The two most important questions are:

1) What type of video do you edit? Camcorder video? Phone video? What resolution and format?

2) How much do you want to spend?

There's no right or wrong answer for #2, but it is very important to consider. You can get great desktop for editing for as little as $600-700. A similar laptop could cost $1000. Though of course you spend upwards of $2000-5000. That may be more power than you need, but that depends on how you answered #1.

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DirectorSuite 365 | Power Director 19/365 | Photo Director 12/365 | ColorDirector 365
Win10 Home | Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60Gz, 2601 Mhz, 4
Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s) | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M | Intel HD
Graphics 530 |Dell 0H0CC0 | 119GB SanDisk X400 M.2 2280 128GB (SATA
(SSD)) | 931GB Seagate ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB (SATA)| NVIDIA Virtual
Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM) | 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz

The i7-6700HQ is still a decent CPU, performance wise is at about 65% of newer Intel CPU's.

Are you able to select the GTX960 while encoding?

StevenG, thanks for your reply.

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1) What type of video do you edit? Camcorder video? Phone video? What resolution and format?

GoPro Hero7 Black - primarily underwater photos and video - NTSC - 2.7K and 4K - .mp4
Cannon 40D - Hi-resolution - JPEG - sometimes RAW

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2) How much do you want to spend?

I want to stay under $2,000. However, my goal is to have a laptop that will last longer than the 4 years my Dell 7559 has lasted, and will be powerful enough to edit my underwater videos with ease. I'm open to spending a little more. I will take it with me on future scuba dive trips, so it has to be light weight. Current laptop is around 6 pounds, and it's a bit heavy in my opinion. DirectorSuite 365 | Win 11 Home | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics 3301 Mhz, 8 cores, 16 logical processors | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | 2TB SSD

SoNic67

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The i7-6700HQ is still a decent CPU, performance wise is at about 65% of newer Intel CPU's.

That's very good to know!

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Are you able to select the GTX960 while encoding?

As I recall, I could select the GTX960. I'm not positive about that though. DirectorSuite 365 | Win 11 Home | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics 3301 Mhz, 8 cores, 16 logical processors | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | 2TB SSD

15"i9-10885H for $1800 or 17" i9-10885H for $2250. Under 5 lbs.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/sr/laptops/intel-core-i9?appliedRefinements=14158

You have to know that laptops are the worst long-time purchase? You can't upgrade them to keep up with newer parts, basically you can only put a bigger drive in them and some more RAM. Screen is fixed, CPU the same...

A desktop doesn't suffer from any of that.

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You have to know that laptops are the worst long-time purchase?

No, I did not know that.

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A desktop doesn't suffer from any of that.

I can't travel with a desktop. Thank you for your suggestions. DirectorSuite 365 | Win 11 Home | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics 3301 Mhz, 8 cores, 16 logical processors | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | 2TB SSD

Quote StevenG, thanks for your reply.



GoPro Hero7 Black - primarily underwater photos and video - NTSC - 2.7K and 4K - .mp4
Cannon 40D - Hi-resolution - JPEG - sometimes RAW



I want to stay under $2,000. However, my goal is to have a laptop that will last longer than the 4 years my Dell 7559 has lasted, and will be powerful enough to edit my underwater videos with ease. I'm open to spending a little more. I will take it with me on future scuba dive trips, so it has to be light weight. Current laptop is around 6 pounds, and it's a bit heavy in my opinion.

Hi,
For what it's worth:
I used to spend a lot of time travelling and diving in "semi-remote" parts of the globe. Using a laptop for heavy video editing will always be a compromise, but possible. I also had a dedicated desktop system back at home, but if you're away for several months it doesn't count!.

I needed a laptop that was able to deal with video editing and run of the mill business stuff, no gaming or anythng like that. Back in 2011 I went with an Asus 36s. My criteria were weight - has to be carried in a drybag all over the place from dayboats to motobikes to bangkas. It had to be strong enough but didn't need to be "rugged". It had to have a decent processor but more important was battery life, and it had to be cheap enough to be lost/stolen/destroyed without me crying.
One thing was more crucial in my choice - all my UW cameras were able to white balance with one push, so my colour correction needs (therefore heavy processing) were minimised - but still needed occasionally went it all went wrong!

It weighed in at just over 3.5lbs with the 8 cell battery (7-10hrs life), never let me down and is still beside me on the desk now. I don't travel so much these days, but it does travel wherever I go. I upgraded the HDD to an SSD a while ago but no other mods/upgrades - other than glueing the battery pack together when it split!

I never used the optimus technology for the GT520M just the native QS.

So my advice would be to balance the real life day to day needs like battery life, weight or whatever, depending on your travel and remoteness, rather than on maxing the processing power to gain a few mins/hrs (unless you're being paid to meet deadlines?) After all, that's what travelling is about - spending time wisely, so go and have a beer, swim or meet folk whilst its processing!

Editing sound on a ultra thin laptop is not a good experience without headphones. I used a set of folding Koss PortaPro lightweight headphones and they too are still sitting on the desk, the original ear pads went in the humidity, but replacements are an easy fit.

Best of luck!
Adrian

"Leave nothing but bubbles" Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

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Hi,
For what it's worth:
I used to spend a lot of time travelling and diving in "semi-remote" parts of the globe. Using a laptop for heavy video editing will always be a compromise, but possible. I also had a dedicated desktop system back at home, but if you're away for several months it doesn't count!.

I needed a laptop that was able to deal with video editing and run of the mill business stuff, no gaming or anythng like that. Back in 2011 I went with an Asus 36s. My criteria were weight - has to be carried in a drybag all over the place from dayboats to motobikes to bangkas. It had to be strong enough but didn't need to be "rugged". It had to have a decent processor but more important was battery life, and it had to be cheap enough to be lost/stolen/destroyed without me crying.
One thing was more crucial in my choice - all my UW cameras were able to white balance with one push, so my colour correction needs (therefore heavy processing) were minimised - but still needed occasionally went it all went wrong!

It weighed in at just over 3.5lbs with the 8 cell battery (7-10hrs life), never let me down and is still beside me on the desk now. I don't travel so much these days, but it does travel wherever I go. I upgraded the HDD to an SSD a while ago but no other mods/upgrades - other than glueing the battery pack together when it split!

I never used the optimus technology for the GT520M just the native QS.

So my advice would be to balance the real life day to day needs like battery life, weight or whatever, depending on your travel and remoteness, rather than on maxing the processing power to gain a few mins/hrs (unless you're being paid to meet deadlines?) After all, that's what travelling is about - spending time wisely, so go and have a beer, swim or meet folk whilst its processing!

Editing sound on a ultra thin laptop is not a good experience without headphones. I used a set of folding Koss PortaPro lightweight headphones and they too are still sitting on the desk, the original ear pads went in the humidity, but replacements are an easy fit.

Best of luck!
Adrian

"Leave nothing but bubbles"

A fellow diver! Adrian, you're an angel for giving such an appropriate response given my diving needs. I have a lot to think about now, and will use your experience to help with that.

I would love to know some of your underwater editing methods (i.e. do you use LUTS? What are your favorite settings in ColorDirector, PD, etc.?). If you are willing to share, would you send them via message so we don't redirect the topic of this thread? Unless that's allowed, then post them here LOL! DirectorSuite 365 | Win 11 Home | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics 3301 Mhz, 8 cores, 16 logical processors | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | 2TB SSD