5 Best Laptops For Streaming Videos: Netflix, YouTube & More - Tech Gearoid (2024)

Instance 1

Laptops For Streaming Videos Compared

As mentioned earlier, you don’t need a powerhouse. Forget about trying to seek out the most powerful hardware there is.You don’t need a Core i7 or a large 16 GB of RAM.

As such, any good budget laptop would suffice. You can also choose to go for mid range laptopsIF you also have somewhat heavier demands like working on designing or need a laptop that can handle photo editing software.

Battery and Portability is quite useful not just for any laptop, but for the best laptops for streaming videos in particular.

If you move a lot or if you love to hang out in cafes and want to watch videos from everywhere, you need a laptop that is portable and also has a long lasting battery life.

Fortunately, the laptops we review here all offer power efficient processors that promise long battery life.

You can go for aCore i3 or an equivalent AMD processorand you will certainly be more than happy. In fact, streaming videos is also possible on weaker processors like Intel Pentium.

The issue withweaker than Core i3processors is that they tend to show their limits as soon as you start multitasking or perform marginally difficult office/school work on them.

If you have a decent budget to spare for a new laptop, we still wouldn’t recommend that you go for machine that has a faster processor than a Core i5. Otherwise you will be wasting your money on hardware that you really don’t need at all.

Related:How Much Ram Do You Need For Streaming?

1. 1

   HP Pavilion X360 – 15.6″ – Recommended Best Laptop for Streaming Videos

2. 2

   HP 14 Chromebook – 14″ – Affordable Large Screen Chromebook

3. 3

   Acer Aspire E5-576-392H – 15.6″ – Budget Windows Laptop

4. 4

   Lenovo Chromebook C330 – 13.3″ – Small and Portable Chromebook

5. 5

   ASUS Vivobook S15 – 15.6″ – Robust Mid Range Laptop

HP Pavilion is not just a top seller ion Amazon.com, we personally recommend this as well. This is a very reasonably priced laptop.

For some, this would be considered a budget laptop, whereas others may consider this a mid range machine.

The bottom line here is that this is an affordable laptop that offers highly coveted features in a laptop.

For starters, this is aconvertible laptop. Therefore, not only does it have atouch screen, its screen rotates 360 degrees to become atablet. While a feature like that isn’t too useful on a large15.6″ screen, it still gives you all the bragging rights.

Besides the convertible mechanism, what we truly like is theform factoras well as the overall hardware configuration. There is no doubt that thissleekand slender notebook is gorgeous for its price.

It measures at only about0.75 inchesin thickness. It also some of theslimmest screen bezelsfor the price category. Speaking of the screen, it offers a beautiful 15.6″ display withFHDresolution andIPSpanel.

IPS panels offer the best color reproduction and have the widest viewing angles as compared to the conventional TN panel screen.

As far as the core hardware is concerned, this laptop features a well roundedIntel Core i3-8130Uprocessor. Core i3s are generally built for multitude of tasks.

They are more than ample for trivial tasks such as video streaming. In fact, you can even perform low levels of editing and designing work on it.

Lastly if offers a large1 TB of HDDas well as a peculiar combination of4 GB static DDR4 RAMand16 GBof the latestIntel OptaneRAM.

All in all, if you are looking for an all rounder laptop that offers a good value for its design and is built to last a long time, then this is one of the best laptops for streaming videos online.

HP 14 Chromebook costs almosthalf as much astheHP Pavilion X360above. However, when it comes to performance, it can truly surpass your expectations.

Granted it has abasic hardwarefeaturing the entry levelIntel Celeron processors, a mere4 GB of RAMand only32 GB of internal SSDstorage, you cannot simply look at Chromebooks with the same lens as Windows or Mac laptops.

Chromebooks are different in the way they function. Chromebooks are highlyinternet based machines. They encourage you to use cloud services for almost all kinds of tasks.

So for example instead of Microsoft office for word processing you would instead use cloud based service likeGoogle Docs.

The benefit ofCloud servicesis that it saves you from spending on a powerful machine. This is because the majority of the heavy lifting when it comes to processing is done by the serves of the web service.

This particular Chromebook is a large14″variant from HP. It is one of the latest to hit the market and it is excellent for those who want to enjoy their movies on a larger screen.

Chromebooks are basically highly optimized for the operating system that they use and for the function they intend to perform. As such, they are excellent for video streaming.

You can download your favoriteappssuch asNetflixjust as you would download an app via theGoogle App storeon an Android Smartphone.

In the end, Google Chromebooks cater to a very specific category of people – those who have a robust internet connection all the time. Besides that, if you are looking for an affordable large screen laptop that is highly streamlined, then this is one of the best laptops for streaming videos.

While Chromebooks likeHP 14 aboveare cheaper, not everybody is into trying out an entirely new operating system.

Plus Chromebook does not have the same familiar software that we are so fond of using. Therefore, there is a learning curve involved.

If you want to save yourself from the hassle and want to go for thebudget Windows based laptops for streaming your videos, then Acer Aspire E5-576-392H is, hands down, one of the best budget laptop in the market.

It offers the sameIntel Core i3-8130Uprocessor as we saw inHP Pavilion X360above, yet it manages to fit that at a much cheaper price tag.

Besides that, it offers an ample6 GB of RAMand a good1 TB of HDD. 1 TB is more than enough if you have a large archive of multimedia files to store.

6 GB of RAM is also an overkill for the simple task of streaming videos.

While this laptop has an excellent hardware and price, it does have its drawbacks. For starters, this is not an aesthetically appealing laptop. It has a verymundaneandbasicdesign that will give you absolutely no bragging rights at all.

Secondly, it is one of thethickestandheaviest15.6″laptop in the market. Measuring at 1.2 inches and weighing 5.27 pounds, this isn’t something that you would be able to carry around so easily.

However, while it is bulky, it does offer a long10+ hours battery life.

All in all, if you do not care much for looks and portability, but you still want a fairly powerful laptop at a budget, then this is one of the best laptops for streaming videos.

Next up we have anotherChromebook. However, instead of offering a 14″ screen like theHP Chromebook 14above, this offers a smaller11.6″screen.

This has its pros and cons. The obvious benefit here is that an 11.6″ laptop issmallerandlighter. Therefore, it is a lot more convenient to carry it around and a great laptop for school.

The drawback is that youcan’t watch movies from a distance. You will have to keep the laptop close to you to enjoy the movie watching experience. This also means that it’ll be very difficult to watch videos with a friend or two.

With that said, this laptop in itself is an absolute beauty. This is one of a few Chromebooks that offersconvertiblemechanism. As such, this laptop can essentially turn into an Android tablet as soon as you rotate it 360 degrees.

Besides that, the internal hardware is typical of a Chromebook:extremely weak. It offers an entry levelMediaTekprocessor designed for compact mobile devices. In addition to that, it offers a decent4 GB of RAMand64 GB of eMMC.

As mentioned earlier when we reviewed HP 14 Chromebook, you cannot judge Chromebooks the same way as Windows or Mac laptops. They are highly specialized laptops for cloud services.

Chromebooks encourage you to work, store and watch online. They don’t need a powerful processor or a large storage, since all the processes and storage is done online – by the servers of the web service.

In the end, we have listed this as a compact, lightweight and a convertible Chromebook option. For those who want portability, this is one of the best laptops for streaming videos.

Lastly we have a truemid range laptopthat offers a highly capable hardware.

You must note that for mere video streaming, this laptop is definitely an overkill.

We have listed this here in case if you have other hobbies such as designing, photo editing, video editing etc. Perhaps you are a student who needs a powerful laptop for various software.

In addition to that, we decided to list this laptop because this is afuture proof machine.It is powerful enough to last for years to come.

Requirements from a laptop change. If you foresee a time where you would want a laptop that can do a lot more than video streaming, then you can consider this notebook.

On first glance, you can tell that this is agorgeous machine.From itsslimbezelscreen to a mere0.7 inch thickness, this is a premium laptop.

Besides the stylish looks, this laptop offers a highly capable hardware with a powerfulQuad Core Intel Core i5-8265Uprocessor, a large8 GB of RAMand a256 GB of SSD drive.

It goes without saying here that if your requirements are ONLY limited to streaming videos, then we would note recommend that you invest on an advanced laptop as this.

This Asus laptop has a great lifespan, good power, and great style, making it one of the best laptops for streaming videos.

There is not doubt that if you want to stream videos using the laptops mentioned here, you will need a robust internet connectivity.

You can use the following standard for choosing your internet speeds for streaming

• Standard Definition: 3 Megabits per second (Mbps)
• High Definition: 5 Mbps
• For 4k (Ultra High Definition): 25 Mbps

The simple is: No,you don’t need a high upload speed. For streaming videos, download speed is what matters.

Upload speeds matters if you are going to be streamingYOUR videos live on the internet. It also matters during video chat and in other instances where face time is required.

Depending on your budget, we recommend that you at least go forFHDresolution. FHD or 1080p is also the Blu-Ray resolution.

Most of the streaming platforms like Youtube or Netflix readily offer FHD videos.

You must note that a higher resolution means your video streams will be sharper and more detailed, which might make 4k worth the money for some people.

You must also note that youCANNOT stream 4K videos on FHD display or FHD videos on HD (720P) displays.

You most certainly can. You will need to make sure that both your TV and your laptop have the required compatible ports.

Generally, TVs and laptops are connected via the HDMI ports.

However, some laptops ditch the HDMI and instead offer Thunderbolt 3. In this case, you will need to find a Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI adapter to make it compatible with your TV.

Note that while USB Type C shares the same form factor as the Thunderbolt 3, not all USB Type C can be used to connect display devices. Therefore, do not confuse USB Type C with Thunderbolt 3.

Here we looked at the best laptops for streaming videos that are great for your favorite services like Netflix or YouTube etc.

The bottom line here is simple: you don’t need an extremely powerful laptop for a task as simple as Video streaming. All you need is a laptop that is reliable and has sufficient power to perform all the basic tasks seamlessly.

For usHP Pavilion x360is a highly recommended Windows based laptop. We find its overall configuration and its portability worth it for streaming videos.

Besides that, we also love the Chromebooks. Chromebooks likeHP 14andLenovo C330are two that we recommend. Chromebooks are great since they are particularly designed for online services. In addition to that, they are also some of the cheapest laptops out there.

However, if you want a Windows based laptop on a budget, we recommend theAcer Aspire E5-576. This definitely is the crown jewel of budget laptops in the current market.

Lastly, we recommendedASUS Vivobook S15 for those who need something that is more than just capable of video streaming.