What’s the Best Windows Laptop for Video Editing?
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What kind of video editor are you? That’s the first question you need to ask yourself when buying a new Windows laptop for video editing. There’s no laptop that can tick all the boxes, so you have to know what’s important for you. There’re mainly three types of video editors. Listed below are the laptop features important to them.
The Traveling Video Editor
You travel around the world and edit on the spot. From hotel to hut and even in the middle of the rain forest.
Weight / Size | Very Important! You’re dragging your laptop around and taking it on airplanes, so make sure it’s lightweight and super portable. |
Display | A bigger display means a larger laptop. However, it’s the only display you have so it better be good. Between 15″-17″ IPS is recommended. |
Battery Life | Very Important! You’ll be editing for longer times in locations that don’t have a power socket. |
Performance | Long battery life means less performance. Make sure your laptop has a quad-core and you should be good to go. Don’t expect perfect performance for a portable laptop. |
Connectivity | Very important is an SD card reader and a thunderbolt port. The first one speaks for itself and the thunderbolt is connection that can go to anything through a dongle. |
Durability | Your laptop has to be strong. Don’t get a plastic body. |
The Location Video Editor
This is the kind of editor that takes his laptop to a film set or hotel room. You have tight deadlines so a reliable and fast laptop is required.
Weight / Size | Important, but not as much as a traveler. You’re taking much gear with you anyways. |
Display | Between 15″-17″ IPS is recommended, unless you can bring an external monitor with you. |
Battery Life | Semi-important. Most of the time you can power your laptop. If you get about 2-3 hours when sitting on a train, it’s enough. |
Performance | Important. As of this point, we recommend a dedicated GPU and stronger processor. You’re working with deadlines, so you need to render fast. |
Connectivity | Thunderbolt and USB 3.x ports are important. As you’ll be taking gear with you anyways, a couple of extra dongles is no problem. |
Durability | Like before, important. But it doesn’t have to be carbon. Aluminum is perfect! |
The ‘Desktop’ Laptop Editor
You mostly edit at home, but instead of getting a desktop you do prefer to have a laptop just in case. Performance is the most important for you and portability totally not.
Weight / Size | You have your laptop sitting on your desk, so this doesn’t matter. |
Display | Recommended is to use external monitors. The display of the laptop is not so important. |
Battery Life | 30 Minutes of battery life is more than enough. Don’t pay any attention to this. |
Performance | Very important! You’re trading portability for performance. |
Connectivity | You use external monitors, a keyboard, mouse, etcetera. Make sure you have enough ports to connect it all. A thunderbolt can branch into any connection. |
Durability | Your laptop sits on a desk, so don’t mind durability. Cheap plastic is fine. |

Hi Gordy
Please suggest me the
Best desktop for podcast, music video edit, travel video edit
Thank you
Hi jordi!
Thanks for your efforts‼
I love your team so much that I even want to work with you one day. Actually working with you is one of my dreams. I am from Afghanistan and the editing in here is really poor so i wanna be the first creative filmmaker in Afghanistan. I am following your way, i love all of your team and yannik is so much funny haha i like it. Go on i like your videos in youtube before i watch them!!
And as always, Stay creative‼‼
Thanks for your tutorial Jordy and all of your experts. I’m from Tanzania East Africa and we are still very down in Film production and editing,,,you inspired me a lot to the extent that I have planned three to five onforth I shall have my studio doing crazy editing as you do their so that I can bring changes to Tanzanian Editors…..Thanks a lot …. Stay creative cinecom
One thing more…please help me where to learn video editing online, a site that you trust…
MUNGU akubariki ( GOD bless you )
Hey guys-just a quick note to say “thanks!” and to tell you that I get a lot of joy out of your work. I’d love to see your take on using classic glass (Zeiss Jenas/T*s, Chinons, etc.) on modern bodies (Mirrorless, DSLR, Cine, etc.) Stay creative!
Hellow Cinecom team. Just from watching your latest video on windows laptops and I have a question. So I am a location editor who is on a budget and there is this laptop i want to get…it has a good processor and graphics card,descent amount of storage,memory and battery life,but the only problem is that its not durable….its made up of some kind of light plastic..the monitor can be bent easily…its a dell 9559….should that be a concern and should i get it?
Hi Anthony,
That kind of depends the person you are. If you’re very careful with gear that it’s no problem at all. Just keep in mind that you don’t trow a tripod on your backpack when loading the trunk ?