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Participant
January 11, 2024
Question

Budget Laptop for Adobe Premiere Pro?

  • January 11, 2024
  • 4 replies
  • 7957 views

This question was asked in an earlier thread, but the thread is several years old.

 

I have the latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro, but my laptop is too old to handle Premiere Pro.

 

I would like to know if anyone can recommend a laptop that is reasonably priced and can handle Adobe Premiere Pro.

 

I am on a tight budget and the ones that are recommended by internet gurus are too expensive for me.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    Legend
    January 12, 2024

    I echo the other responses. None of the Windows laptops in your price range are good enough for editing anything above 720p30 because they have weakling CPUs, RAM-hogging integrated graphics and a skimpy amount of total system RAM. In fact, many of the entry-level laptops, including some of those that are priced up to $1600 USD, actually perform worse than even a base-spec M1 MacBook Air in Premiere Pro despite their being equipped with the latest Intel Meteor Lake CPUs!

     

    And that is the effect of the hardware manufacturers' continuing race-to-the-bottom philosophy. Stagnate or regress in performance while raising prices. And we all must pay a much, much higher price just to attain performance that's equivalent to last-generation hardware.

    Conrad_C
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 11, 2024
    quote

    I am on a tight budget and the ones that are recommended by internet gurus are too expensive for me.

    By @davidt75761881

     

    That’s because serious video editing (beyond just basic cuts and transitions) or visual effects is one of the most demanding things you can ask a computer to do. It’s difficult to do it smoothly on cheap hardware. To kick out all those HD/UHD resolution frames at the frame rate you want, in real time, with no dropped frames, while calculating the stack of tracks and effects that were piled on for every one of those frames, a computer needs more CPU cores, more RAM, appropriate hardware video encoders, and a more powerful GPU than a basic affordable computer will have.

     

    All those sub-$1000 computers are great for editing pages that don't move, like designing web pages, print layouts, word processing, spreadsheets, and digital drawing or painting. But if you want to get into video or 3D, the number of calculations goes way up, so the hardware budget has to go way up.

     

    Also, a laptop for video editing or 3D (or gaming) must have an effective cooling system, because if it has a light-duty cooling system designed for simple home/office/school work, extended heavy use of many CPU/GPU cores for video editing/visual effects may result in constant high internal temperature, causing performance to be throttled down. For example, you pay for 3.5GHz but it has to throttle down to 2.5 because it got too hot trying to render frames.

    Peru Bob
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 11, 2024

    What is your budget?

    John T Smith
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 11, 2024

    >the ones that are recommended by internet gurus are too expensive for me

     

    If you do not buy a good laptop you will be VERY disappointed

     

    Laptop ideas https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/best-laptops-for-video-editing