Best Laptops For Watching Movies & Netflix

We used to go to cinemas to watch movies. Now we have laptops, tablets, phones & TV. Let’s talk about what makes a great laptop for watching movies. You only need these 4 things to make your experience flawless:

• Display Size
• Resolution
• Audio
• Battery Life

Some will argue about battery life and will want to add storage to the list. Battery life is important, cables are annoying and distracting, and if you travel a lot, you need great battery life. You don’t want another thing to worry about. Storage, yes, I understand why some people worry about it, but most of the services offer to stream the movies now, so in my personal opinion, it’s not as important as the other factors.

Our criteria is clear: Display, Audio & Battery Life. That’s how we are going to make our list of best laptops for movies and Netflix, so without further ado, let’s get to it:

MacBooks have always been very popular, and with the new M2 chip, I believe they will become even more popular. It’s faster than ever, the colors are great, and the battery life is insane. They even returned the touch bar and headphone jack and also an old design from 2016.

Well, if you want to watch only movies on this, it’s quite an overkill, but if you want to work, do other stuff and watch Netflix, Disney, or other stuff, you won’t really find a better experience.

Display

13-inch Retina display with True tone(automatically adjusts color and brightness to make the most of the display). 2560×1600 resolution, same as in 2016, some update from Apple, am I right? This mac can also support an external display up to 6K resolution. But only one display.

Audio

The audio is good. At least for my ears. The stereo speakers provide a good dynamic sound. This MacBook model also has a headphone jack if you prefer to watch your movies on headphones or wires earbuds.

Battery Life

Brands always advertise a bit better battery life than it is, but in this case, it can really do up to 20 hours of use if you are careful enough. Monica Chin tested her MacBooks Pro battery life, and it took her 16 hours and 30 minutes to drain the battery. That included work, entertainment, and HD video watching.

Arguably the best 15-inch Windows laptop you can get. How could they even improve this laptop? Well, they added 12th gen Intel core processor. That made quite the difference. For those that don’t know, Dell XPS laptops are touchscreen laptops.

We can also recommend Dell XPS 13 and Dell XPS 13 Plus. They are great laptops overall and great for watching movies.

Display

Really outstanding display, the colors look amazing, everything feels enjoyable, and it has the thinnest bezels around, which makes it even better. There are 3 displays you can choose from.

1. FHD+ 1920×1200, Non-touch, Anti-glae, 500nit
2. 3.5k 3456×2160, 60Hz, OLED, Touch, Anti-Reflect, 400nit
3. UHD+ 3840×2400, 60Hz, Touch, Anti-Reflect, 500nit

Obviously, the 3rd option is the premium, with which you will get the best possible experience, but even the FHD+ display is amazing.

Audio

Audio gives your this rich sound, feel almost like you’re in a cinema. Especially when you watch specific clips or movies. The reason why it sounded that good was that Dell XPS has an immersive 3D soundscape. 3D Aidop for speakers by Waves Nx.

Battery Life

I should say Dell XPS has a great battery life because it can last up to 14h, which is honestly great, but after you tested MacBook M2 battery life, this feels like a meh…But honestly, I’m just a bit spoiled now. 14 h of battery life is still insanly great.

By the first looks of it, it’s hard to hell – is it a laptop? Is it a tablet? Is it maybe a drawing tablet?

Well…it’s sort of all of that. Unique design with some great features. You can put it into 3 positions. Laptop mode, movie mode, as I like to call it, and tablet mode. The movie mode is where you put the screen over the keyboard. It’s a nice option to have, you cover the keyboard, and there’s one less distraction to worry about.

Another thing that none of the laptops have on this list: in the package, there’s a stylus pen with which you can draw and take notes. More of a tablet thing, but this is an unusual laptop.

Display

It’s equipped with a great LCD 120Hz screen. You can change the positions of the screen in three different ways. The colors are vivid and vibrant. You can really enjoy the show you watching on the best quality. The display is surrounded by thin bezels around.

Audio

The sound is very clear. There’s no buzz or anything. A bit too clear, if you know what I mean? It could use some little extra bass, especially in some dramatic moments when you’re watching movies. We all know that sound is incredibly important in movies to really feel all emotions.

Battery Life

They claim 19h, but according to my experience and some fellow colleagues’ experiences, the average battery life is around 15 hours. I’m sure if you would adjust the brightness and use the bare minimum of resources, it could handle 19 h. Overall great battery. Charging takes around 2.5h. From 0 to 100.

The MacBook Air (M2) has gotten so good that many people have started to wonder why even anyone would buy the MacBook Pro model. The question is real. The difference is $300. Well, that’s a question for another day. Right now, we need to understand how great the M2 MacBook Air is for movies and TV shows.

Display

There is a new design, a new processor and also a new display. It’s a bit bigger now, 13.6inches(previously 13.3)MacBook Air will only support one external display, which is important information to have. The bezels around the screen were small, and now they are even smaller. They have been trimmed. The display itself is very bright (500nits). It’s not as great as MacBook’s Pro display, but still, the colors are accurate and very vivid.

Audio

The speakers used to be on the sides. Now there is an interesting change. Now the speakers are integrated between the keyboard and display. The air model has a Four-speaker sound system with a three-mic array. The sound is great. It really adds that extra value in dramatic moments of movies. I usually don’t listen to music from laptops because I can’t stand the quality, but these speakers make the music enjoyable.

Battery Life

We know that Apple claims 18h of battery life, but on average use, we only got 12, which is pretty decent but far from 18h. Perhaps I shouldn’t use so many tabs. Every time I open up Google Chrome, there are like 10+ tabs.

The one thing you can’t tell from the picture is that you can flip the screen 360. Sort of a 2-in-1 laptop. You can turn it into a tablet when you need to. They also have a pen that’s included in the package. With that, it’s also a touch-screen, as you can imagine.

Display

Bright and vivid display. It isn’t 4k or OLED, but it’s a 1080p touchscreen, and for movies, it’s really a good option.

Audio

The speakers are excellent. I would like to hear a bit more bass, but overall I would rate them good. They are loud enough, and they don’t loose quality if you increase volume. If I listen to music, I would still go with earbuds, but for movies, the quality is quite great.

Battery

I remember a few years ago when brands claimed 10+ hours of battery life, and they never delivered. It felt insane. Now almost every laptop has 12+ hours of battery life. HP Envy 13 actually claims 13 hours of battery life, and we got 12.5 h. I say close enough and if you manage brightness and how you use it, I’m sure you can get 13+ out of this device.

This is the new 2022 model, which looks exactly the same as the previous one. The design stayed the same, but the specs have changed a bit. I know that this is one of the best laptops when it comes to gaming, but I would like to argue that it’s also pretty great for Netflix. Well, it’s extremely pricey, but if you want the best laptop for movies, then price should be a factor, right?

Display

A thin bezel screen ensures that no screen space is wasted on this laptop. The display in my opinion, is great. For movies and for gaming. The 2560×1600 offers great accuracy, and Dolby Vision HDR10 provides great colors.

Audio

M16 has six-speakers, and they are good but not great. If you compare it to MacBook’s speakers, they are a bit behind, but it doesn’t ruin your experience while watching movies. It can definitely handle that very well.

Battery

If you compare the battery life to others on the list, you won’t be impressed. You can get around 7 hours of Netflix. If you’re gaming on high settings, you can only get around 2 hours of playtime.

The only Chromebook that we have on the list. We needed something different, something for you to choose from and this is a good option if you have a budget, it has a great display and a big screen, and for movies it’s great, you can rotate the screen as you like.

Display

The screen is big, 15.6 inches. I liked that, but the colors felt a bit too dim, even though the brightness was to the maximum(250nits). If you switch from a premium laptop to a budget laptop, the differences are quite notable straight away. It has thin bezels and 81% screen-to-body ratio.

Audio

CX 5 has Harmon Kardon-certified speakers. Decent quality and great volume. When you are close to maxing out the volume, you can feel the quality lowering.

Battery

The claim is 11 hours. I managed to get8 hours of video playback time. I had maximum brightness, and I believe I had maximum volume.

Verdict: Which Is The Best Laptop For Movies?

Laptop	Rating	Label
MacBook Pro	9,9/10	Best Overall
Dell XPS 15	9,8/10	Best Windows
MacBook Air	9,2/10	Best Popular Choice
ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5	7,9/10	Best Budget Pick

Well, you should have some options by now. It’s a tough decision. I personally would go for the MacBook Pro or Dell XPS. If I had a budget, I would go for MacBook Air, which really was surprisingly great, especially the battery life.

People don’t buy laptops just for movies. Usually, we want to do other tasks on it – emails, music, creating websites, photo/video editing, developing apps, creating businesses, do school work, playing games, etc. If gaming is in your heart, I recommend ASUS Rog Zephyrus M16.

There are many laptops on the market that offer a great movie-watching experience, and the best one for you will depend on your individual needs and budget. It is important to carefully consider the factors mentioned above.