Recommendations for buying a budget Windows laptop for video editing?
July 2, 2021 11:17 PM Subscribe
I'd like to buy a Windows laptop suitable for school that will also support video editing. Priorities: (1) ability to edit 1920x1080 video, (2) battery life, (3) weight. Budget is about C$1500.
The Wirecutter recommendations for video editing don't seem that useful - their recommendations have >HD screens, which will consume more power.
Is it a good idea to buy a budget gaming laptop for this purpose?
Is the advice in this buying guide sound? (For example, it suggests that a dedicated graphics card isn't crucial.)
The Wirecutter recommendations for video editing don't seem that useful - their recommendations have >HD screens, which will consume more power.
Is it a good idea to buy a budget gaming laptop for this purpose?
Is the advice in this buying guide sound? (For example, it suggests that a dedicated graphics card isn't crucial.)
Best answer: Most budget gaming laptops will definitely have enough power for video editing, but the battery life and weight are not great at that price range. Also, actively video editing is going to drain a lot of battery no matter what, so I assume you'd want good battery life for other normal school stuff instead of active editing. For video editing you would ideally want one of the cheaper non-intel GPUs, like a GTX 1660 which puts you in the 15 inch/1080p screen range. Honestly with that fairly low budget you're probably going to have to sacrifice on battery life and weight if you want relatively responsive video editing.
The Dell XPS 13/15 could work out, but the models with GPUs are expensive. GPUs are not entirely required, but they make previewing more responsive and make the final render step MUCH faster. The Lenovo Legion 5i could work well if you can find a model in your price range, as it has enough power and good battery life/weight. The Razer Blade 15 might also be a good fit, it has better battery life than similar gamer laptops. The Acer Nitro 5 also looks like it has decent battery life. These kind of laptops go on sale fairly often, so it might be good to look at one of the models at around $1500 and hope it goes on sale or you can buy last year's model for cheaper
posted by JZig at 1:07 AM on July 3, 2021
The Dell XPS 13/15 could work out, but the models with GPUs are expensive. GPUs are not entirely required, but they make previewing more responsive and make the final render step MUCH faster. The Lenovo Legion 5i could work well if you can find a model in your price range, as it has enough power and good battery life/weight. The Razer Blade 15 might also be a good fit, it has better battery life than similar gamer laptops. The Acer Nitro 5 also looks like it has decent battery life. These kind of laptops go on sale fairly often, so it might be good to look at one of the models at around $1500 and hope it goes on sale or you can buy last year's model for cheaper
posted by JZig at 1:07 AM on July 3, 2021
Some thoughts on this matter:
1) If you're just cutting and trimming videos, you may not need 1080p screen at all. You're going to mess with the "timeline" and thumbnails mostly anyway.
2) Most of the juice will be sucked up by the CPU and the screen. You don't need much of a GPU unless you need to completely re-encode the video and use GPU computing (and only by supported software). So I doubt there's much you can do about battery life, other than look for one with extended battery available. Some laptops have NVIDIA "Optimus" tech which has a GPU, but switches dynamically between GPU and non-GPU video to save power. It's sometimes a bit... problematic.
3) $1500 Canadian should be enough to get a gently used gaming laptop. Like a Razer Blade 15, 2018 model. You probably will have to replace the battery on it for max battery life, so add another $150 or so to the price (may want to double check that). But the specs should be plenty to run whatever video editor you want.
posted by kschang at 5:40 AM on July 3, 2021
1) If you're just cutting and trimming videos, you may not need 1080p screen at all. You're going to mess with the "timeline" and thumbnails mostly anyway.
2) Most of the juice will be sucked up by the CPU and the screen. You don't need much of a GPU unless you need to completely re-encode the video and use GPU computing (and only by supported software). So I doubt there's much you can do about battery life, other than look for one with extended battery available. Some laptops have NVIDIA "Optimus" tech which has a GPU, but switches dynamically between GPU and non-GPU video to save power. It's sometimes a bit... problematic.
3) $1500 Canadian should be enough to get a gently used gaming laptop. Like a Razer Blade 15, 2018 model. You probably will have to replace the battery on it for max battery life, so add another $150 or so to the price (may want to double check that). But the specs should be plenty to run whatever video editor you want.
posted by kschang at 5:40 AM on July 3, 2021
An alternate plan to consider:
- buy a cheap Chromebook for school (or if you already have a random old laptop, make your own Chromebook with CloudReady)
- build a video editing desktop, e.g., https://pcpartpicker.com/b/9hXv6h
This would let you keep long running renders going at home, but of course would prevent video editing on the go.
posted by SNACKeR at 6:05 AM on July 3, 2021
- buy a cheap Chromebook for school (or if you already have a random old laptop, make your own Chromebook with CloudReady)
- build a video editing desktop, e.g., https://pcpartpicker.com/b/9hXv6h
This would let you keep long running renders going at home, but of course would prevent video editing on the go.
posted by SNACKeR at 6:05 AM on July 3, 2021
Best answer: > Priorities: (1) ability to edit 1920x1080 video, (2) battery life, (3) weight. Budget is about C$1500.
TL;DR: Look at the nVidia Studio Laptops. They literally just ticks the key boxes: i7, 16 GB and good GPU. There's more below.
I'm the lead mod of a couple of subreddits including /r/videoediting (hobby level) and /r/editors (professionals.) We have a dedicated thread just for "what hardware should I buy."
Here's the basic jist:
The software and codec (compression type) make a huge deal.
95% of footage for hobby level work around the h264 codec. That'd be Mobile phones, screen recordings and footage that they acquired. Also some h265 (which will often be called HEVC). For the record, all of these may need some level of handling prior to the edit for a smooth experience.
CPU: Intel CPUs have a specialized chip instructions (called Quick Sync) to help h264/5 material. *You need this.*. I'd strongly suggest an i7 chip over an i5 chip). For a laptop this will be key. (I'd recommend an AMD for a desktop in most cases).
RAM: You're going to need a minimum of 16 GB of RAM. While some tools let you have only 8 - you're always going need more RAM and storage in your computing lifestyle.
GPU: Ideally, you'll get some benefit from a midline graphics card (nVidia 1080 or above;)
And, the most common software?
If you're going to pay (and be okay with a subscription), it's Adobe Premiere Pro. If you want full featured, but is free, DaVinci Resolve. (I can get into detailed answers about the two other pro tools - FCP and Avid as well.). There is some free open source tools, but I'm trying to keep this as minimal as possible.
If you're going to use Premiere or Resolve, I'd highly recommend any of the nVidia Studio Laptops
https://shop.nvidia.com/en-us/studio/store/?limit=9&locale=en-us&page=1&tab=nv_tb_2&personaType=%22CREATIVE_MAESTRO%22
The only *difficult* question here is battery life. They're all going to be in the under 3 hour category using video. It's just hard, hard, hard on CPUs.
At the moment there is a major exception. The new MacBookPro 13" is highly designed for great battery life. The screen is generally too small (truly unimportant in video editing) -- but all the companies know that the Mac market's future is with the new M series chips. But you'd likely have the best experience with FCP - which is less used (but still big).
posted by filmgeek at 6:30 AM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
TL;DR: Look at the nVidia Studio Laptops. They literally just ticks the key boxes: i7, 16 GB and good GPU. There's more below.
I'm the lead mod of a couple of subreddits including /r/videoediting (hobby level) and /r/editors (professionals.) We have a dedicated thread just for "what hardware should I buy."
Here's the basic jist:
The software and codec (compression type) make a huge deal.
95% of footage for hobby level work around the h264 codec. That'd be Mobile phones, screen recordings and footage that they acquired. Also some h265 (which will often be called HEVC). For the record, all of these may need some level of handling prior to the edit for a smooth experience.
CPU: Intel CPUs have a specialized chip instructions (called Quick Sync) to help h264/5 material. *You need this.*. I'd strongly suggest an i7 chip over an i5 chip). For a laptop this will be key. (I'd recommend an AMD for a desktop in most cases).
RAM: You're going to need a minimum of 16 GB of RAM. While some tools let you have only 8 - you're always going need more RAM and storage in your computing lifestyle.
GPU: Ideally, you'll get some benefit from a midline graphics card (nVidia 1080 or above;)
And, the most common software?
If you're going to pay (and be okay with a subscription), it's Adobe Premiere Pro. If you want full featured, but is free, DaVinci Resolve. (I can get into detailed answers about the two other pro tools - FCP and Avid as well.). There is some free open source tools, but I'm trying to keep this as minimal as possible.
If you're going to use Premiere or Resolve, I'd highly recommend any of the nVidia Studio Laptops
https://shop.nvidia.com/en-us/studio/store/?limit=9&locale=en-us&page=1&tab=nv_tb_2&personaType=%22CREATIVE_MAESTRO%22
The only *difficult* question here is battery life. They're all going to be in the under 3 hour category using video. It's just hard, hard, hard on CPUs.
At the moment there is a major exception. The new MacBookPro 13" is highly designed for great battery life. The screen is generally too small (truly unimportant in video editing) -- but all the companies know that the Mac market's future is with the new M series chips. But you'd likely have the best experience with FCP - which is less used (but still big).
posted by filmgeek at 6:30 AM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think that everybody is looking at the requirements as things that you intend to do at the same time, but from your description I’ll assume that you are doing them at different times. While battery life may be really important for your school day taking notes etc. I assume that you will not be encoding video on battery for long periods. That is just a task that consumes a lot of power. I would consider one of the small Dells without a GPU. The newer intel chipsets are pretty good at video for small tasks. In theory, you could use a dirt cheap laptop and an external GPU, however, that is a pretty expensive add on. eGPU struggle with data transfer limits, so the effective power of the card caps out in a mid range.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 10:04 AM on July 3, 2021
posted by a robot made out of meat at 10:04 AM on July 3, 2021
Response by poster: Thanks everyone - all the advice was very helpful, it's not easy figuring out the tradeoffs!
This was for a friend. In the end they picked an Acer Nitro 5 (model AN515-55-75J1): Intel Core i7-10750H, 16 GB of RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060, 512GB SSD, currently on sale for C$1500 plus tax. The plan is to run Adobe Premiere Elements - they've used it for projects in the past on a much less powerful laptop.
a robot made out of meat: I think that everybody is looking at the requirements as things that you intend to do at the same time, but from your description I’ll assume that you are doing them at different times.
That's exactly right. School most of the time, video editing projects at home.
posted by russilwvong at 10:22 PM on July 6, 2021
This was for a friend. In the end they picked an Acer Nitro 5 (model AN515-55-75J1): Intel Core i7-10750H, 16 GB of RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060, 512GB SSD, currently on sale for C$1500 plus tax. The plan is to run Adobe Premiere Elements - they've used it for projects in the past on a much less powerful laptop.
a robot made out of meat: I think that everybody is looking at the requirements as things that you intend to do at the same time, but from your description I’ll assume that you are doing them at different times.
That's exactly right. School most of the time, video editing projects at home.
posted by russilwvong at 10:22 PM on July 6, 2021
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posted by juv3nal at 12:03 AM on July 3, 2021