Everybody’s making videos these days, from the 8-year-old down the street to your own grandma. But some people create videos more on a professional level, including career videographers, and even hobbyists who craft 1-minute brilliant little works of art for social media. Any experienced videographer knows that working on a laptop is much preferred over editing videos on a phone or tablet. That’s because the full versions of professional video and animation software require a computer to really utilize all of their amazing features. But just any old computer won’t do! If you’re familiar with working with the large file sizes of HD video, you know that a computer needs a lot of power and speed to be able to handle video editing with ease. See our buying guide below for FAQs, tips and recommendations for the best laptops for videography.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I get a PC, a Chromebook, or a Mac for working with video?

The software that you’ll be editing video in is a major factor in your choice of laptops. If you’d like to use Apple’s iMovie or Final Cut, for example, then an Apple Mac laptop is a natural choice. If you prefer Adobe Premiere for editing videos and you’ve always been a Windows person, then a Windows-based PC is a fine choice, although Adobe programs work on Macs, too. Finally, if you’d be happy using an Android or cloud-based video editor, then a Chromebook would work well for you. 

What laptop features are important with videography?

Video is a memory hog, for sure, and you’ll need a laptop with a lot of speed and space. One high-definition video file of just a few minutes, for example, is easily several gigabytes in size. If you want to transfer video files to your computer’s hard drive and edit them, you’ll need a laptop with enough space to hold your working and exported video files. Processor speed and RAM are important, too, because applications that edit video take a significant amount of your computer’s RAM to render your video files.

What’s the difference between a Chromebook and a typical PC laptop?

Chromebooks use Chrome OS, a newer operating system that’s a third alternative to the two traditional choices of Mac and PC. Chrome OS is made by Google, and it seamlessly integrates Google apps like Google Docs, Google Sheets, and more. The keyboard on a Chromebook is slightly different, too, and it has a few different buttons for functionality in searching, etc. For editing video on a Chromebook, you’ll need to get an app that is Chrome OS compatible. Chromebooks are easy to use, but they have more limitations and lack the power of regular PCs and Mac laptops. 

Buying Guide

Before you make your final choice in a laptop for your video needs, keep these important considerations in mind:

The options in laptops are diverse, and narrowing it down to one can be a bit of an information overload. We’ve taken a look at many of the options on the market, and here are our top picks of the best laptops for videography:

Cloud-Based Ease  

Lenovo’s C330 Chromebook boots up surprisingly fast, and is a natural for people who make use of Google’s cloud-based apps.

This Chromebook from Lenovo is equipped with a 1600 MHz processor and 4GB of RAM. It has a 64 GB flash solid state hard drive capacity, and has a screen resolution of 1366×768 pixels. This Chromebook works seamlessly with Google’s cloud-based applications, and is similar in user experience to an Android phone. 

Pros:

Cons:

One Year MS Office License 

If Microsoft Office 365 includes the apps you like to work in, then this lightweight laptop from ASUS is a good fit. 

This 11.6-inch L210 laptop from ASUS has a backlit LED display, is ultra thin, and weighs a mere 2.3 pounds. This laptop has an Intel Celeron 2.8 GHz N4020 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of eMMC storage. It comes with Windows 10, and includes one year of MS Office 365.

Pros:

Cons:

Reuse with a Refurbished Computer 

With this laptop, you’ll get a fully refurbished Dell Chromebook that’s been restored to its original working functionality.

This Dell Chromebook has a 2.58 GHz Celeron processor with a speed of 12800 GHz, RGB of RAM, and a 16 GB solid state hard drive. It’s fully refurbished, and has a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. It also has two USB 3.0 ports, 3 USB 2.0 ports, and a headphone jack. 

Pros:

Cons:

Used by Professional Videographers 

Do everything you want, and more, quickly and easily with Apple’s sought-after MacBook Air, a popular choice with videographers.

This MacBook Air laptop is lightweight and high performance, and allows you to use any applications you’d like, whether they’re cloud-based Google apps, MS Office, or Apple applications. This computer has a 13.3-inch screen, and has an Apple M1 chip with an 8-core CPU for 3.5x faster performance than previous models. 

Pros:

Cons:

Perfect for Active People 

SAMSUNG’s 11.6-inch Galaxy Chromebook will hold up well for students and people who travel with their laptops.

This Chromebook from SAMSUNG has an 11.6-inch screen and a fast Celeron N3450 processor. This laptop is very thin at only 0.66 inches, and has a 64GB hard drive. What sets this laptop apart from other Chromebooks is its impressive durability, which makes it a safe bet for people on the go. 

Pros:

Cons: