Looking for Laptop Capable of Video/Short Film editing

[lucarobins96]

Hello everyone! I'm looking for a bit of help in searching for the ideal laptop. We're looking for something capable of handling video editing for short films and projects on the go.

Now there are a couple of things I'm personally not aware of myself (like what brand of graphics card is more suitable, what OS will be the best fit, is HDD SSD or LSD better), but I do have a general idea of what we need/are looking for.

Minimum requirements are that it can handle editing for extended periods of time, good airflow so it doesn't overheat, a great quality display (maybe not 4k, but something that looks great when editing), great battery life if possible, and all around capabilities.

I know that laptops can't give the same performance as a desktop, but for our purposes we will need it to be mobile. And there are a few other features we would like that would be nice, but are not deal breakers if they are not in the laptop.

These features are:
Touchscreen
Back-lit Keyboard
High space Hard drive(Open to using a portable drive if quality is not lost)

Other than that, we would appreciate any recommendations you all may have or whether or not you think one OS is better than another and other things of a similar nature.

Thank you for your time, and hope to hear from you!

 

[darkbreeze]

LSD is good, but not legal. Ok, that's a joke, and I have no idea what you mean by "LSD" There are HDD, SSD and SSHD, but no LSD that I am aware of. There are also PCIe NVME M.2 SSD, SATA SSD and SATA M.2 SSD.

In order of speeds, those rank, from top to bottom (Mostly, there are some slower versions of all drives, so nothing is "all".)

PCIe M.2
SATA M.2/SATA SSD
SSHD
HDD

Generally speaking, a standard SATA SSD like the Samsung 850 EVO is a good, safe, fast, reliable bet. Also the Sandisk Ultra II series.

It is more expensive to get a laptop WITH an SSD, than it is usually to buy the laptop and then ADD an SSD. You can buy the SSD yourself for less than the manufacturer will usually charge for a model WITH an SSD.

Plus, you end up with an extra hard drive for backing things up or storing files you don't want on the OS drive that way. Win win.

Asking for a laptop that won't have thermal issues during long term, extended, demanding sessions where you are editing or encoding video is like asking for a car that doesn't need gas. Good luck with that. Laptops get hot. Period. There is only so much cooling you can stuff inside one, although models that come with discreet cards AND separate coolers for the CPU and GPU card are your best bet as far as not having thermal issues any more than is simply not possible due to the internal size limitations.

The fact that laptops have gotten smaller and thinner has only compounded this problem, rather than it getting better with new tech, as there is even less space inside them to fit heatsinks and fans, and anything with high enough performance to do the kinds of tasks you are looking to do is not going to get by with passive type hardware than can stay cool enough without active cooling. Usually, these are gaming machines or graphics specific workstation laptops. Both types of machines are significantly more expensive than standard all purpose models or your now common light, thin and convertible type units.

What is your maximum budget for a laptop?

 

[lucarobins96]

LSD is good, but not legal. Ok, that's a joke, and I have no idea what you mean by "LSD" There are HDD, SSD and SSHD, but no LSD that I am aware of. There are also PCIe NVME M.2 SSD, SATA SSD and SATA M.2 SSD.

In order of speeds, those rank, from top to bottom (Mostly, there are some slower versions of all drives, so nothing is "all".)

PCIe M.2
SATA M.2/SATA SSD
SSHD
HDD

Generally speaking, a standard SATA SSD like the Samsung 850 EVO is a good, safe, fast, reliable bet. Also the Sandisk Ultra II series.

It is more expensive to get a laptop WITH an SSD, than it is usually to buy the laptop and then ADD an SSD. You can buy the SSD yourself for less than the manufacturer will usually charge for a model WITH an SSD.

Plus, you end up with an extra hard drive for backing things up or storing files you don't want on the OS drive that way. Win win.

Asking for a laptop that won't have thermal issues during long term, extended, demanding sessions where you are editing or encoding video is like asking for a car that doesn't need gas. Good luck with that. Laptops get hot. Period. There is only so much cooling you can stuff inside one, although models that come with discreet cards AND separate coolers for the CPU and GPU card are your best bet as far as not having thermal issues any more than is simply not possible due to the internal size limitations.

The fact that laptops have gotten smaller and thinner has only compounded this problem, rather than it getting better with new tech, as there is even less space inside them to fit heatsinks and fans, and anything with high enough performance to do the kinds of tasks you are looking to do is not going to get by with passive type hardware than can stay cool enough without active cooling. Usually, these are gaming machines or graphics specific workstation laptops. Both types of machines are significantly more expensive than standard all purpose models or your now common light, thin and convertible type units.

What is your maximum budget for a laptop?

Forgive me, I thought Liquid state drives were a thing, but I suppose I misheard. XD

Our budget is around $1,000 or less. And I understand having thermal issues in laptops is common. We were initially looking at an ultrabook for this, but they've been known to have an even more difficult time with heat. We'll likely be using a laptop cooling pad no matter what to be safe.

Altogether we want good power, but also a good deal. If we needed to buy other parts to replace in it, we'd be more than happy to do so if it were to make it better.

 

[darkbreeze]

Laptop cooling pads will help to reduce overall heat, and might somewhat help with extending the life of the electronics for the motherboard, keyboard, drives and memory, but they do practically nothing for the CPU or GPU as those require direct contact for the cooling to be of any use and CPU and GPU thermals rise and fall by many celcius nearly instantaneously based on load or lack of load, so only a heatsink with direct contact onto the CPU or GPU surface, and therefore to the IHS and die, can actually make any difference on those temps that matters.

I don't think it can hurt though, but I've not really seen any convincing evidence that they actually help with CPU or GPU temps though. Mostly, they just keep the case and whatever is in contact with the case, a little cooler. Better to simply buy a well designed model.

Also, the type of unit a thousand dollars would have bought you a year ago is not what you can expect to get now as memory and GPU prices have skyrocket to levels of insanity that have basically not been seen before since the very early days of computing. Memory today is more than double the price of what it was a year ago. Graphics cards and GPUs are two to sometimes more than double the price than they were even four months ago.

Do you have any other prerequisites like specific screen size, specific resolution requirement (Can tell you up front you will not find a highly reliable unit with what I would consider to be minimum specs for this kind of purpose, at higher than 1080p for 1000 dollars or less.), HDR output capability to external monitors, battery life requirement (Gonna be power hungry anyhow, so hopefully you'll mostly be using this where it can usually be left plugged in during intense usage) or any other deal breakers?

Also, so far as I know, liquid state drives are still only theoretical. LOL. Be nice if they were actually a "thing".

 

[lucarobins96]

We don't have any particular screen size, but I feel like resolution should be at least 1080p. We aren't planning on using multiple monitors, so output isn't an issue. And a better than average battery life would be ideal if possible, but other than that I don't think we have any hangups.

Mostly the efficiency, cooling (if possible), and the power is what we're looking for while being "mobile".

And darnit, I knew I heard it somewhere. Too bad it was a fantasy for now. Lol

 

[darkbreeze]

Ok, so it's rather hard to "choose" a laptop for somebody else, and I try to never do that because there are also personal factors involved to some degree but mostly people like to also be part of the process. Also, I always highly recommend doing a bit of further research into specific model recommendations looking for professional reviews or major trends in reviews from places like Best Buy, Newegg and Amazon, but to take the specifics of any one review at those places with a BIG grain of salt due to the fact that you need to seriously consider most of the time there are as high as 60-70% of poor product reviews that are simply due to people either not fully recognizing and being aware of what it was they were actually buying in the first place or having a serious lack of technical capability that is really no fault of the hardware. Rather, it is them being to dumb to understand the device or machine and actually utilize it.

That is not to say that I think everybody who rates something poorly is stupid, but a lot of them are to blame for the shortcomings they blame on the hardware or electronics. Certainly there are some who review that are obviously knowledgeable and in those cases you can usually tell. Trends are more important. If thirty people are all saying something does the same thing, it probably IS a problem with that thing.

So given that bit of advice, these are some models that I believe will likely be capable of doing what you are looking for to one degree or another. Obviously, price can be a major factor and also a hindrance to actually getting what you want or need, but paying more does not always mean getting more. Often it does, but not in every case. Professional reviews and trends tell the real story.

To be totally honest, for what you are wanting to do I think that a unit with a mid to upper tiered mobile Quadro GPU would be a better choice, but those are probably 60-80% more expensive, so settling for a half decent gaming card to handle the graphics grunt work is a good second option. Also, the gaming units will likely have more robust cooling than business or workstation units, so there's that too. For heavy encoding and other video centric processes, I think having the i7 is the best option and one that should be absolutely mandatory in any video productivity machine whether laptop or desktop.

https/www.amazon.com/HP-i7-7700HQ-Processor-solid-state-15-cb079nr/dp/B075VT9LFC/ref=sr_1_11?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517985145&sr=1-11&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2289792011%2Cp_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A13580803011%7C9647486011%2Cp_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A13580790011%7C13580789011%7C13580788011%7C13580791011%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011%2Cp_n_graphics_type_browse-bin%3A14292273011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A7817234011%7C2423841011



https/www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-i7-7700HQ-1060-6GB-G3-571-77QK/dp/B06Y4GZS9C/ref=sr_1_12?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517985270&sr=1-12&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2289792011%2Cp_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A13580803011%7C9647486011%2Cp_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A13580790011%7C13580789011%7C13580788011%7C13580791011%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011%2Cp_n_graphics_type_browse-bin%3A14292273011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A7817234011%7C2423841011


https/www.amazon.com/VivoBook-i7-8550U-Processor-Keyboard-N705UD-EH76/dp/B07661CYPD/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517983677&sr=1-1&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2289792011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A7817234011%2Cp_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A13580803011%7C9647486011%2Cp_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A13580790011%7C13580789011%7C13580788011%7C13580791011%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011


https/www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Y700-Storage-GeForce-80Q0008XUS/dp/B01FJFNDZ4/ref=sr_1_11?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517984430&sr=1-11&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2289792011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A7817234011%2Cp_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A13580803011%7C9647486011%2Cp_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A13580790011%7C13580789011%7C13580788011%7C13580791011%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011


https/www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Y700-Gaming-i7-6700HQ-80NV00W4US/dp/B01LNOECNW/ref=sr_1_10?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517984848&sr=1-10&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2289792011%2Cp_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A13580803011%7C9647486011%2Cp_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A13580790011%7C13580789011%7C13580788011%7C13580791011%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011%2Cp_n_graphics_type_browse-bin%3A14292273011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A7817234011%7C2423841011

https/www.amazon.com/HP-i7-7700HQ-Processor-solid-state-15-cb079nr/dp/B075VT9LFC/ref=sr_1_11?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517985121&sr=1-11&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2289792011%2Cp_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A13580803011%7C9647486011%2Cp_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A13580790011%7C13580789011%7C13580788011%7C13580791011%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011%2Cp_n_graphics_type_browse-bin%3A14292273011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A7817234011%7C2423841011


Those jump out right off the bat. Certainly there are a lot of other choices out there, but prices generally go up into the 1300-1500 dollar range if you want to see a better graphics card or additional memory.