Affordable video editing laptop recommendations?

[Aereldor]

Greetings.

 

I'm going to be travelling a fair amount over the next year, and I also wanted to have a machine on hand to replace my ancient 2009 Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. During my travels, I've planned to continue shooting vlogs with my camcorder at 1080p, and since I won't be lugging my gigantic desktop around with me, I wanted something capable to edit videos on. I should probably mention that I'm going to be using fairly lightweight programs like Sony Movie Studio 13 or HitFilm 3.

 

I was eyeing the $800 Dell Inspiron 7559 that Linus showed off recently as a budget gaming monster with a 4GB GTX 960M, but seeing as I didn't need a mobile gaming machine, I could afford to work with the integrated graphics. Also, I was looking at a price point closer to $500, if anything adequate exists there.

 

The requirements are pretty standard for an editing laptop- however, if you believe that some of these aren't necessary or if a certain requirement is overkill, do feel free to omit it as long as it is within reason.

• A decent processor- I'm told I'll need at least a quad-core i5 for smooth 1080p editing and passable rendering times.
• 8GB of RAM- more would be nice, but 8 should cut it, and less than 8 is probably a bad idea.
• A relatively colour-accurate display with a minimum resolution of 1080p. I don't need the best display out there, but I will need something with an adequate colour gamut.
• Decent build quality- I won't expect a tank or a beautiful finish at this point, but I would prefer to have something solid.
• Good internal audio, for listening and perhaps some light recording and production that this laptop will doubtless be used for.

And, foremost, as low a price as you can find. It would be nice to have decent integrated graphics, as that would make the machine capable of some light gaming (I hear the Broadwell Iris Pro iGPUs are the best offer from Intel). Also, even though I'm likely to use a mouse for most of my work, it would be nice to have a decent trackpad too- it's what I'll miss most about the aforementioned 2009 MacBook Pro.

 

If you have personal experience using it, I'll consider the aforementioned Dell Inspiron a recommendation, if you can tell me why it's worth the extra.

I appreciate any recommendations you have to offer.

 

Regards,
Aereldor.

[Mazeman03]

Macs are probably the best laptops for editing. Other then like a gaming laptop but that's over kill

[glitchmaster0001]

i think that the Dell Inspiron 7559 is a pretty solid choice because ive used sony vegas before and it heavily uses the GPU to accelerate and edit videos. 

[Aereldor]

Just now, Mazeman03 said:

Macs are probably the best laptops for editing. Other then like a gaming laptop but that's over kill

The cheapest Mac laptop is an 11-inch MacBook air with a 1.8/2.7 (turbo) GHz dual-core i5 and 4GB of RAM, and it goes for $899. I'm not willing to consider a used Mac either.

[glitchmaster0001]

2 minutes ago, Mazeman03 said:

Macs are probably the best laptops for editing. Other then like a gaming laptop but that's over kill

macs do have a very smooth OS but i dont think they have the raw power a gaming laptop can offer. but i dont think OP has the cash for a $1000+ laptop 

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

i think that the Dell Inspiron 7559 is a pretty solid choice because ive used sony vegas before and it heavily uses the GPU to accelerate and edit videos. 

I know the Inspiron 7559 is excellent value with a GTX 960M, 250GB SSD, a Skylake quad-core i5, 8 GB of RAM, and a solid 1080p IPS display, but if all that can be crammed into a package for $800, surely there must be something without the GPU for a lower price.

[exercutor5]

7 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I know the Inspiron 7559 is excellent value with a GTX 960M, 250GB SSD, a Skylake quad-core i5, 8 GB of RAM, and a solid 1080p IPS display, but if all that can be crammed into a package for $800, surely there must be something without the GPU for a lower price.

Ehhh, the CUDA cores in the GPU is useful for editing videos. It would not do as well on integrated graphics.

[Mazeman03]

14 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

The cheapest Mac laptop is an 11-inch MacBook air with a 1.8/2.7 (turbo) GHz dual-core i5 and 4GB of RAM, and it goes for $899. I'm not willing to consider a used Mac either.

Oh you should of started with I'm a Intel fag boy

[glitchmaster0001]

15 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I know the Inspiron 7559 is excellent value with a GTX 960M, 250GB SSD, a Skylake quad-core i5, 8 GB of RAM, and a solid 1080p IPS display, but if all that can be crammed into a package for $800, surely there must be something without the GPU for a lower price.

you do realize that the cpu is an skylake core i5 6300HQ which essentially has the equivalent power of a core i3 4160 DESKTOP Processor. if you opt for a $500 laptop you would mostly likely get either a haswell or broadwell cpu for example

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315167&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=7930973&SID=

this acer chromebook has a core i5 5257U which has very little power when compared to the 6300HQ both in graphical and CPU power.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315167&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=7930973&SID=

 

this is the same laptop spec and chassis wise but it has windows instead. if you want to do video editing i doubt that using the igpu is powerful enough to do it efficiently. not saying that it is impossible but it would make more sense to save up a little more money to get something better. like the dell inspiron 7759 

 

Both these laptops are dual cores so yeah, $500 aint gonna get you a beast if you try to buy new either you look into buying used or save up $300 more. because like i said earlier, video editing uses the GPU to accelerate the process. an igpu from a U series laptop isnt powerful enough to edit videos as they were not designed to do so. the U series were designed to be battery efficient and not run hot. they were made mostly to surf the web and maybe play minecraft at lowest settings with 40-60fps. 

[Aereldor]

Just now, Mazeman03 said:

Oh you should of started with I'm a Intel fag boy

There's no reason to be rude. Just because someone disagrees with your point doesn't make them scum of the earth that are beneath your boots.

 

Even the cheapest Mac laptop is out of my budget and still doesn't offer the performance I need, so I'm not willing to consider it. Was my reply really offensive enough to warrant such an uncivil response?

[Mazeman03]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

There's no reason to be rude. Just because someone disagrees with your point doesn't make them scum of the earth that are beneath your boots.

 

Even the cheapest Mac laptop is out of my budget and still doesn't offer the performance I need, so I'm not willing to consider it. Was my reply really offensive enough to warrant such an uncivil response?

Fan not fag sorry about that 

[Aereldor]

Just now, glitchmaster0001 said:

you do realize that the cpu is an skylake core i5 6300HQ which essentially has the equivalent power of a core i3 4160 DESKTOP Processor. if you opt for a $500 laptop you would mostly likely get either a haswell or broadwell cpu for example

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315167&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=7930973&SID=

this acer chromebook has a core i5 5257U which has very little power when compared to the 6300HQ both in graphical and CPU power.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315167&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=7930973&SID=

 

this is the same laptop spec and chassis wise but it has windows instead. if you want to do video editing i doubt that using the igpu is powerful enough to do it efficiently. not saying that it is impossible but it would make more sense to save up a little more money to get something better. like the dell inspiron 7759 

 

You make a good point. The drawbacks of a mobile Haswell or Broadwell i5 are that they're usually hyperthreaded dual-cores.

 

It's a solid recommendation, and thanks for your insight into the matter. I just don't know when- if at all- I'll be able to afford it. The currency of my country is doing pretty poorly compared to the US dollar.

 

I suppose I'll try to save what I can and put it towards the Dell Inspiron 7559, or work with the MacBook I have now, although I can't find software that will allow proxy video editing downsampled to 480p (anything higher, and hello stutter...).

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, Mazeman03 said:

Fan not fag sorry about that 

That doesn't help much. Also, if you do want to argue your case, all macs ship with Intel processors, and I'm not anti-mac either. I owned one a decade ago back when they still used the PowerPC architecture, and I'm still using an Intel Core 2 Duo based MacBook pro. 

 

I also know what sort of power I need, and I know for a fact that the base model MacBook Air simply doesn't have it. I'm not compulsively deriding Mac computers- I have very good reasons for not choosing them.

 

In short, I don't accept your apology, nor do I want it. I'm sorry if this may sound harsh, but if you do not want to make a point that contributes to the discussion, then I wouldn't appreciate any further interaction with you.

[Mazeman03]

Just now, Aereldor said:

That doesn't help much. Also, if you do want to argue your case, all macs ship with Intel processors, and I'm not anti-mac either. I owned one a decade ago back when they still used the PowerPC architecture, and I'm still using an Intel Core 2 Duo based MacBook pro. 

 

I also know what sort of power I need, and I know for a fact that the base model MacBook Air simply doesn't have it. I'm not compulsively deriding Mac computers- I have very good reasons for not choosing them.

 

In short, I don't accept your apology, nor do I want it. I'm sorry if this may sound harsh, but if you do not want to make a point that contributes to the discussion, then I wouldn't appreciate any further interaction with you.

If you know what you need you'd be out buying it and not asking what you need.

[glitchmaster0001]

40 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Greetings.

 

I'm going to be travelling a fair amount over the next year, and I also wanted to have a machine on hand to replace my ancient 2009 Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. During my travels, I've planned to continue shooting vlogs with my camcorder at 1080p, and since I won't be lugging my gigantic desktop around with me, I wanted something capable to edit videos on. I should probably mention that I'm going to be using fairly lightweight programs like Sony Movie Studio 13 or HitFilm 3.

 

I was eyeing the $800 Dell Inspiron 7559 that Linus showed off recently as a budget gaming monster with a 4GB GTX 960M, but seeing as I didn't need a mobile gaming machine, I could afford to work with the integrated graphics. Also, I was looking at a price point closer to $500, if anything adequate exists there.

 

The requirements are pretty standard for an editing laptop- however, if you believe that some of these aren't necessary or if a certain requirement is overkill, do feel free to omit it as long as it is within reason.

• A decent processor- I'm told I'll need at least a quad-core i5 for smooth 1080p editing and passable rendering times.
• 8GB of RAM- more would be nice, but 8 should cut it, and less than 8 is probably a bad idea.
• A relatively colour-accurate display with a minimum resolution of 1080p. I don't need the best display out there, but I will need something with an adequate colour gamut.
• Decent build quality- I won't expect a tank or a beautiful finish at this point, but I would prefer to have something solid.
• Good internal audio, for listening and perhaps some light recording and production that this laptop will doubtless be used for.

And, foremost, as low a price as you can find. It would be nice to have decent integrated graphics, as that would make the machine capable of some light gaming (I hear the Broadwell Iris Pro iGPUs are the best offer from Intel). Also, even though I'm likely to use a mouse for most of my work, it would be nice to have a decent trackpad too- it's what I'll miss most about the aforementioned 2009 MacBook Pro.

 

If you have personal experience using it, I'll consider the aforementioned Dell Inspiron a recommendation, if you can tell me why it's worth the extra.

I appreciate any recommendations you have to offer.

 

Regards,
Aereldor.

if you are traveling next year then you can save up now and then wait till black friday/cyber monday sales then buy yourself a laptop. i bought my gaming laptop for $799 and it was an MSI GE62 Apache 276 the only reason why i bought it was because of how upgradeable it is. like i can add in 3 more SSDs and still have the 1TB hard drive along with the optical drive. to me the upgradeablity of the laptop justified the fact that it had less VRAM than the Dell and also that the dell came with a new processor and a better IPS screen 

[Aereldor]

Just now, Mazeman03 said:

If you know what you need you'd be out buying it and not asking what you need.

I know what kind of components I need, but I don't know of any models with those components that match my budget. Hence, I thought I'd ask the users of this forum who almost always know a whole lot more than I do- Glitchmaster0001 being an example.

 

Unlike you, I'm not here to pick a fight. I will no longer be responding to your comments.

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

if you are traveling next year then you can save up now and then wait till black friday/cyber monday sales then buy yourself a laptop. i bought my gaming laptop for $799 and it was an MSI GE62 Apache 276

Holy cow! Now that's a deal.

 

I suppose I can live with the MacBook I have for some time and try to downsample/use proxy footage for the first few vlogs. Thank you for your help, friend.

[glitchmaster0001]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

Holy cow! Now that's a deal.

 

I suppose I can live with the MacBook I have for some time and try to downsample/use proxy footage for the first few vlogs. Thank you for your help, friend.

no problem, and i hope you enjoy your travels with a new laptop for video editing!