For those of us, who indulge in the time-consuming trade of photo and video editing, it really hurts when the hardware takes as much time to process and render changes as it takes to create those changes in the first place. Having a decent rig that can handle the tantrums thrown by apps like Adobe Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Blender, and After Effects can make life much easier for professionals and hobbyists alike.
A desktop or workstation is usually recommended for editing work due to its ability to work under heavy loads and, generally, for having better specs to handle this line of work. However, laptops, if you have the budget for the right equipment, are no slackers by any means. Not all of us have the luxury to sit in the confines of our homes or workstation all the time and need mobility.
Laptops can pretty much run the same applications as desktops. Granted, you might have to shell out much more than a desktop for the same kind of specs, but that’s a fair compromise for added mobility.
Most laptops that can run high-end games at the highest settings should be capable of handling video editing to some extent. However, there are some aspects you still need to keep in mind while making that purchase. These go beyond the processor and GPU considerations and we have listed them below for reference.
WHAT MAKES EDITING APPS SLOW (OR FAST)?
Certainly, you would have seen some of the memes associated with Chrome’s ability to gulp down large amounts of RAM. Well, Chrome would seem like a nice guy in front of editing apps. Not only do these apps require more RAM than you would usually see in two mid-range laptops together, but they also demand good processing power and a powerful enough GPU along with it. That’s not all, if you get all these right but have a slow disc drive, you might still end up with sub-optimal results.
So, GPU, CPU, RAM, and hard disk (which is essentially 90% of your computer) are the primary culprits behind the lag in editing apps. But in which order, really? We find below.
CHAPTER 1: THE PROCESSOR
When it comes to editing photos using Photoshop and Lightroom, CPU still takes the crown over GPU, as far as being the kingmaker is concerned. Even when switching over to video editing, having a powerful multicore CPU can do you more good than a top of the line GPU. Apps like DaVinci Resolve can greatly benefit from having a GPU but need a powerful CPU, to begin with.
While rendering, it is the CPU’s job to pass the information on to the GPU (in layman’s terms) and if the CPU starts to throttle, the GPU cannot work at full efficiency since the whole process is bottlenecked by the CPU’s ability to pass instructions to the GPU.
Also, some of the basic operations such as slow-motion, reverse, or accelerated videos rely on the CPU. More complex effects, especially on the After Effects, is more of the GPU’s job.
It goes without saying that you need to pick laptops with high-performance CPUs (H, HS, or HQ series) instead of one having a more efficient, but less powerful, U series processor from Intel or AMD. It is also good to have at least four cores as a bare minimum.
Budget not being a problem, we’d recommend the top of the line processors from both AMD and Intel such as the AMD Ryzen 9 4900H or the Intel Core-i9 10980HK. Of late, it appears that AMD flagships are beating those from Intel comfortably, with even the AMD Ryzen 7 4800H being ahead of most of the things Intel.
On the Intel side, we recommend not dropping below a high-performance Core i7 and not getting the older generation 6 core i7s either. On the AMD side, the least we would recommend is the Ryzen 5 4700U with 8 cores. Check this post for more benchmarks on the processor end.
To summarize, then:
- A processor makes much more impact than the graphics card when it comes to editing videos or photos
- You should at least get an octa-core high-performance processor for painless frame crunching
CHAPTER 2: RAM
And you thought the second chapter would be the GPU, didn’t you? RAM goes a long way in ensuring quicker rendering and editing times. If you strictly plan to work with 720p or 1080 videos at best (which you won’t), 8GB RAM should be able to do it.
Being realistic, however, and working with 4K files required at least 16GB RAM. And it’s not like 16GB would be enough. Adding another 16 gigs, things start to look much better. At 32GB, you will be able to work with most files unless we are talking about 8K files (for which, 64GB RAM would be ideal).
Unfortunately, we are not aware of many laptops that come packed with 32GB of RAM. That said, we recommend at least 16GB RAM if you do not wish to make your life miserable while at this job.
CHAPTER 3: GRAPHICS CARD
We hadn’t forgotten about the graphics card. It is crucial to rendering videos, if not so much relevant for photo editing. Applications such as DaVinci Resolve tend to rely on the GPU more than, say, Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects.
While there are pro GPUs, such as the Quadro cards from Nvidia and FirePro cards from AMD, specifically designed for applications such as video editing, it is a wild goose chase finding them on laptops. Instead, you can look for a laptop with a high-end consumer GPU that has ample memory. By ample, we mean 6GB or 8GB VRAM should really set you for a few years, while 4GB should be able to get the job done acceptably.
CHAPTER 4: Display
This is probably the most overlooked aspect when choosing the right rig. While other components will slow your progress down, having a display with inaccurate color calibration will likely have more severe implications.
The most important factor while considering a display is its ability to accurately reproduce colors across a wide range. Look for displays having wide color gamuts across both sRGB and Adobe RGB color spaces (but more importantly across the sRGB space). This along with high brightness and contrast ratio should address most of your worries.
Additionally, when it comes to color depth, we like displays that support 8-bit color, and that’s likely the best you will get on a laptop.
While we definitely recommend using a large external display for editing work, if that isn’t possible, something at least 15.6 inch is desirable. And while it is certainly not impossible to edit a 4K video on a 1080p display, we definitely recommend 4K resolution.
As far as the panel goes, get an IPS, if not OLED, panel. Both of these can perform accurate color reproduction and support pro color spaces. They also have much better viewing angles than TN (twisted nematic) panels. OLED panels also offer better contrast and HDR support, something, that can make a lot of difference in your videos.
CHAPTER 5: STORAGE
Everything runs faster on a Solid State Drive (SSD) and editing tools are no exceptions. 5400RPM hard disc is a no, of course, and the 7200RPM hard disk shouldn’t be a consideration either. Instead, look for NVMe SSD drives that will ensure that storage is never the bottleneck in your work. There’s not much else to this chapter, honestly. Any laptop that takes care of the earlier mentioned hardware will likely come with an NVMe storage anyway.
EPILOGUE
If you thought gaming on laptops was difficult, welcome to the world of video editing. These applications can bring the best machines in the market on their knees. Nothing you throw at them goes unused.
However, while the recommendations above will certainly help you edit videos and photographs without too much frustration, you can also get the same work done on less powerful machines at the expense of time and ease of work. In fact, a lot of people use their Macbook Pro for editing and they seem to be doing fine. However, professionals should seriously consider the above recommendations since not having high-end capabilities can severely punish their productivity
All said, there is a reason professionals prefer workstations for editing. If you must really insist on getting a laptop, it ain’t gonna be cheap, for sure. With the kind of specs highlighted above, expect your laptop to, realistically, cost north of $2k. At $3k, we would be talking about machines that actually start working like workstations. Even if that’s the price for mobility you’re willing to shed, it won’t get you anything that’s light or sleek. We recommend using a laptop only as your secondary editing machine which can help you with some work. Unless, of course, your target audience is that on social media, which doesn’t require 4K videos, to begin with. In that case, anything with an H series processor, 16GB RAM, and a graphics card with 4GB RAM should get the job done.
