Wife's New Laptop

[weatherman797]

Hi Everyone,

 

New to this forum but have been watching LTT for years. My wife is big into recreational travel vlogs and producing videos of our travels. She hasn't done anything professionally with this yet (more of a hobby at this point) but has expressed interest in pursuing this further. Currently she has a 2013 MacBook Pro with not nearly enough storage (MacOs is so full of bloatwear and whatever "system" allocated storage is) and it just isn't cutting it anymore (very slow, old, i7 processor and ddr3 memory).

 

My wife has expressed multiple times that this is something that she would like to get back into and while I have a laptop she can use, she wants her own (frankly don't blame her). Her major workloads will be video/photo editing based and gaming is not the top priority in this case.

 

Looking for suggestions for a laptop, preferably within the following parameters:

- 1000-1300 USD price point

- discrete GPU for hardware encoding

- good build quality

- 15 inch screen that is color accurate

- Windows based (I am the acting IT department in our house and I don't like MacOS)

 

Please let me know your thoughts/questions. I am assuming you need additional information but I left this fairly open-ended with the hopes of hearing of something that wouldn't have crossed my mind.

 

Thanks!

[DrMacintosh]

44 minutes ago, weatherman797 said:

- discrete GPU for hardware encoding

44 minutes ago, weatherman797 said:

- Windows based (I am the acting IT department in our house and I don't like MacOS)

I know you asked for these things, but I gotta tell ya, Apple Silicon Macs were almost specifically made to be video editing beasts. Needing a dedicated GPU to get faster than real time encoding is a thing of the past because of their hardware accelerated video encoders. In my professional opinion, I think an Apple Silicon Mac is the only type of computer someone interested in video editing should look into. 

 

If she can get away with 13", you can get a M1 MacBook Air with 512GB of storage for $1,199 which will encode video extremely well. I'm talking 4K video streams that render faster than real time in a fanless body. 

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/space-gray-apple-m1-chip-with-8-core-cpu-and-7-core-gpu-256gb

 

For active cooling, which brings better performance, you can get a refurbished 512GB M1 MacBook Pro for $1,229:

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FYDC2LL/A/refurbished-133-inch-macbook-pro-apple-m1-chip-with-8‑core-cpu-and-8‑core-gpu-silver?fnode=e3ba5fa47debeb4b4e6a4cb2865c3524489cc5161dd9e0a830105218784b61ec7f93fa7598d7e9445325f1a0156c05311f8007994b09edb724b86eea546d35d88cd7bfc2b983d7bce81a691eea896140

 

These machines are crazy powerfu, get exceptional battery life, and weigh less than 3lbs. But don't take my word for it:

 

[husseinHr]

Just adding a worthwhile consideration here about buying second hand or refurb to get much more for your money.

[weatherman797]

1 hour ago, husseinHr said:

Just adding a worthwhile consideration here about buying second hand or refurb to get much more for your money.

@husseinHr - the only thing I worry about with a refurb or second hand is reliability. any thoughts on this?

[weatherman797]

2 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

I know you asked for these things, but I gotta tell ya, Apple Silicon Macs were almost specifically made to be video editing beasts. Needing a dedicated GPU to get faster than real time encoding is a thing of the past because of their hardware accelerated video encoders. In my professional opinion, I think an Apple Silicon Mac is the only type of computer someone interested in video editing should look into. 

 

If she can get away with 13", you can get a M1 MacBook Air with 512GB of storage for $1,199 which will encode video extremely well. I'm talking 4K video streams that render faster than real time in a fanless body. 

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/space-gray-apple-m1-chip-with-8-core-cpu-and-7-core-gpu-256gb

 

For active cooling, which brings better performance, you can get a refurbished 512GB M1 MacBook Pro for $1,229:

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FYDC2LL/A/refurbished-133-inch-macbook-pro-apple-m1-chip-with-8‑core-cpu-and-8‑core-gpu-silver?fnode=e3ba5fa47debeb4b4e6a4cb2865c3524489cc5161dd9e0a830105218784b61ec7f93fa7598d7e9445325f1a0156c05311f8007994b09edb724b86eea546d35d88cd7bfc2b983d7bce81a691eea896140

 

These machines are crazy powerfu, get exceptional battery life, and weigh less than 3lbs. But don't take my word for it:

 

@DrMacintosh - I know you're right about the above. The unfortunate thing in both of these scenarios however is the lack of upgradability of SSD storage (which was a problem on her current mac). We have everything backed up on external drives. I'm not necessarily poo-pooing the idea, just looking for more options than the Macbook.

[DrMacintosh]

45 minutes ago, weatherman797 said:

The unfortunate thing in both of these scenarios however is the lack of upgradability of SSD storage

I get the concern over storage, honestly I don’t think cramming multiple terabytes of data into a single machine is the wisest method of storing data. External HDDs and SSDs are relatively cheap and fast. It’s good to only keep a few projects on your machine at a time. But that if you would like to have that option, I think this is a good machine: 

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/lenovo/lenovo_slim_series/lenovo-slim-7-16-inch-amd/82ux0001us?clickid=Vi0yDI3Q1xyNTVn06z1Nu0WUUkDSoX2JxzWH2Y0&irgwc=1&PID=10451&acid=ww%3Aaffiliate%3Abv0as6&cid=us%3Aaffiliate%3Acxsaam

It’s on sale right now, so now would be a good time to buy since the MSRP is significantly higher. 

 

It has a decent display that is at least as bright as the Macs I mentioned. It’s got 100% sRGB too so while it’s not crazy color accurate, it’s pretty darn good.

[husseinHr]

On 11/15/2022 at 5:13 AM, weatherman797 said:

@husseinHr - the only thing I worry about with a refurb or second hand is reliability. any thoughts on this?

In a way, it's up to you to consider the risk. I built my own PC with all brand new parts, but I still have problems with it, just as I may or may not have with a second hand one. Refurb is relatively safe, IMO. You tend to be able to return the item if it's faulty (check the terms). And if you have insurance that covers your tech items, that can give you some real security. Besides, there's always a percentage of brand new laptops that develop problems, and customer support may be crap anyway. 

For me, I think it's worth it because you get much more for your money. What I built myself with brand new parts for about £1200, I could've bought second hand for £600-800 easy, and from legit users. Refurb, I would've saved less but still saved a lot, and could've spent it elsewhere. Or I could spend £1200 on a used PC and get a real beast of a machine. 

I tend to regret not going with used/refurb. Benefit of refurb is you can get something rated A+ or a D-, and when buying for your wife, you may want to be specific in your choice. When buying used, you can see the condition and test the product when you get there. 

I wish you good luck, whatever you choose