The best laptops for video editing

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

Key Specs

Display: 1080p or 4K UHD

CPU: Up to Core i7-7700HQ

GPU: Up to Nvidia GTX 1050

RAM: Up to 32GB

Storage: Up to 1TB PCIe SSD

Price: Starting at $1,000

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 seventh-generation quad-core i7-7700HQ 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 GPU that should help considerably with live editing and encoding performance. Even with all of that power, Dell offers a huge 97 watt-hour battery option to keep you going away from a plug.

Dell also offers the XPS 15 with a very high-quality 15.6-inch 4K UHD display using IGZO panel technology. That means that not only is it sharp and bright, but it also provides high performance along with close to full coverage of the Adobe RGB color space, good accuracy, and great viewing angles. If you want to stick with a Full HD display, then Dell has you covered there as well with solid quality. The 4K UHD display also supports touch, which is a nice convenience.

You can configure the XPS 15 all the way from an entry level model with an entry-level i3-7100H CPU all the way up to the aforementioned i7-7700HQ, up to 32GB of RAM, up to 1TB 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 Thunderbolt 3 support, along with a solid keyboard and touchpad with the option of a fingerprint scanner for secure login via Windows 10 Hello.

Note: The Dell XPS 15 will be replaced by the XPS 15 2-in-1 in March. The new model will have similar specifications overall, so we expect it too will be good for video editing. Check out our hands-on here.

Check out our full review of the Dell XPS 15 laptop.

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