The best video editing laptops have at least two of the three must-have features: performance, battery life, and a bright and vivid display. These are important for any of the best laptops, but even more so for visual creatives. These are also often some of the best laptops for college, especially for majors working in media.
The better your laptop’s performance, the less time you’ll have to wait for it to finish transcoding a video file or render a 3D animation. Video editing laptops without discrete graphics cards are usually cheaper than those with them, which means they rely on their processor to do all those things.
Having enough RAM is especially important in this case. 16GB sounds like it could be enough until you try pre-rendering footage in the background while you’re editing and cause the whole program to freeze. (I learned this the hard way.)
Display color and accuracy are also important for video editing. This is why Laptop Mag measures the DCI-P3 gamut coverage of every laptop we test. DCI-P3 is the color space used in professional digital cinema, capturing about 25% more color variations than the standard SRGB. As a general guideline, the best laptops for video editing should cover at least 85% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.
This page is regularly updated with our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag’s top picks for 2025.
Click to view recent updates to this page.
Update log
5/23/25: Changed top pick for the best gaming laptop for video editing to the HP Omen Max 16; updated “recently reviewed,” “FAQs,” and “benchmark comparisons” sections.
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Best overall
1. Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro
Best overall
Fantastic performance combined a vibrant and bright display, and ridiculously good battery life, makes this laptop our top choice for video editors.
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Best budget
2. Apple MacBook Air 15 M4
