6 Best Laptops for Podcasting [Any Budget]

The best laptop for podcasting sports enough horsepower for modest recording needs. Realistically, you’ll want a machine that’s stable above anything else, because you don’t want crashes to interrupt the flow of a monologue or conversation.

Obviously, your needs will vary whether you’re recording your own show for fun, or if you’re a podcast producer with multiple gigs. For personal use, you can definitely get away with a budget laptop; it doesn’t have to be a top-of-the-line computer. But if you make podcasts professionally in any capacity, it’s best to spend a little extra cash for more power.

3 Best Budget Laptops for Podcasting [Under $500]

The great news is you can find podcast-ready machines for under 500 bucks. That’s an absolute steal regardless of intended use, but especially so for recording. Here are our favorites for anyone with a tighter budget or an interest in podcasting as a hobby.

Acer Aspire 5

The Acer Aspire 5 is an impressive computer for the price. Specs are right in line with what you’d need for simple recording, editing, and mixing: 8GB of RAM, a spry quad-core processor, and a roomy 256GB SSD. Not to mention this is a 15.6″ laptop as well, so you won’t have to squint at the DAW when you’re editing.

Dell Inspiron 15 3000

Next up is a similarly specced option from Dell in the Inspiron 15 series. Again, we’re looking at a decent 11th-gen Intel quad-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. It might not win any speed tests, but it’s certainly a well-rounded machine with enough juice to get some podcast work done.

Asus Vivobook 17.3″

My favorite laptop for podcasting under $500 is this Asus. Not only do you get a hefty 17″ screen, but you get more RAM (12GB) and storage (1TB) than similarly priced machines. The 10th-gen Intel Core i5 isn’t at all a dinosaur, lending itself to a really great value all around.

3 Best Professional Laptops for Podcasting

While inexpensive laptops are really enticing, if you have the extra cash to invest in a more powerful machine, I’d recommend it. If you’re even reading this article, then you have an interest in podcasting/recording and maybe even music production. For that, you want long-lasting stability, and a higher end laptop can provide that.

My top choices for professional laptops are all Apple; they’re the industry standard for recording, and the operating system is rock solid. You also have access to the Mac-exclusive Logic Pro, which you might want to consider if you haven’t picked up a DAW already.

MacBook Air (M2 Chip)

Apple recently announced the arrival of the new MacBook Air with an M2 chip. Affordable are far as Mac machines go, it has plenty of life to power podcasting. The baseline model offers an 8-core CPU, 8GB of memory, and a 256GB SSD. It’s worth noting that because the M2 chip is new, it will take software developers some time catch up in making their stuff compatible. Double check that whatever you’d like to use can run on this laptop first.

MacBook Pro (13″)

Next in line for an M2 reboot is the 13″ MacBook Pro. Again we see an 8-core CPU, 8GB of memory, and a 256GB SSD for the starting specs. Apple measures an overall 6x increase in performance over the previous Intel-based computers, so this is definitely a laptop that could potentially grow with expanding sessions if you plan to dabble in more advanced audio production down the road.

MacBook Pro (16″)

For a machine that can handle even the most demanding tasks, look no further than the 16″ MacBook Pro. It doesn’t come cheap, but the specs start with a 10-core CPU, 16GB of memory, a 512GB SSD — going up from there. This is easily at the top of the list of the best laptops for podcasting, as well as for any type of professional work.