Current Events > Looking to buy a new video editing laptop with stimulus

(+) Yeah! (+)

People keep telling me alienware but i have a feeling i am getting upchsrged like 20% just for the brand.

What is a good video editing laptop? I use sony vegas, adobe after effects, and maya 3d.

I asked this on the pc board and got no help. I am a bit concerned about ddr5 ram coming out soon and my computer becoming outdated right out of the gate too. I do not have much of a choice but to upgrade because my current laptop is 7 years old. Editing on it is so difficult man.

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It has been 7 years since my last computer and i am kind of confused as to what good specs are nowadays.

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What's your price range? I highly recommend Lenovo brand. I can help ya out here.

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Wouldn't it be a good idea to get a gaming laptop? Those will usually have the best graphics cards/processors which are pretty important in video editing.

I do a bit of video editing/music production myself and use a MSI laptop

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For video editing? Just get a macbook pro and call it a day.

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I do a lot of video editing at my job, I mostly use Pinnacle Studio, but the computer I use for that software isn't all that outstanding honestly. I have an Acer Aspire 5 laptop that I was bringing back and forth, but now working from home and it's fine for what I use it for. I also do a lot of Adobe Photoshop work with it. Idk if you are familiar with Pinnacle at all or if this info will help, but the laptop was barely $600 when I got it.

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AirFresh posted...

What's your price range? I highly recommend Lenovo brand. I can help ya out here.

$800-1400 after taxes. Ya the laptop i currently have is a lenovo, it will be 7 years old this november. Lenovo makes good stuff. What do you recommend.

My current specs are i7 4th gen and 16gigs ddr3 ram with a geforce 840m graphics card 1tb hybrid ssd hard disk drive. When i bought it the specs were beastly and surprisingly enough it still edits quite well despite it being extremely slow. I have done all i can to maintain it. The laptop is even on windows 7, it runs great but the software is just killing me. I cannot ram preview anything. If it were not for the fact that i am well versed in these softwares it would be impossible to work with right now. Especially rendering out high bitrate 4k videos...it cannot play them. I literally have to upload them to youtube in order to preview them.

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MabusIncarnate posted...

I do a lot of video editing at my job, I mostly use Pinnacle Studio, but the computer I use for that software isn't all that outstanding honestly. I have an Acer Aspire 5 laptop that I was bringing back and forth, but now working from home and it's fine for what I use it for. I also do a lot of Adobe Photoshop work with it. Idk if you are familiar with Pinnacle at all or if this info will help, but the laptop was barely $600 when I got it.

Nah that is not going to cut it for maya nor after effects. After effects is photoshop in motion, that software and maya is what is used on like espn and stuff for titles, highlight videos, almost all vfx you see in things like pixar, television shows and hollywood movies.

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pogo_rabid posted...

For video editing? Just get a macbook pro and call it a day.

I do not do mac.

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TrollTrace posted...

I do not do mac.

There's a reason why macs are considered king for video editing in the professional space. But ok.

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pogo_rabid posted...

There's a reason why macs are considered king for video editing in the professional space. But ok.

I am not trying to get into a discission here but i always buy pc, and i always go windows. I stick to what i know and understand. I have heard nothing but great things from mac for video editing, i even acknowledge the specs mean nothing when comparing a mac to a win pc. From what i hear macbooks run video editing software really well, with that said, i would prefer not to switch operating systems or go mac for these 2 reasons. 1. I like high internal storage and anything apple skimps out on that stuff, and 2. This one is very important, sony vegas, arguably the best sequencing program only works on windows pcs and not mac.

So that is the long answer for why i do not do mac. I could go a bit deeper about how mac products also tend to be less robust due to the way they build them. Macbooks for an editor is also very cliche, its almost like you just opted for the default choice as opposed to finding something unique.

I also do not do iphones. In general i believe apple products and the apple brand are also marked up in price just like the alienwares. So if you are willing to do your research like i did for my lenovo ideapad z710 you can get a laptop for a reasonable price, with crazy specs that lives for over 5 years and works amazing. As opposed to...buying a macbook pro just cuz thats what a lot of editors use.

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I'm using a Surface Pro and I honestly can't reccommend them. The batteries die out WAY too fast, the keyboards seem to die a year to the day and Windows 10 is just the AIDS.

My NES from 1986 is still alive and working yet I can't buy a modern laptop that can weather the pressure of my soft, supple finger tips. Not here for that.

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KlRBEH posted...

Wouldn't it be a good idea to get a gaming laptop? Those will usually have the best graphics cards/processors which are pretty important in video editing.

I do a bit of video editing/music production myself and use a MSI laptop

I was looking at the msi the specs are great and so is the price. The problem i have is the light up keyboard and it being an unknown brand to me. I was hoping to go lenovo again, it is just so hard to know what is good. I was hoping someone knowledgeable here who has kept up with pc hardware could just point me to a good lenovo laptop in my price range and be kind enough to explain to me what the ram is upgradable to, how many cores the processor has(my current laptop has 4 and it is 7 years old so i figure a good processor now should at least 6-10) i am also clueless when it comes to graphics cards. I did not know what kind of graphics card my laptop had til last month when i had a tech support session with adobe. I did not use maya before, but this is the next software i am learning, and it needs a good graphics card.

Like i know an alienware is the answer here i just know its a 20% mark up and an easy cop out. If anyone is up for the challenge of finding me a good lenovo laptop that costs $800-1400 after taxes i would really appreciate it.

Edit: i know there are tons of knowledgeable folks here, back in 2014 hardware was easier to understand but now it has become much more complicated. Back in 2014 intel processors were pretty much the gold standard, now AMD seems to have caught up and might be the way to go. I am trying to get the best bang for my buck here too. People are always impressed by my ideapad because not many laptops have over 8gigs of ram and for this to be a 2014 model. The graphics card is meh but the computer in general is super solid. I remember researching for a good week or two before deciding on it and it pays off to do your research man. A laptop lasting 7 years that has a hybrid disk drive is pretty insane. Those hybrid drives are absolute garbage. Runs perfect now though. I gotta retire her though, she did great. It is time for something new.

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Is 4k mandatory?

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TrollTrace posted...

My current specs are i7 4th gen and 16gigs ddr3 ram with a geforce 840m graphics card 1tb hybrid ssd hard disk drive.

Those are killer specs for a 7 year old laptop imo.

You can google the system requirements to see what you need. A quick look points the obvious 32 GB RAM preferred with 16GB minimum. As good as you can get for a graphic card within your budget. A processor with high cores (8 for sony vegas) and threads; if possible something that has 3GHz or at least 2GHZ base speed.

Im no expert, above is based on the requirements that your different programs seem to require.

Brand wise Alienware is definitely more expensive. Imo Asus is a good brand without the brand name tax.

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AirFresh posted...

Is 4k mandatory?

Absolutely no need for a 4K display screen. 1440p or even 1080p will do. Just would prefer if the machine was 15 inches or bigger with the number pad. Most people like small laptops, mine is enormous 17.1inches and i love it. It is nice and heavy.

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samurai bandit posted...

Those are killer specs for a 7 year old laptop imo.

You can google the system requirements to see what you need. A quick look points the obvious 32 GB RAM preferred with 16GB minimum. As good as you can get for a graphic card within your budget. A processor with high cores (8 for sony vegas) and threads; if possible something that has 3GHz or at least 2GHZ base speed.

Im no expert, above is based on the requirements that your different programs seem to require.

Brand wise Alienware is definitely more expensive. Imo Asus is a good brand without the brand name tax.

Ya the ram and processor are beasts for its time, i got lucky with the hard drive because the hybrid drives were an experimental tech, it is not uncommon for them to fail very early so i lucked out big time, i do not know about graphics cards but the guy who fixed my mousepad told me its nothing special, i was not looking for a good graphics card back then cuz i was not planning to learn 3d software. The comp runs great on windows 7 and was streaming 4k off youtube when it had windows 10 installed.

The sad thing about this is that i never even used it optimally. Only recently when i decided to take it to a technician and then reinstall win 7, apply the customized high contrast mode, set the look to xp, make the bg black, switch to dark theme on everything and run ms edge and keep google chrome off the system after deleting years of temp and %temp% files and organizing everything to finish off with a disk defragment. The thing is running so smooth. It loads after effects 2018 in no time, ram previews suck but everything moves super smooth. I wish i took better care of it man. I think the ram is even upgradable to 32gb.

My dad has an Asus hes had for like 6 years. Runs perfect. Asus is def good. They are more consumer friendly though. I do not think they do gaming comps though.

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samurai bandit posted...

Those are killer specs for a 7 year old laptop imo.

You can google the system requirements to see what you need. A quick look points the obvious 32 GB RAM preferred with 16GB minimum. As good as you can get for a graphic card within your budget. A processor with high cores (8 for sony vegas) and threads; if possible something that has 3GHz or at least 2GHZ base speed.

Im no expert, above is based on the requirements that your different programs seem to require.

Brand wise Alienware is definitely more expensive. Imo Asus is a good brand without the brand name tax.

Thanks for the advice btw. The problem i am running into is a lot of these sites only list the processor by name and do not provide the ghz for the processors, they wont tell you the cores, they wont tell you what the ram is upgradable to, sometimes they wont even tell you the kind of ram it is so itll be like 32gb and everything is running ddr4 but oddly enough every laptop is priced higher and has like 8gigs of ram. So its fishy, obv the ram has to be ddr3. All these gimmicks man. Its a nightmare.

Tigerdirect is the only honest site and surprisingly enough so is best buy.

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DeadlyNinjaBees posted...

I'm using a Surface Pro and I honestly can't reccommend them. The batteries die out WAY too fast, the keyboards seem to die a year to the day and Windows 10 is just the AIDS.

My NES from 1986 is still alive and working yet I can't buy a modern laptop that can weather the pressure of my soft, supple finger tips. Not here for that.

Tiny laptops like that are neat, an old coworker would let me use his and it was very neat. I always felt like the capacity on those were severely limited due to them being tablets. There is so much interesting tech i have no clue where to start, like they have sketch pads so if you use photoshop you can just draw on it, if you do that you can just screencap your drawings and have a dope youtube channel. But yah all those computers are all very limited, usually low disk space, low specs. I think my best friend has one without the keyboard and it has 100gigs of ssd, just to give you an idea of what a project i just did took space wise, 90gigs bro, i do file conversions uncompressed out of habit from pro projects, so i need my hd space. I cannot do anything below 1tb ssd because like 10 minutes of compressed 4k footage takes up around 20gigs, uncompressed is like...i dunno 5-10x that. Thats what i do not understand about new editors who focus on color correction like its the gospel but have to work with compressed footage, the precise color work is degraded but they wont go to a dif comp with higher disk space bc they cannot see the pixels as good on the screen to color correct, it makes no sense, they opt for the screen for color accyrmmuracy and degrade the color cuz they work with compressed files O_o

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TrollTrace posted...

My dad has an Asus hes had for like 6 years. Runs perfect. Asus is def good. They are more consumer friendly though. I do not think they do gaming comps though.

Both Lenovo and Asus have gaming laptops now. Since you like Lenovo just visit their official store https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/gaming/shop

They do provide good details on the specs (if not just google the name of the processor to get its specs), they might even say if the ram is expandable or not.

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samurai bandit posted...

Both Lenovo and Asus have gaming laptops now. Since you like Lenovo just visit their official store https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/gaming/shop

They do provide good details on the specs (if not just google the name of the processor to get its specs), they might even say if the ram is expandable or not.

Just talked with a lenovo sales person. They tried to sell me junk. Then they tried to sell me their most expensive legion computers which are marked up like 500 and then tried to sell me another legion at a more reasonable(but still ridiculous price). Lenovo can kiss my ass. I guess when i bought lenovo was not the top dog. Now that they are they are taking advantage of people.

Time to try asus.

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