Question New Family Laptop - For Video and Audio Content Creation - And Movie Watching

[JohnGul]

1. budget: $650 to 900
2. size = 15 inch
3. Res = UHD (or 4K but I hear it drains battery fast)
4. I want a portable laptop and I've found that 16 or greater are too big
5. battery life = not super important -> greater than 3 hours is minimal
6. Games = not playing them
7. Tasks = music production, watching movies, video editing (4 K nice-to-have, but UHD more appropriate), want photo realistic color and good speakers, surfing internet and running MS Office programs
8. Storage = 500 SSD (I like to use external drives...as we've had 7 computers die on us over the years...it seems to be a better solution to not keep losing everything)
9. Would buy from Best Buy, Amazon, or New Egg
10. How long to keep = as long as it lasts
11. Optical drive = not something that seems necessary anymore (but maybe I'm missing something?)
12. Interested in Asus, MSI, Lenovo, Dell....We already have 2 older Macbook Pros...Don't like HP as two HP machines have died on us
13. Live in USA
14. Want * Dedicated Nvidia card, preferably higher end (as that enables video editing).

* 16GB of RAM (for music and video production). It seems like more cores & threads are helpful for the processor.
* I've always had Intel chips, but I'm hearing the new AMD chips and graphics cards are both cheap (and it sounds like superior?). It also seems like with more cores, the processor speed isn't as important as it used to be. (hoping to be greater than 2.5...but is this important?)
* Upgradable RAM seems really attractive, but if I get 16GB somehow to start with, that could end up being all I need. I write a lot so a durable keyboard and a sensitive touch pad would be nice.
* Gaming laptops are OK, but I don't want it to look like a total toy.

All suggestions appreciated! Going to buy ASAP! There are so many options!

 

[JohnGul]

Got an open box Lenovo 2in 1 touch yoga 15 uhd i7 6core 500 ssd w 32 optima nvidia 1660 16 solder ram and Dolby atmos 2w speaker system for about $850plus tax at Best Buy. We went over planned budget, but this thing seems awesome for our needs!

just reading about the optima and it sounds very helpful, but like having more mult-tasking ram in a different place. Let me know if anybody knows more?

I did too much research, but it pays off sometimes! I ended up getting a more color accurate monitor, when compared to the gaming laptop (ROG Zepharus 15) that was the #2 choice.