Best Video Editing Laptops of 2018

If you prefer editing on an Apple machine, the new 15-inch Macbook Pro with Touch Bar is hard to top. It comes with a faster Intel Core i7 CPU, a more powerful Radeon Pro 460 GPU and a brighter and more colorful display. The Touch Bar can even adapt depending on what app you're using, so you can apply filters or scrub through a clip without ever leaving fullscreen mode. Weighing just 4 pounds and 14.9mm thick, the new MacBook is even thinner and lighter than last year's model.

Pros: Light weight for the size; Sharp Retina display; Long battery life
Cons: Has only Thunderbolt 3 ports

Key Specs: 15.4-inch, 2880 x 1800 screen; Core i7 Kaby Lake CPU; AND Radeon Pro 560 GPU; 4 pounds

This baby’s 4K screen will take your eyes on a journey of color, covering 164 percent of the sRGB color gamut and blasting 447 nits of brightness. Those sharp visuals are matched by even sharper performance, with the XPS 15’s 8th Gen Core i7 CPU and Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q. The carbon-fiber beauty is even lighter than last year’s model as well, weighing only 4.2 pounds, making this a lean, portable killing machine.

Pros: Strong overall and graphics performance; Excellent battery life; Bright, vibrant screen; Runs cool; Attractive, if dated, design
Cons: Awkwardly placed webcam

Key Specs: 15.6-inch, 1080p or 4K touchscreen; Up to Intel Core i7-8750H CPU; Up to Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB GPU; 4.2 pounds 

Both a powerful laptop and a portable tablet, the Surface Book 2 is the most versatile notebook you can use to edit video. It comes with a powerful 8th Gen Core i7 CPU and discrete Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU, as well as an incredibly vibrant 3240 x 2160 display. It lasted over 12 hours on our battery test, so you can edit all day without fear of losing a charge. If the 15-inch version is too big or too expensive for you, there's also a 13.5-inch option, but that steps down to either integrated or GTX 1050 graphics.

Pros: Detachable screen;  Great pen experience; Long battery life;
Cons: Very expensive; No Thunderbolt 3 port;

Key Specs: 15-inch, 3240 x 2160 screen; Intel Core i7-8650U CPU; Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU;

From its military-durable chassis to its Intel Xeon processor and Nvidia Quadro graphics, the Dell Precision 3530 is a complete powerhouse. It took 11 minutes and 11 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, which blows past the 19:29 workstation average, making it an ideal candidate for editing. It offers a numerous amount of ports that even extend to the back of the chassis, and while it’s kinda pricey at $2,960, it offers faster performance than the HP ZBook 17 G4, which we tested at double the price.

Pros: Durable and secure; Deep travel keyboard; Loud speakers; Blazing fast performance; Long battery life
Cons: Monotonous design; Display worse than competitors

Key Specs: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 display; Up to 2.7-GHz Intel Xeon E-2176M CPU; Up to Nvidia Quadro P600 4GB GPU; 5.1 pounds

The HP ZBook x2 is pricey, but it gets you an adaptable tool for creative work. The matte, 14-inch 4K display lets you edit at any resolution, and, if you prefer a stylus, you can use the shortcut keys for quick actions or keep the Bluetooth keyboard nearby. The Quadro GPU could be stronger, but there are few devices that cater so directly to creatives.

Pros: Great stylus; Excellent shortcut management; Comfortable keyboard

Cons: Very expensive; Could have stronger graphics performance; Middling battery life;

Key Specs: 14-inch, 4K display;  Up to 8th Gen Core i7 CPU; Up to Nvidia Quadro M620 GPU; Bluetooth keyboard.

You may flip for the Yoga 720. This convertible 2-in-1 has a 15.6-inch 1080p display, a quad-core Core i7-7700HQ CPU, a 256GB PCIe SSD and an Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU for a starting price of $999 (a 4K screen is extra).

With that kind of power under the hood, you can easily edit and transcode Ultra HD videos. You can even bend the screen back 270 degrees and edit clips in presentation or tent modes. The Yoga 720 lasted almost 9 hours the Laptop Mag Battery Test, so it will get you through a cross-country flight's worth of media creation. 

Pros: 2-in-1  Design; Long battery life; Vivid display; Strong Performance
Cons: Plain design

Key Specs: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 (or 4K) screen; Core i7-7700HQ CPU, Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU; 4.55 pounds

Lenovo propelled its X-series line straight into the future when it revealed that the ThinkPad X1 Extreme (starting at S1,859) would be its first 15-inch and the first to have a discrete graphics card. It comes with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB GPU and can be outfitted with an 8th Gen Intel Core i9 CPU as well as 64GB of RAM, which would make it a monster for video editing. We’re excited to see where it slots into this list when it launches in September (Core i7) and December (Core i9).

Key Specs: 15.6-inch, 1080p or 4K touchscreen; Up to 8th Gen Intel Core i9 CPU; Up to Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB GPU; 3.8 pounds (4 pounds touchscreen)