- Hey guys.
My name is Matt Johnson with https://whoismatt.com.
And if you want to buy a MacBook Pro
for mobile 4K video editing in 2020,
I have two recommendations for you
at two very different price points.
The first recommendation is for you if you are on
a budget and it will save you some money
while still giving you a capable machine
for 4K video editing for about 2600 bucks.
Alternatively, if you have more to spend and want to edit 4K
or higher resolutions like 6K or raw video, et cetera,
my second recommendation is for higher budgets at $3,900.
Also, you should know that I'm making these recommendations
with all video editing software in mind.
So, regardless of whether you edit in Finalcut
or Premier or DaVinci resolve,
these MacBooks will work great for you.
Let's start with the more budget friendly option for $2,600.
And I realized that if I say the word budget
and also 2,600, that may not seem like budget to you.
But, this is Apple we're talking about here
and if you want a powerful device, you're gonna have
to pay for it.
As an alternative though, if you can't swing these prices,
I've created a budget video editing laptop buyer's guide
with several laptops available today
for under $1000 that will edit 4K video easily.
I'll link to that video up in the corner
and down in the video description.
Now let's talk about MacBooks.
First things first,
you should know that Apple is planning
on transitioning all their computers from Intel
to arm processors over the next two years.
This means you may see better battery life
and more processing power whenever Apple decides
to release these new arm MacBooks.
So my recommendation to you is that
if you can wait another year or two
to upgrade your computer, it may be worth it to do so.
That said, don't be afraid to buy one
of these Intel-based MacBooks
that I'm recommending in this video.
Apple has said that they will continue to support them
for the foreseeable future with updates.
So, I feel comfortable telling you to buy them.
If you wanna know more about Apple's transition
to arm CPU and their Apple Silicon processors,
I've created a video explaining what this all means
for video editors that'll link to up in the corner
and down in the video description.
Moving on to laptop recommendations,
if you want to edit 4K video on an Apple laptop,
I would completely exclude the MacBook air
and the 13 inch MacBook pro from your considerations.
Why?
Because, even kitted out with
the higher end processors available for them,
are still not going to be able
to handle video editing well from either a power
or heat generating perspective.
Also, they don't include a dedicated graphics card,
which for video editing is essential,
especially for higher resolution video.
These smaller Apple laptops are going
to handle quick bursty works like spreadsheets
and web browsing fine,
but once you throw video editing at them
where the processor is forced to continuously work,
as it plays video, the computer will start to overheat
and throttle back performance,
and you will not be nearly as productive.
Because of these reasons, the only Apple laptop
that I recommend for video editing is
the 16 inch MacBook Pro.
Let's start with the more budget friendly option
for this laptop.
Starting off, choosing the left option,
I would recommend going with
the 6-core 9th-generation i7 processor
with 4.5 gigahertz turbo boost.
This is the minimum that I would recommend
for 4K video editing.
But if that is all you are doing and you aren't planning
on editing 6K or raw video, you should be fine.
Continuing with the bare minimum, moving onto memory.
I would go with 16 gigabytes.
Again, for 4K video, this should be plenty,
but I would be aware that it's going to be difficult
to multitask with this amount of memory.
So, if you want to say, be editing video
while browsing the web, watching YouTube video
and editing an image in Photoshop,
you are probably going to run out of memory.
Because of that, if you multitask, I would upgrade
to 32 gigabytes, but like I said, this is the budget option.
So I would recommend 16 gigabytes to keep the price down.
Also, I would keep in mind that Apple does not allow you
to upgrade the MacBook memory after you purchase it.
It is soldered to the motherboard.
Actually, apple doesn't let you upgrade anything
after the fact.
So, make sure that you choose properly
whenever you're picking out your laptop specs.
Up next, we have graphics.
From my research, spending $200 to upgrade
to the Radeon Pro 5500M with eight gigabytes of memory is
a great choice.
This isn't going to cost you a ton more,
but that upgrade from four gigabytes to eight gigabytes
of video memory is going to make a huge difference
when editing 4K video.
You may have also noticed that $800 upcharge
for the Radeon Pro 5600M graphics card
with eight gigabytes of memory.
We'll talk about that in a second whenever we talk
about my more expensive MacBook laptop recommendation.
Four now, let's talk about storage.
Surprisingly, the base 512 gigabyte SSD is actually great,
and that's what I would go with.
You can upgrade this to one terabyte if you want,
but I think 512 is plenty for the operating system
and programs.
You can then edit your videos off an external SSD,
which I guarantee will be much cheaper than any SSD
that you can get from Apple.
I will link down in the description to external SSDs
that I recommend for video editing.
And that is your $2,400 MacBook Pro
for budget 4K video editing.
I find that it strikes a nice balance
between performance and price.
You're telling me now, though,
that you want more power though.
You want the best MacBook for video editing,
regardless of the cost.
Don't just go to Apple's page and pick all
the most expensive options though.
You don't need to do this.
You should be smart about it for video editing.
Let's start with the option on the right.
For processor, this may surprise you,
but I would recommend sticking with
the 2.3 gigahertz 8-core i9 processor
with turbo to 4.8 gigahertz.
Save the $200 on this upgrade.
From my research, the difference
between these two processors is negligible at best.
So I would instead save that money and put it
toward other upgrades.
Moving onto memory, 32 gigabytes is going to be
the sweet spot for 4K video editing and multitasking,
so you can continue to use your laptop while rendering
a video in the background.
That said, if you find yourself editing longer videos
in high resolution, say 4K, 6K, 8K video,
that's over an hour in length,
talking head interviews, et cetera.
In that situation, I would recommend upgrading
to 64 gigabytes of memory.
Up next, we have graphics
and this is where things get interesting and more expensive.
In June, 2020, Apple updated the MacBook Pro 16 inch,
but the only upgrade was to the graphics card.
A new option appeared, the Radeon Pro 5600M
with eight gigabytes of HBM2 memory
at an eye watering $700 upgrade.
This new graphics card ain't cheap,
but if you edit videos higher than 4K resolution,
so 6K or 8K, or if you edit raw video,
this graphics card is definitely the one you want to get.
It is going to offer faster and smoother playback
for even the most taxing video resolutions and codex.
Of course, if you are just editing plain old 4K,
eight bit resolution footage,
you can save your money and get the Radeon Pro 5500M
with eight gigabytes of memory, it should be fine.
But if you are planning on upgrading your camera
or editing higher resolution or raw video in the future,
get the 5600M.
Let's wrap up with storage.
Like the budget system where I said 512 gigabytes
of SSD storage is plenty,
one terabyte SSD storage is plentier.
So that means I don't think the $400 upgrade
to two terabyte is necessary,
and I would just edit off external SSDs.
With that, those are the Apple laptops
that I would recommend for mobile 4K video editing in 2020.
And if you edit on Final Cut,
I think these are great options for you.
But, if you edit on Premiere or DaVinci resolve,
I would highly recommend considering
a windows laptop running AMD's new Ryzen processors.
Some of these laptops will edit video faster than
the $3,900 higher budget MacBook I recommended,
while still coming in at under a thousand bucks.
It is such a good value that I would say that you should
at least consider it.
I will link to my budget 4K video editing laptop video,
down below.
With that, thank you so much for watching.
I hope this video has been helpful to you with buying
a MacBook Pro.
Also, it would be a huge help to me
if you would consider liking this video and subscribing,
if you wanna see more videos like it in the future.
Lastly, if you happen to be a wedding filmmaker like me,
that means you probably edit a lot of wedding films,
and you're probably at a video editing laptop,
but you probably also want to book more couples
and fill more weddings.
To help you out with that,
I've created a free guide that will show you steps
that you can take right now in your business
to book more couples and fill more weddings.
It's a free gift to you.
You can download at the video description down below.
Thanks so much for watching and have a great day.