More laptop questions

I know it’s been discussed before but the last thread I can see is from last September and I know things change quickly.

I’m pretty illiterate when it comes to hardware (and I’m not sure I could add RAM or something like that). What would you say were the minimum specs for a Windows laptop worth buying to do some video editing on? I’m assuming 16Gb of RAM? Is the processor as important? I was just looking at some on CeX thinking maybe I could get a better deal second hand instead of buying brand new.

Something like this seems very cheap, is there some reason why it’s no good:

https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail?id=slaphp840g365b&categoryName=laptops-windows&superCatName=computing&title=hp-840-g3-i7-6600u-16gb-ram-256gb-ssd-14"-w10-b&referredFrom=category&queryID=9d49363b80f42f1baef39a11403dd3d0&position=1

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That would work. An i7 processor is decent, but note that the linked laptop is a 6th gen, so that’s 2016. But still packs a punch. The 6th gen i7 was also the first to support HEVC and H265 codec too. And it’s low powered (as in watts), so it’s efficient too.

i7 6th gen plus 16GB will be fine for video editing. That said, when it comes to video editing, a dedicated graphics card really helps. You find these on many gaming laptops. Doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest, but having dedicated graphics card (a GPU) really does make things a whole lot faster when you come to encoding your edited video (i.e. saving).

The 16Gb of RAM is probably the minimum that you need, the 256Gb SSD is nowhere near big enough especially for 4K files and the 14" screen will give you eyestrain.
Everything I’ve ever had with the HP badge on it (including work laptops) has died completely or broken down within a week of the guarantee running out.

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Valid point, John. Add an external 1TB SSD and save to that would be better. Or swap/upgrade the existing 256GB SSD. I never save any media to my boot drive anyway.

So… after far too much prevaricating on my part, I’ve gone for this:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-vivobook-s-15-k3502za-15.6-laptop-intel-core-i5-512-gb-ssd-grey-10240522.html

I take on board the idea that it’s only a 512 SSD but I always envisage having extra storage with me.

This model is actually on sale from £899 (which is why it’s out of stock), but I’ve bought a as-good-as-new return for £559. Should come Thursday.

Can anybody see any problems with it?

Depends on what or how far you want to go with post and what program you use.

Are you going to be using footage of the 4k variety, is it going to be h265 and are you going to getting into any effects? These will SLOOOW that rig down.

Personally I’d add another ssd, depends on your board whether it will accept one. If not, buy an external ssd, and run it through your thunderbolt port. You don’t want to be doing all the work with one hdd. I have 1 for my project folder 1 for render or proxies and 1 for my operating system all NVMe ssd.
The grunt of the laptop is one thing but if your system is running whatever program off just its operating system disc it’ll slow down down when accessing different file locations👍.

@Hotrodspike you must of had some bad luck there mate, I’ve had an Omen 17 for the past 2yrs and battered it (Topaz AI really does it over, I put extra fans on the keyboard whilst it works its magic) . It’s never let me down.

A new 12th gen i5 is loads better than a 6th gen i7.

Just find yourself a decent external SSD drive, and you’ll be sorted.

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Something very obvious (once you know it)
I couldn’t figure out why Shotcut was so slow when using Win 11 but flies, comparatively speaking, in Linux. Then it hit me like a brick in the face.
In two words Onedrive syncing.
In Linux everything was local.
In Win 11, even though the folder was available locally, Onedrive was still slowing things down considerably. Moving everything outside of Onedrive control helps a lot, but it is still a little faster under Linux, even when booting from an external HDD with the Linux OS.
Just something to think about.

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