A laptop for journalists is usually just used to check out the news, connect with peers and send data in different formats (audio,text and video).

There’s no need for a high performance computer unless…

You’re publishing in video format AND need to use complex effects on very long footages.

So what then makes a laptop best for journalism ?

A laptop that has a rock solid built, is portable, has a top of the line keyboard and

What follows will be a brief summary however the last section includes a complete guide on how to build a computer or laptop for journalism. It includes tips on how to use external devices (phones, cameras, tablets) to collect and edit data with recommended apps, techniques and software.

Also there’s a section on how to keep your PROTECT your data against thieves and hackers.

Best Laptop Specs for Journalists

Apart from a few exceptions, you’ll use a mix of the following:

• MS Office
• Photo, video, audio editing apps: whether they’re from the Adobe creative suit or not, the hardware reqs. are still the same. 
• Google Chrome or FireFox + Web Apps and Plugins: they’re both going to be RAM hogs especially after you install ‘plugins’ for data collection 
• inDesign: not hardware demanding but display gamut may be important ONLY IF you’re working in magazine staff

RAM: 8GB
8GB: MINIMUM for Windows 10 or Windows 11 to run lagless. It’s also good enough for video and photo editing and all the web tabs you want.
4GB:  This is only okay IF AND ONLY IF you’re buying a ChromeBook or a refurbished MacBook Air.
16GB: This will speed up video rendering and let you multitask with dozens of software open simultaneously. You don’t have to buy 16GB off the bat though, all laptops can be later upgraded to 16GB.

CPU: Core i5/Ryzen 5

Core i5 / Ryzen 5: Minimum 11th gen Core i5 or 5th gen Ryzen 5 if photo/video editing. Ex: Core i5 11537G or Ryzen 5 5500U.
Core i3 / Ryzen 3: If its mostly for study, typing purposes, research and the ocassional photo/video editing.
Core i7 / Ryzen 7: Useless and expensive. Too much power means less battery too

Storage: SSD PCIe 4.0
It is important you avoid HDDs and choose an SSD, the latter will boot up windows in seconds and wake up from sleep mode in milliseconds. Think about how use that can be when you want to write or record something ASAP!

Currently, the fastest SSD is PCIe 4.0 and that’s only going to be useful if you’re going to transfer HEAVY files back and forth (high resolution videos & photos) all the time as it’ll significantly speed up this process.

Display: FHD or QHD
Matte vs Glossy: The matte finish is prefered if working outdoors, they will bounce off sunlight and let you see what’s on the screen when you have the sun in your face. High brightness help too (~500 nits for sun exposure).

Resolution: Either FHD or QHD will make multitasking and editing easier as you’ll be able to fit in bigger timelines or have windows open next to each other.

Battery
You need a LONG battery for the “pick-up-anywhere-and-write” mentality.
It isn’t rare to get 10 hours if you know where to look. I’ve included a small guide in the end but all laptops here will have at least 10 hours.

Portability & Durability
3lbs is portable anything more is only good for working at an office. Most ultrabooks (ZenBook, MacBook Air, Surface Pro) are entirely made of aluminum and have a very sturdy built. Some chromebooks have rubber band all around. We’ll see some examples.

KeyBoard
A good keyboard is responsive, sensitive, has a nice bounce in other words it requires minimal touch to register character.  Good keyboards are not limited to Ultrabooks or MacBooks but these two will have better keyboards. 

Top 5 Best Laptops For Journalists

Laptops in this list have 10-15 hours of battery. All of them (except the last one) have very good keyboards and all of them (except the last one) have a rock solid built with 3 of them made out of full aluminium.

Please note that the laptops featured on the pictures are the LATEST models which may be EXPENSIVE but if you read the reviews, there will be a link to slightly different or older models that will be significantly cheaper.

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1. M2 MacBook Air

Best Apple Laptop For Journalists

  8-core Apple M2 Chip

  8GB-24GB RAM Unified Memory

   10-core Apple M2 Chip GPU

  256GB-2TB SSD

  13.6” Retina Display 2560 x 1664

  2.7

  14 hours 

The best choice for journalists on the go. We can talk about all the cool features of the current MacBook for days but we’ll only go over the most important features for  journalism:

 

The MacBook Air was first released in 2008 and back then it was pretty much “THE ONLY” best laptop for journalism because it was FAST (SSD was introduced here), THIN (could fit in your winter coat pocket) and have a LONG LONG battery life.

The newer versions still have the same idea in mind: super thin, very fast for simple work  and ridiculously long batteries. Unfortunately, the newer versions have way too much power for the average journalist.

The M2 and M1 Chip are way too fast for most of the work you’ll do but they’ll come in handy  if you have to do a log of video or photo editing work as well.

The speed is not the reason why you should consider the MacBook Air though, it’s the portability, battery and also the keyboard!

Keyboard 

I’ve been using the MacBook Air since 2013 and even 10 years later I still do so because typing on it feels like typing on a high-quality desktop keyboard. It’s kind of addictive and you mighit even feel like you can finish an entire novel with it because every hit feels like a smack of satisfaction.

True it’s never going to get you the same thrill of what’s like to type on a mechanical  typerwriter  in the 70s but because it’s got excellent tactile feedback and bounces nicely after each key you’ll start to feel like Jack Kerouac or Ernest Hemingway after spending some time typing on it.

Now not every MacBook Air will have the same high quality keyboard (though virtually all MacBooks have way better keyboards than the average windows laptop) and not every MacBook Air will have the features listed above either so it’s important we go over each of the models released throughout the years. 

Why go over older models when there’s a new one out? Because it’s very likely most people here will not be able to afford the newest model and the older ones may work just as good despite being several times cheaper.

a) 2008-2017 MacBook Air ($200-500) : Best Keyboards

The original keyboard design Steeve Jobs introduced remained in every MacBook Air until 2017. It is in my opinion just as good or even slightly better than the current one.

Thus if all you’re going to do on your laptop is typing (not photo/video editing), you don’t need the M1 Chip models because you can get the same overall design and even a slightly better keyboard with the older models.

Since they all have an SSD and the OSX is tailored to make every MacBook Air run efficiently even if it’s got old hardware, older models pre-2017 will be just as fast as the newest ones for most basic purposes.

Battery:  

It’s not going to be anywhere near the same battery life of a recent MacBook because older models are all refurbished (used to varying extents) and they will ahve their batteries cycled several dozens if not a hundred times. Thus any pre-2017 model will have on average 7 hours with 8 bein the maximum.

Pre 2015 models may have a maximum of 6 hours unless they’ve had their batteries replaced, if so they can easily reach 10 hours.

If a refurbished MacBook has had their battery replaced or you have it replace, you can get as much as 13 hours of battery which will let you type for two days straight without a single re-charge (assuming 6-8 hours workshifts).

11 inch MacBook Air: This is the smallest size of the MacBook Air. It’s so thin and small you can fit inside a  winter coat pocket and grab it with just two fingers. The latter is definitely useful when you want to step out of the workroom for a while. 

You’ll only find the discontinued 11 inch MacBook Air on pre-2017 models.

It’s important to talk about these because they are the most compact and portable laptops with a top of the line keyboard you’ll find online as of 2023 (and fast too). 

Although there are no longer BRAND NEW 11” MacBooks, you can still find hundreds of these models as refurbished which makes them insanely cheaper yet faster than every single Windows laptop in the $200-400 price range. 

b) 2018-2019 MacBook Air ($600-800) : Retina Display

These versions made the previous one (or tried to) thinner and added a lot more CPU power. This probably forced them to re-design the keyboard because the keyboard of these versions feel very very different from the previous one.

Now it isn’t bad but there’s a big gap between the two. It’s slightly less responsive making it much less ideal for people who want to hit their fastest typing speeds. If you have a pre-2017 version, you’re going to notice a huge difference though.

I would advice you to avoid these models UNLESS….

You think you’re going to need the retina display and you’re on a budget.

The retina display was only added on models released after 2018 and it massively increased the resolution which in turn increased the amount of screen space available. This becomes useful if you’re a heavy multitasker who works with two windows next to each other (Ex: doc editor + a pdf file…).

Photo Editing / Magazine Staff: If you end up working in the staff magazine department , the retina display or any high resolution display becomes a MUST. These will have wider color gamut (cover a larger spectrum of the sRGB space) this is just fancy talks for more and accurate colors. 

c) 2020-2023 MacBook Air($1000-1500): M1 & M2 Chips 

The newest models with the M1 chip reverted back to the keyboard design of pre-2017 models while keepin the retina display AND adding much much faster chips. The battery increased to 15 hours too. 

The only issue is that they’re extremely fast and thus expensive.

If money it not an issue, by all means grab one of these, it’s going to be useful for pretty much the entire spectrum of possible HEAVY tasks within Journalism including video editing and at the same time keep the super long battery , portability and top of the line keyboard. It just can’t get any better.

Storage: 128-1TB

For a journalism student working towards a BS or MA 128GB is plenty because most journalism programs focus on lots of essay writing. So save yourself a lot of money and always choose the lowest storage configuration. 

If you know you’re going to work at an internship where there’s a large amount of media you have to use. Then you want to choose at least 256GB for mostly photo-editing work and 512GB if and only if, you’re doing a lot of video editing. 

Durability & Support

You’ll find something like 9/10 journalists using a MacBook in any auditorium, stadium or conference where journalists gather. 

This is a good thing because if something goes wrong with yours or you don’t know how to do something , there’s lots of people you can ask for troubleshooting help. You can also borrow accesories. Forgot your charger? Forgot a mouse? Need a CD/DVD external reader? A replacement is just a few seats away. 

Con: The main disadvantage besides the price is that MacBooks are highly desirable and are usually the target of theft because thieves KNOW they are valuable and expensive. Thus I advice you check out the ‘data security’ section for tips on how to set up an anti theft system or tracking system. It’s important you back up files through the Cloud  and do not disable Cloud usage.

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2. Surface Pro 9

Best 2 in 1 Laptop for Journalists

  12th gen Intel® Evo Core™ i5 or Core™ i7

  8GB-16GB RAM DDR5

  Intel Xe Graphics

  128GB-1TB PCIe NVMe SSD

  13” IPS ‎2880 x 1920

  1.96lbs 

  +10 hours

Because I’m a Mac guy I’ve only had the chance to use the Surface Pro a couple of times (through peers).

First thing you’ll notice is: it’s a tablet sort of like an iPad and it’s extremely compact and portable (more so than the MacBook Air though not as portable as the 11 inch MacBook Air).

But what’s not so obvious is that this is a full blown computer or laptop and has a full blown operating system like Windows 11 home and once you attach a keyboard (through a magnet) it pretty much works like a regular laptop. Take out the keyboard, and it goes back to being a tablet. 

Performance

All versions of the Surface Pro support Windows so its not like a tablet at all. It’s just a laptop that can turn into a writing device.

The most recent versions (7 8 and 9) have a top of the line CPU and at least 8GB RAM, this is pretty much all you need for semi-professional video editing and for high quality photo editing. All versions have a very high resolution (much higher than the MacBooks) and the displays cover a bigger spectrum of the colorspace than MacBooks .

If you can’t afford the newest one and you are not going to edit videos then you can go as far as grabbin a 5th gen Surface Pro which may sell for 400 bucks. I’d recommend at least a 7th gen if you can afford it though: 

Keyboard

The Keyboard is slightly worse than the MacBook Air but definitely not very good when you don’t have a hard surface to sit the keyboard on. Remember this is a tablet with a magnetically attached keyboard. If you are going to type on a desk and not on your laptop, it’s an EXCELLENT KEYBOARD.

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3. Newest ASUS ZenBook 14”

Best Ultrabook Laptop For Journalists

  Intel Evo i5-1240P

  8GB LPDDR5

  Intel Iris Xe Graphics

  512GB PCIe NVMe SSD

  14” 2.8K OLED 90Hz

  3.06lbs

  10 hours

The Surface Pro isn’t the only alternative to the MacBook Air. There are at least 6 ultrabooks that are just as good. The cheapest out of all these is the ASUS ZenBook.

ASUS ZenBook vs MacBook Air

A lot of these ultrabooks are in fact a tiny bit thinner than the MacBook Air and may even weigh 0.1-0.2 lbs less. This isn’t the case in 2023, at least for the latest version of the ASUS ZenBook, which has the exact same thickness as the M2 version and the same weight too. 

However…the ASUS ZenBook is about 200-250 dollars cheaper!

Obviously, it’s going to have a few downsides:

• Not as much battery as the MacBook Air (10 vs 15 hours).
• A 4.5/5 keyboard where as the MacBook Air a 5/5 keyboard.
• Slightly slower than the MacBook Air. For most purposes, you won’t notice a difference though, even when video editing.

Performance: Core i5 1240P

Like I said, performance is slightly slower than the M2 chip MacBook but only by about 5-10% at the most. For most purposes outside of video editing the difference in performance is NON-EXISTANT. In fact, even during video editing you will only see a difference when ‘rendering’ for about 5% (in other words, it’ll take slightly more time to render a video) .

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4. Lenovo ThinkPad T14 

Best Laptop For Journalists

  12th Gen 10-Core i5-1235U

  16GB RAM DDR5 (Up to 40GB)

   Intel Iris Xe Graphics

  512GB PCIe NVMe 

   14″ FHD+ 1920 x 1200 IPS 300 nits

  2.91 lbs

  8 hours

  x1 Ethernet (RJ-45) / x2 USB 3.2 Gen1 / x1 HDMI 2.0b /x2 USB 3.2 Type-C (Thunderbolt 4) / Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack + FingerPrint Reader

The Lenovo ThinkPads are very very popular for anyone who seeks extreme durability from a Windows laptop. They are known to be build like tanks. 

Ergonomics: Keyboard & Trackpad

The keyboards found on Lenovos and the Trackpads can be said to be just as good as the MacBooks and far superior than any of the keybaords you find on windows laptops. 

In fact, because they’re usually 14-15” laptops, the keys can be wider and fatter and they have a little more ‘travel distance’ which adds more ‘responsiveness’ and bounce. aka more pleasant to type as if every key is overly accentuated demanding to be hammered with vigour; powered by whisky, tobacco and a pretty close deadline.

All that smooth talk only applies to the ThinkPads from the T series and the Lenovo Thinkpad X-Carbon.  You are not guaranteed to get a keyboard this good out of other models.

Design: Durability 

This is the reason why they’re still so popular after 20 years and the reason why it’s still more expensive than the average windows laptop. 

In the geek community, the name “thinkpad” is thought of as extremely physically resistant laptops built like tanks and this is 100% true. All Thinkpads are made of full aluminum and once you open the laptop you’ll notice it has more aluminum frames keeping it together. This is the reason why it’s slightly thicker than ultrabooks despite having almost the same weight <3lb.

Performance: Photo or Video Editing 

As long as you get something recent, say a ThinkPad with a 4th or 5th gen Ryzen CPU OR a 10th , 11th, 12th gen Intel Core CPU with 8GB RAM, you can do comfortably throw in some heavy photo editing (such as with Lightroom where you can edit dozens of photos at a time) but just like every laptop on this list it’s not going to be perfect for complex video editing which you don’t need to do anyways even if you’re making a documentary of some sort.

Linux Compatibility

Unlike, most windows laptops. The Lenovo ThinkPad is more compatible with Linux distros. So if you want to install Linux either through a virtual machine OR as a second (or first) operating system at the time of boot up, every piece of hardware including the wifi card, camera and trackpad (these usually dont work with other laptops when you install linux) trackpad will be fully compatible , in other words, it will work with Linux Distros the same way it does on Windows.

Why install Linux?

For data security purposes. I talk about it a bit more in the last section but let me just say that there’s far more software for keeping files safe and encrypted plus once you know how to use Linux, you’ll be much less of a target for hackers. Lastly, its much easier to have a hidden and encrypted operating system + dummy OS with Linux systems. More details at the end.

Color gamut also known as colorspace is just as important as resolution for media purposes. If this is your only tool of work when working on photos for on-print or web material and you want your post editing material (images, designs, photos or videos) to be extremely color accurate you may want to read more about what this means here.

Brightness Levels