Hey, my name is Matt Johnson,
and if you want to buy an Apple laptop for 4K video editing in this video,
I have three recommendations for you at three different price points.
We're going to cover a budget option, a best bang for your buck
option and extremely powerful beastly option.
They'll handle literally anything that you throw at it.
So cool to save you time.
I've linked down in the video description to the three laptops
that I recommend also, because I respect your time like that.
Let's get started with the budget friendly option.
If you want a powerful video editing laptop that is not going to break
the bank, I'm actually going to recommend that you purchase the M2 MacBook Air
with the 512 gigabyte SSD upgrade,
16 gigabytes of RAM and the 67 watt Usb-C power
adapter for $1,619 at the time of making this video.
Yes, this is Apple's newest base level laptop and it doesn't even include a fan.
But trust me, this laptop is going to be fantastic for video editing.
Even if you're editing 4k video.
To be clear, you do not need to upgrade the CPU to ten cores
or even consider the 13 inch m2 MacBook
Pro with this 13 inch m2 MacBook Air, you are getting all of the performance
that you need for 4K video editing and because this base version includes
hardware, encoders and decoders for the .264 and 8.265 video
formats and eight bit and ten bit as well as process encoders and decoders too.
That means that this laptop can playback and render the video files
filmed by many cameras today significantly faster
than laptops that have Intel and AMD processors.
That said, though, I am sure that you've noticed
that I did recommend some upgrades and here's why.
Starting with the most important,
the reason that I recommend that you upgrade to the 512 gigabyte SSD
is that the 256 gig SSD
is approximately half the speed of the 512 model.
This is going to make a huge difference when you're editing video.
So spending that extra $200
for the upgrade to 512 gigabytes is completely worth it.
Next, the reason that I recommend six gigabytes of RAM
is that while
you can probably get by with eight gigs, if you are only video editing,
once you start multitasking, so you've got a web browser
open in the background or you're playing music while you're editing, etc.
Having those 16
gigabytes of RAM is going to help your video editing software stay speedy.
Lastly, as far as upgrades go, spending $20 more for the 67 watt
Usb-C power adapter is going to make charging your laptop
significantly faster, so I totally recommend it.
Feel free to skip that though if you don't want to.
Now, at this point, before we talk about the best bang
for your buck laptop option, I'm sure there are some of you
that are already starting to type in the comments.
Matt $1,619 for a laptop
is not exactly budget friendly and I totally agree.
I wish this laptop was cheaper and to help you out
as a bonus, I have an even more budget friendly option for you.
So if you want a laptop that's going to give you
very similar video editing performance
to this M2 MacBook Air, but for dramatically less cost,
I'm going to actually recommend that you purchase the M1 MacBook Air,
specifically a refurbished base model with a 16 gigabyte RAM upgrade.
At the time of making this video, you can buy a used M1 MacBook
Air from Apple for as cheap as 1019 bucks.
And heck, if you promise not to multitask and you only edit videos,
you're probably fine with a model with eight gigabytes of RAM
and you can get that for as cheap as 850 bucks.
That's almost half the cost of the M2 MacBook Air.
To be clear, the M2 MacBook Air is lighter, it's thinner,
It has a newer screen.
But if you want to save some money,
the M1 Mac Air is still great for video editing.
Anyways, we got to move on and talk about the best bang for your buck option
when it comes to MacBooks, the best bang for your buck.
MacBooks that are recommended for you is the MacBook Pro 14 inch with the 12
core M2 Pro CPU and one terabyte SSD upgrade,
which comes in at roughly 20 $500 at the time of making this video.
What makes this 14 inch M2 Pro MacBook so good and the best bang for your buck?
Well, the 12 core CPU on M2 Pro not only gives you
the same hardware, encoders and decoders as the MacBook Air,
but it also gives you four more CPU course when you select the $300 CPU upgrade,
which I think is totally worth it for dramatically faster performance.
The second upgrade that I recommend for the best bang for your Buck MacBook
is that you need to upgrade the SSD from 512 gigabytes to one terabyte.
The reason for this
is that just like the base level M2 MacBook Air that only came with 256
gigs of memory that Apple was making approximately 50% slower.
This is also true of the base 512 gigabyte SSD in the M2 Pro MacBook.
So if you want the absolute fastest SSD speeds,
which you definitely do for video editing, you need to pony up
the extra $200 for the one terabyte SSD on this laptop.
Lastly, for memory, because I'm sure that you're wondering,
I would stick with 16 gigabytes of RAM because this is unified memory
that is shared between the CPU and GPU and the laptop is so optimized
this amount of RAM is going to be significantly more efficient
than regular memory that you may be used to.
And even if you're a heavy multitasker, I do not think you're going
to see any major difference.
If you switch from 16 gigabytes to 32 gigabytes of memory.
So I'd save your money.
Congratulations.
You have now spent 2500 bucks
and you have a laptop that is going to blow your mind,
hopefully without completely destroying your wallet.
But we're not done yet.
We have one more laptop to talk about, and this laptop is an absolute beast
that is going to give you a crazy amount of power.
So if you at at six, K, eight, K, 12 k, raw video, etc.,
which to be clear, the cheaper M2 Mac Pro can handle.
But if you want to edit that resolution quality of footage
as fast as possible and you have a larger budget.
This final laptop is the laptop that I would recommend for you.
First, I know you're probably thinking about is easy.
I want the best laptop.
I just go to Apple's website and max out the entire machine for over $6,000.
Right? Well, no, actually.
And you can actually think of this third laptop as another best bang
for your buck option that's going to give you even more power while also not
getting anywhere close to the absolute maxed out price of this laptop.
All right.
For option number three, I'm
going to recommend that you upgrade to the 16 inch MacBook Pro.
Yes, We are finally going up in size.
And this is also the point where I'm going to recommend that you upgrade to the M2
max processor, specifically the option with the 12 core CPU and 30 core CPU.
This is the entry level M2 max model and it has one significant change
over the M2 Pro that is going to make a huge difference for video editing.
We got to talk hardware, decoders and encoders again.
But don't worry, I promise you this is the last time.
Remember how I said
that the M2 Pro has dedicated hardware, video encoders and decoders for aged
2648265 and Prores video formats to make editing and rendering super fast.
Well, the M2 max takes everything to another level because it includes
two of them.
Yes, you get twice as many hardware encoders and decoders with this chip,
which is going to skyrocket your editing and rendering speeds
even more over the blazing fast M2 pro.
In addition, because you are choosing the 16 inch model of the MacBook Pro,
you're also going to deal with less throttling of the CPU than if you choose
to put the M2 max into the 14 inch chassis.
Yet again, just like my last MacBook Video Editing Buyer's Guide video,
I want to give Max your you have over at Max Tech a big
thank you for discovering this difference between the two laptop bodies.
His videos about these laptops are awesome and I highly recommend checking them out
a link to his channel down below.
Now that we've covered the CPU, let's talk memory by default.
If you select the M2 max, apple
is going to require you to also select 32 gigabytes of RAM.
And I think that this is plenty.
Remember this is unified memory that is shared between the CPU and GPU.
And even if you are very heavily multitasking,
you should be fine for video editing, even higher resolution footage.
So I would save your $400 and not upgrade to 64 gigabytes of RAM.
And don't get that eye watering 96 gigabytes of RAM either.
It's cool. Don't get me wrong. It's very cool.
But trust me, you do not need it for video editing.
You don't need it. You don't.
Okay.
Lastly, for storage, just like with the M2 Pro and the M2 air,
I would avoid that 512 gigabyte SSD like the plague
and upgrade to at least a one terabyte SSD or more if you can afford it.
Remember that if you are editing 6k8k or raw files,
having some extra space on your hard drive to store those files is always nice.
So here's where I would spend some extra money.
If you have it.
With that, you are now looking at an absolute beast of a laptop.
Is capable of editing pretty much any resolution or format of footage
that you want to throw at it for about 300 bucks.
And there you have it,
three Apple laptops that are recommended at three different price points.
Regardless of your budget,
you should be able to find an option that works well for you.
But if I had to pick the 14 inch MacBook Pro with the upgraded M2 Pro
CPU and one terabyte SSD upgrade is such a killer option for that price
and definitely the best bang for your buck.
I will link to all these laptops down below if you want to check them out
and I will also link down below to my edit videos like a pro guide.
If you're a video editor, which I assume that you are
considering this video about video editing laptops,
this guide is going to show you
some of the biggest things that took me years to learn as a video editor
and are going to skyrocket your video editing capabilities.
This guide is completely free and you can download it
and link down in the video description.
Thanks so much for watching and have a great day.