The Best Multimedia Notebooks

Thanks to its new SoC, the Apple MacBook Pro 16 2021 M1 Pro offers excellent performance. Its display is brilliant at displaying HDR contents.

The device can be purchased either directly from Apple or through authorized resellers such as Amazon. Prices for the 16-inch model start at $2,500. 

In our review, the MacBook Pro 14 2021 turned out to offer a very high overall performance, an excellent build quality, and a very well-made bright and color-accurate display well suitable for professional use. It is available with up to 64 GB of RAM and up to 8 TB of fast SSD storage. Unsurprisingly, Apple’s upgrade prices are as high as ever.

Thanks to its M1 Pro SoC the Apple MacBook Pro 14 offers great performance. Its display benefits most from HDR content at maximum brightness. Under normal conditions, its 500 nits should be more than adequate.

The device is available through Apple’s own website as well as official retailers, such as Amazon.

With excellent multimedia performance and great features, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme can combine a multitude of devices into once. During the day, it is a great business notebook. After hours, its CPU/GPU combination offer enough oomph for gaming. Unsurprisingly, the new model beats its predecessor in terms of performance. However, its overall rating decreased due to its input devices.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme is a well-made 15.6-inch multimedia notebook with good CPU performance and a great 16:10 4K touch display.

Unlike in Europe availability in the US is pretty decent, and the device can be purchased directly from Lenovo or through the usual retail channels such as Amazon. Prices start north of $2,000.

The Dell XPS 15 9510 managed to score a very high rating and make this list accordingly. Its very good total rating results in the combination of an Intel Core i7-11800H paired with a GeForce GTX 3050 Ti and a good-looking high-quality OLED display with good color accuracy, which could have been a bit brighter. We particularly like its 16:10 aspect ratio that many users will benefit from as well as its very good speakers and its fast SD card reader. Connectivity is somewhat limited as there are no USB-A ports with only USB-C available. If you want to connect your existing peripherals you might have to purchased additional dongles. Fortunately, one is already included in the box.

Dell’s XPS 15 9510 offers a great display with a much asked for 16:10 aspect ratio. The fact that it is also an OLED panel is the icing on the cake.

If you want to use the device for gaming, you should keep in mind that the built-in OLED panel’s response times are much lower than those common on IPS panels. We also found DPC latencies that while still to high have been improved over its predecessor.

The Dell XPS 15 9510 is currently only available through Dell’s own web store.

Lenovo’s fourth generation high-end multimedia notebook ThinkPad X1 Extreme G4 comes with a new dedicated GPU so powerful it makes the odd gaming notebook look poor and outdated in comparison. Our review unit came with a Core i9-11950H paired with a GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU with 16 GB of VRAM, 32 GB of RAM, and fast NVMe storage. Its 16-inch 16:10 display offers decent screen real estate and supports HDR.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme G4 is a powerful all-round notebook that moonlights as gaming laptop.

Availability is practically non-existent right now with all available SKUs shipping in no less than two to four months. 

The Dell XPS 17 9710 is one of the best currently available multimedia notebooks and deservedly enters this top 10 list on third place. The Dell XPS 9700 received a nice upgrade after being around for about a year, and is now equipped with an 11th generation Intel CPU paired with a GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. The 17-inch 16:10 display offers a very high 3840 x 2400 resolution and supports touch input. In addition, the display is well suited for professional creators thanks to its very high color gamut and its low color deviations. Content creation is this one of the use cases that the Dell XPS 9710 is made for. Its connectivity is modern and contains everything one might require.

The Dell XPS 17 9710 is an optimized and faster XPS 17 2020.

If you intend to use the device for gaming you should keep in mind that the display suffers from slightly elevated response times. Its GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop, on the other hand, is well suited for modern games.

This particular SKU is available among others on Amazon for $3,000. More affordable lesser-equipped SKUs are also available with prices starting at around $2,400.

Acer’s brand-new ConceptD series is aimed primarily at power users such as designers, video, music, and photo editors. The Acer ConceptD CC314 managed a score of 86 % and thus earned its place in our top 10. At around $1,500 you get a good-looking modern device with hardware powerful enough for a gaming laptop.

The ConceptD is a sleek and well-designed notebook. It is very efficient and remained fairly cool during our tests, and it offers a decent 4K display to boot. Unfortunately, it suffered from thermal throttling and was outperformed by its competitors.

If all you are looking for when purchasing a device are specs you should definitely keep in mind that similarly equipped laptops perform better. The ConceptD’s CPU throttled under load, and performance dropped even further on battery. On the plus side it features a great 4K display with high color space coverage levels. The display is certainly the device’s major selling point.

Prices start at $1,500, and the device is available among others on Amazon.

The Lenovo Yoga Creator is a well-made all-rounder with a fast CPU and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile GPU, and therefore even gaming-capable. Overall, The Lenovo Yoga Creator features plentiful connectivity despite a rather slow SD card reader. However, thanks to features such as Thunderbolt 3 and its nice high-contrast display it managed to secure a spot in our top 10 list.

The Lenovo Yoga Creator offers overall decent performance and a great display.

The device comes with a 3-year limited warranty by default. It remained faily cool. Downsides include the soldered RAM that cannot be upgraded.

The Yoga Creator series is not available in North America.

The Lenovo ThinkBook 16p is first and foremost a powerful business notebook and not a gaming device.

The device is currently not yet available in North America. 

The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 15 offers great connectivity and the lowest weight in its class.

The device sells through the usual retail channels, such as Amazon, with prices starting at just south of $1,300.