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Tips for Buying The Best Laptops For Video Editing

As computers have gotten more powerful, technology that was once out of reach of the consumer has become far easier to obtain. This is particularly true in the case of video editing. There was a time when that was left to those with huge budgets that could purchase the most powerful computers or multiple computers. Things have changed though. Nowadays almost anyone can film a video thanks to cameras in cell phones, mobile music devices, and more. Whether you’re putting together short clips of your dogs to post online or you’re going into a full-scale feature film production you can find a laptop to suit your needs. You no longer need immensely expensive equipment to get the job done. The following are some of the tips to guide you in buying the best laptops for video editing.

Your laptop should preferably have the following specifications:

laptopAt least 500GB of hard drive capacity. One minute of HD video at 1920×1080 can take up as much as 400MB. If you’re editing full length movies you’ll need an external hard drive. Solid state drives are fast but awfully expensive so you can pass on those. Two HDDs in a RAID array will do you just fine.You’ll want an Intel Core i7 processor. Video work is CPU dependent, so you need power.

You should have at least 4GB of memory. If you purchase a laptop with less you should consider if you can upgrade because the improved performance is worth it.You should have a high-end graphics card from ATI or Nvidia. It will help with the processing.You want at least a 17-inch screen with 1920×1080 capability.LED display offers better colors and constant backlight and even brightness across the screen.If you’re doing a lot of editing, you’ll want a FireWire connection to make transferring files from to and from your external hard drive easy.

The software is also important. Unlike gaming laptops, for editing really simple movies you can usually find free software online for any type of computer. If you bought a simple camera you might be able to edit your movies on that. If you’re doing something more complicated that requires intricate editing you’ll need a more advanced program. Final Cut Pro is one of the leading editing programs and is only available on Mac so you’ll have to consider that when purchasing. It’s not the only program though; there are several that work with a PC.