Video Editing Macbook Buyer's Guide 2024

I hear lots of people saying you need 32/36GB of ram. Is 16GB enough for editing 4K 10-bit raw s log videos from Sony FX30 in Final Cut? Most videos will be like 5-10 mins but some may be longer, like 30 minutes.

Hi Matt ! How you doing . The absolute Beast MacBook m2 Max with specs of 32ram and 2tb appears as discontinnued in B&H . Do you know if this is temporal or is Apple not selling them anymore ?

Hello Matt, thank you for your wise consideration.
I desperately need your help: since 2020 I am fluently edited my 4K videos on a very basic MacBook M1 Air, with 8 core, 8 RAM, 512 SSD, utilizing FCPX. Not so fast, but safely and without any problems. I think time has come to update. My M1 is still in mint condition and I am planning to check how much B&H will value it, in a trading for one of these two $1.999 24”MacBook Pro:
1) Early 2023 M2 Pro 10 core chip, 16GPU-16 core Neural engine, RAM16, Storage 1T.
2) Late M3 Pro 8 core chip,10GPU-16 core Neural engine, RAM16, Storage 1T.
Or this $1.749 version of #2, with 512Gb storage.
Please, please, please help me!🤗🤗🤗

Just ordered a macbookpro chip m3pro 14 inch , i could have saved a bit going for the m2pro, but again, i rather have it brand new since i plan to keep it several years, currently im typing on my fully functional, macbookpro 13 inch retina 2015! and still edit video nicely tho i have to restrain from 4k and longer and larger sessions, both foto and video, but hey, thats why i had to upgrade, other wise this is still a laptop to netflix and chill or document work easily

I really appreciate this information! I'm getting ready to purchase an Apple laptop.
I have a Windows 7 now; please don't laugh! It served me well for years!
But I need a machine that will allow me to make decent videos and generate some quality PDF documents.
Could you help me locate a machine? I really don't know where to start looking!

The new Intel Meteor Lake processors with integrated ARC graphics are more than capable of editing 4K video and also have built in encoders. I have one , the MSI Prestige 16 and it’s great. For what it’s worth I also have the M1 MacBook Pro which has also been great. But there are competitors now in the Windows space.

Thank you for the video! Do you recommend upgrading to Macbook Air M2 if I have intel i9 Macbook Pro 16 32gb and I feel a bit lagging when editing photos and videos on it?

Apple paying you to advertise their old units? 🤡

I have bought a MBA M2 16GB with 256SSD. However, I went for an external 1TB SSD.
I just could not justify the 512SSD for 230 bucks or so. 16GB should be standard anyway.

A misguided assumption being made by a lot of reviewers is that the Ecores and Pcores are the same chip to chip. M3 Ecores can actually be clocked to their max by the OS for higher priority threads that spill over the Pcores and are pretty much on par with an M1 performance core when they are ramped up. This allows the M3 family to scale all cores up and see gains over previous generations., seeing decent performance gains over both M1 and M2. As you stated , encoding/decoding supported codecs is a zero gain as that is all off loaded to the integrated media encoder. M2 family can certainly be found cheaper, and I agree will edit 4k footage with ease. Can't go wrong.

I hope I get a response before this day gets started. I bought the 14inch MacBookPro M3Max with the following specs! 14 Core CPU, 30 Core GPU, 36GB of unified memory. I believe = max 300GB/‘s memory bandwidth. My question is this.,. I will ONLY use this laptop for editing 1080p and some 4k files (drone footage) maybe some 4k DSLR footage as well with a lot of 3rd party plug in’s for Final Cut Pro X like Titles, Generators, Effects and transitioning etc… should I return this product and upgrade to 64 GB of unified memory with 16 core CPU and 40core GPU? Which by the way would = Max 400GB/s memory bandwidth! OH and does 14” vs 16” make a difference with the same exact specs? Thank you in advance.

Watching this while i need to make projects in hope maybe I'll find something but also worried of making a bad choice cuz I'm broke student 🎉🎉

How long does battery last when editing videos unplugged? And can you charge them through car cigarette lighter via usb? Ta

Thanks so much, edited for the first time with 4K footage on my 256G M1 & nearly had a stroke when I got the Memory Full pop up from just loading my clips into Final Cut Pro. I unloaded some apps & Forest-Gumped my way thru by attaching my 1 Terabyte external drive while editing & was able 2 finish my project. I also DJ with this same Mac & 256G just ain’t gonna cut it. Definitely upgrading to the M2 1 Terabyte MacBook Pro.

For $300 more, you can get a new m3 max with 16-40 core, 64gb ram and 1tb ram. Much better IMO for the $300 difference.

Confusing.

Hey, thank you for your great content! I'm a Premiere Pro user and I'm in the position of deciding which of these machines is the right choice for me, an i7 13th gen CPU PC or an m3 max mac book pro. The question is: Does the MacBook really and insanely have less lag in daily usage and on the premiere timeline? Is it a really lag-free machine compared to the PC? Does Premiere perform better and experience less crashes on the mac?

what website are you using to add these upgrades?

Matt, thank you so much! You just saved me time, effort and most of all, some much needed cash! Double like!

I still work on my M1 8gb Mac mini even the 4k 60fps 422 from my LUMIX S5II. No issues there

Great info. 👍

I found a NEW 16 inch M2 pro today for $1899! Pretty good, right? only 512 gb , but not too bad to be new and for the price.

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed as a I’m not a very tech savvy girl😅
My 2015 mackbook pro is so run to the ground, after being used in uni and for photo/ video editing. It no longer stays on without being plugged into to the charger, so I probably have to save up for a new one🥲

Just a question ~ how long should one expect their laptop to last and are there any hacks for taking better care of it other than cleaning it up and turning it on/ off on a regular basis?

For laptop I think apple is te best option but for desktop I have a pc with i7 13700k 32gb ram rtx 4070 ti and 4tb nmve and no problem or crashes with premiere or davinci

Best value macbook is a windowsl laptop 😂😂

but here is a question, Is it worth upgrading from a Macbook Pro 15 inch retina early 2015 model hahaha. I upgraded my default ssd from 250gb to 1tb samsung 870 evo

You are hitting a very hard topic. Mostly because every person’s needs are different. ( video only, photo only, and different mixes of those work loads).

A couple things I disagree with you. I would upgrade to 16GB of Ram before upgrading the SSD to 512k. With the M2 air the increased speed of 512Gig SSD can make some difference in swap situations. But the best way to reduce swap slow down is more RAM to greatly reduce swap.

I am looking at using ProRes video. The M2 chip supports it, M1 does not. This can be significant advantage with the iPhone pro supporting this. You also didn’t emphasize the M3, M3 pro and Max supporting Ray Tracing. This probably isn’t important for video editing, but is important for 3D rendering and for some future gaming. I suspect in a year or two, it will be many games.

Oh, you didn’t mention that the M3 low SSD configs are faster than the M2.

I don’t see as many good deals at the start of 2024 as we did around Christmas. I suspect we will see some of those good deals within a month or so.

Have a good day!

Facts I got a M1 Pro 1tb and 32 gig ram for 1500

I was editing a multicam (2 camera) sequence on my base M3 Pro Macbook earlier today on double speed to edit faster and the computer completely crashed and had to restart. Has anyone else experienced stuff like this?

Instead of spending $1600 on a new laptop, I canceled my Premiere Pro subscription and spent $300 on DaVinci Resolve for a faster workflow.

Kinda wish I’d seen this a month ago. Got a pretty tricked out M3 with the 1TB SSD - for the same(ish) price could’ve gotten an M2 with the 2TB, which makes a lot more sense. As only in a month the SSD is getting pretty full! -and that’s just with 4K! 😢

I've been using windows pc all my life and have been editing vids using the same platform since 2013.. finally on november 2023 i bought my first apple macbook pro 16inch with M2 Max chip (32gb ram, 1TB ssd).. its a completely different experience. absolutely great machine for video editing. love it. good thing i didnt wait for the M3 version. Your video will help alot of people out there trying to pick which macbook to buy. Keep up the good work.

so informative thank you. SUBBED!

So the 16 inch is faster m2 max? Than 14inch m2 max?

But but, Apple lets me interest free payment plan only on their newest products 😢

15 inch 512 and 16 gig...1399at best Best Buy was on sale ALL December and still is! that is the REAL best of all. $1400...not even something to think about.

First time i heard that the m2 is a big jump from the m1 chip.. even big tech tubers have said otherwise

The following configurations are not available here:/ @matt what do you think about this: macbook m2 pro 14, 12 core cpu, 30 core gpu, 32gb, 1tb
I am a daily user of premiere pro and after effects. I cut 4K video and 5K video from mavic 3. Thank you for your opinion.

Why there is not even one super gaming laptops on this list? Are they really that shitty? How can anyone play a triple A game on full 4k if they can't handle basic 4k editing?

So your bang for your buck beats the imac?

what do you think about the macbook pro 2021 M1 1T 16G 16"?

What about the M1 Max laptop ?

I just recieved my MacBook Pro 14” m3pro yesterday 18ram 512 ssd! Upgraded from MacBook Air m1 base model … and yes I’m loving the upgrade so far .. it’s super fast and renders faster

Oof I’ve been considering switching from PC for this

Matt, in general I like your videos quite a lot but this one is a bit .. eh.

First of all, if someone's going to be video editing (especially 4k 10bit footage) that M2 Air is not going to be nearly enough. Yes, I understand It's a budget option but still - just save a bit more and get the pro model

Also I don't agree that the best bang for buck is the M2 Pro, I would raather advise people to listen to MKBHD - just get the M1 Max, it's an absolute beast and the price is low enough today.

Just bought a refurbished m1 max for $2k and it is blowing through 4k editing with ease.