lightweight video editors, but if you're going to be moving a lot of clips and assets around a timeline on Final Cut you want the extra CPU and GPU processing power of a beefy laptop like the MacBook Pro M3.
Also, make sure to spring for as much RAM and storage as you can reasonably afford. Video editing eats up RAM quick, and video files can take up a lot of space on your storage drive.
Size: Consider how mobile you want your video editing laptop to be. If you plan on carrying it around a lot, say around a school campus or a big workplace, a 14-incher might be easier on your neck and shoulders than a big 16-inch MacBook Pro.
However, if you don't plan to move much the extra screen space, battery capacity and muscle of the bigger laptops might be worth the extra weight and heft.
Operating system: You want an operating system you're comfortable using, and the best laptops for video editing are mostly MacBooks with some Windows alternatives thrown in.
As long as you're comfortable with macOS, I generally recommend MacBooks as the best video editing laptop for most folks because the MacBook Pros are specifically geared for it, while the MacBook Airs are good enough for light editing and a joy to carry and use all day.
But if you really prefer Windows, any beefy Windows laptop with a speedy CPU, discrete laptop GPU and plenty of RAM and storage (at least 32GB RAM and 1TB of storage is recommended) will serve you well. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a great choice, and if it's a bit small for your eyes you can try the larger Zephyrus G16.
Whatever laptop you choose, it's always a good idea to complement it by investing in the best mouse for your particular work situation.
How we tested these laptops
How we test the best laptops for video editing
In our never-ending quest to find the best laptops for video editing we put every computer we test through a barrage of synthetic and real-world tests to benchmark how well it performs compared to the manufacturer's claims, and compare how good aspects like the screen quality and performance are relative to the competition.
These tests include, but are not limited to: measuring the average brightness and color quality of each laptop's display using our in-house colorimeter, using a heat gun to measure the heat generated by the laptop after 15 minutes of strenuous work, and using a mix of real-world and synthetic benchmarks to test how well a laptop performs at various day-to-day tasks. We run all laptops through the Geekbench CPU performance benchmark tests as well as various 3DMark tests to measure graphics capabilities. We also run a file transfer test to measure how fast a machine's hard drive is, a video transcoding test to gauge how well a laptop can cut video and a custom battery test that has the machine browse the internet over Wi-Fi until it runs out of juice.
We also run every laptop we test through a basic game test using Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm to gauge how good it is at running games compared to other laptops. We use this old game because it runs on a wide variety of laptops across different prices, sizes and operating systems, so it's great for comparing performance. And while video editing isn't gaming, the two pursuits both task a laptop's systems heavily, so knowing how good it is at gaming can give you an idea how well a laptop will hold up when you're cutting scenes together in Avid or Final Cut.
For more information on our testing process, check out our guide to how we test.
