(FOUND)Help me pick a Laptop......

One thing about the humble Dells is that through the web site you can get an extended warranty.
Which includes on site repair. Which beats a snazzier build all to hell when your business depends on it. In normal times it’s usually no more than 2 days.

Anything with an SSD and a halfway decent CPU should stream with ease as long as your broadband is fast enough.
And if you want, you can keep extending the warranty.

Others also offer this, but you got to order through their web sit on the business side.
ASUS is great, I use their motherboards all the time, but tech support is not up to keeping a business running.
All the Best,
Jeff

Best bang for buck I would recommend MSI GF Series GF63 THIN 9SCX-005 priced very reasonably at $699.
It comes with 8gigs of ram but can add a 2nd dim of 8 gigs ddr4 at 2666 to double the ram, As for the GPU it holds the GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q should have no trouble editing 1080p videos for storage it has 256gigs of NVMe ssd along with a 2.5inch drive bay if you decide to add more storage to the system only caveat is its a 15.6 inch display opposed to the 17inch you were looking for.

Matt,
You should see if you can get a look at a 15.6” and a 17incher in person.
17 ok on a desk, but a bit large to actually use on a lap.
If you’re going to be doing a lot of numbers, having a seperate number keypad really helps.
Many 15inchers don’t theses days.
Or
Consider an extra monitor to do editing on. Makes life easier if there is enough pixels to play with.
All the Best,
Jeff

Go for business class / commercial grade laptops only, not consumer or gamer cr@p. The build quality and support are leagues apart. It’s hard to understate this point. I recommend Dell Latitude/Precision or Lenovo Thinkpad lines. There’s also HP, but I’m not a fan.

Get something used for the best value. It’s not uncommon to see 70%+ depreciation after a few years, and if you don’t need the latest features or highest performance, this can be an excellent option.

If it’s for business, then new might be fine (or preferred) since you get a (longer) warranty and can write off the expense.

For the hardware specs, I suggest carefully thinking about your actual use case.
Anything can do streaming, so that’s a non-issue.
Video editing in any serious capacity changes the picture a lot, as well as the required budget. Weight, size, and battery life will be affected too.
Your requirements need to be clearly understood for good concrete recommendations of specific models.

Personal experience:

  • I’ve had Asus products and gaming laptop before, and while the hardware is typically very good, the customer support has become insufferable. Left a very bad taste of “never again”.
  • I got a used off-lease Dell Latitude at a huge discount to the original price, and it has been perfect for my mobile needs. The performance is fine, and the build quality is a joy to feel every time I use it. Plus, it still gets BIOS updates long after it’s been out of warranty and EOL. This is especially important with the endless revelations of CPU vulnerabilities. Just try getting BIOS updates for consumer laptops even one year after launch. Almost certainly won’t happen even if you pester the manufacturer support. Ask how I know…

I would disagree with calling “gamer” laptops “cr@p” as if you look for specific use case and etc as well as the budget requirement from the OP a GOOD quality gaming laptop would run circles around the Dell Latitude/Precision or Lenovo Thinkpad’s EASILY for a fraction of the cost. Factor in the OP also possibly wants to do 1080p video editing which the “business/commercial grade” Dell’s or Lenovo within the budget would fail horribly at as they are generally meant for productivity tasks.

“Gaming” classified have come along way in terms of value and build quality for the price of the product, but to just label them crap is fairly ignorant.

As for BIOS updates sure but most of the recent vulnerabilities are hardware based and most of the patches to fix it are via the OS not the bios…. Though unless you are a high profile target or work for some fortune 500 company you wouldn’t be targeted.

For used laptops ? I would stay CLEAR as price to performance wouldn’t be worth it as used laptops are generally a generation or a few behind while limited to roughly sub 14 inch screens and for the price of an “business class / commercial grade laptop” you can get a mid to mid-high tier gaming laptop for sub $700 with a 9th gen intel i5 with a solid “DEDICATED” GPU that’s actually capable of video editing.

I concur on used. If you can trust the source, a gently used laptop can be phenomenal value when selecting a brand with a great reputation. I’ve actually been using HP for the last 20 years and have been generally happy (casing quality is a little lacking though). It depends a lot upon the models, though. Some designs are crap. Lenovo (IBM originally) is clearly the leader. I’ve not used Dell in a long time, but from all I’m reading they’re nearly Lenovo level these days.

The trouble with laptops these days is that most now have built-in graphics hardware on the motherboard that CANNOT be replaced. It’s important to consider GPU specs, more so than CPU. The other thing is, if you go with a gamer used laptop, there is always the concern of how much heat wear it has gone through. Serious gamers tend to overclock their CPU’s too.

Where did you pick up your used off-lease Dell Latitude, phouton?

I usually do a Refurbished from Newegg or Tiger Direct —- my preference is HP —easier to reload clean copy of Windows—Besides they come with hardly any crap software installed—I usually find one with a 3 yr warranty included—— SSD drive —Intel I7 Quad Core— 16gb ram —these are what Id want in a Laptop—I have bought lots of Refurbs —most of the time they look almost new—-This is just a couple I found real quick

HP Elitebook; many refurbs on Amazon.
I’ve been using the 8440p for number of years; it’s a refurbed simple model; I am not on the level you are but they come in different models; you might find one that suits you.

Matt,
I re-read your desktop specs.
You are going to be hard pressed to get anything that will outrun that system in a laptop at any price.
And very unlikely at less that $1000.
Other than video production, (and gaming) almost any deceit laptop will do all you need.
But I again want to suggest that a laptop that needs to be sent in for warranty work - is going to put you out of business for like 30 days.
If it’s your only system, that could be a hard thing to live with.
If you have a backup system - and keep current external backups of your data - then all is well.
Not that laptops are all that unreliable. But computers tend to crap out when you most need them.
Just before tax time is always the busiest time for repairs in my shop.
All the Best,
Jeff

Good advice—Always have a spare —when it comes to work place—two of every thing (at least) of essential work items —I’m a retired carpenter and I use to keep 7-8 saws and guns for a crew—I’ve seen days when it pours bad luck and you go through them all—- :person_facepalming:

Just received an email flyer with this one —looks close to what you’re looking for

@Souichirou Yes, gaming/consumer laptops provide better price/performance “value” but how do you think that is achieved? By cutting costs on quality and support.

If you need a strong dedicated GPU, it increases costs a lot. That is why I previously had a gamer laptop. While it was good in hardware, I can tell you from general and annectodal arguments that the quality and support are highly underrated factors that come back to bite you later.

My gaming laptop’s BIOS did not support the full capabilities of the hardware, only the “max” specs they listed at product launch, and it was tremendously frustrating that Asus refused to address this. Meanwhile my now 5 year old Latitude has had over two dozen BIOS updates, from major vulnerability issues to more minor improvements like battery management optimization for improved longevity.

Additionally, the high performance parts combined with the drive towards thin chassis means that temperatures are often high, causing performance reduction via throttling and longevity concerns. That is less of an issue in enterprise gear.

In general, I would say most people overestimate their performance needs and underestimate the value of quality. Until recently, CPU performance was pretty stagnant over about a decade and people were fine.

@xevious I got an ultraportable a year ago from this Canadian wholesale enterprise refurbisher https://www.bauersystems.com/ I don’t know if they ship internationally, but there are many other similar companies. I check their inventory from time to time, but I’ve noticed that the selection is sparse lately.

About GPU modularity (MXM GPUs), in principle it sounds great. But upgrading requires BIOS updates to support new hardware, which, you guessed it, does not happen. Also, replacement GPUs of the same model in case your GPU dies are so exorbitantly expensive that it does not make sense to spend so much to revive an old laptop. So unfortunately, in practice they offer little to no benefit.

@jeff51 Yes, backups are essential no matter what device is used. Maybe you’ve encountered this fun and famous parable on the importance and types of backups: http://www.taobackup.com/

Has anyone thought of the new Ryzen 4000 series laptops?
Been keeping an eye out on those and so far, rather impressive for what ya get for the money.
With these new APUs, ya may not need a dedicated graphics card within them, especially if you do not game. These have some cores of a graphics chipset already within them if ya need some 3D capability.

HERE is one example from NewEgg.

One factor I think many have not thought to think of: Laptops these days, especially the new ones, are practically non-upgradable. They solder just about everything down hard and getting anything beyond their “standard” is going to skyrocket the price.

Had not seen that before.
I used to ask my customers (in days before the Web). How important is your data and the ability to get going quickly if something goes amiss?
Usually it was most important.

OK, says I. I’m going to turn off your computer and put it under my arm and walk out the door.
I’m also going to take any backup media I can find too.

How long will it take you to get up and running?
That always caused and uncomfortable pause.

Remember, I would tell them, I can replace anything in your computer - Except Your Data!

Most still didn’t backup in a timely manner or keep offsite copies.
All the Best,
Jeff

That might have been the case in the past but as of now the quality and support has been pretty spot on depending on company whom provides it.

That is also false, you can get a solid dedicated GPU combo with a CPU with relatively low cost now, obviously it wont perform as well as a desktop system even at the top end but that’s a given by physical limitations.

Like I stated previously the major vulnerabilities that were recently patched were hardware vulnerabilities and the patches to fix them were baked into the OS running while the bios update was ONLY a partial fix which still required the OS to be patched, general bios updates are required for running “new” hardware released and being installed just clarifying a bios upgrade wont have any battery management optimization its more OS that would be optimizing the battery and like all things batteries will need to be replaced so no matter how “optimized” a system can be. Just like cellphones most if not all laptops now have internal batteries which are only good for so many cycles and need to be replaced depending on charge cycles.

That is generally a misconception as the temps are only at those levels if you A.) running synthetic bench marks B.) running software that the system isn’t designed for specifically. The reason its “less” of an issue with enterprise gear is cause they generally run underpowered x86 processor and cant perform in comparison.

I also agree that mobile performance hasn’t improved by leaps and bounds but the improvements are not in performance BUT in TDP which means same or better performance at a far lower energy consumption which translates to longer battery life. In my books laptops are not meant to be a full on workstation but a stop gap to get work done while away from main computer.

If you want a good video card, you probably should get a gaming laptop.

I haven't researched them in years, but it used to be hard to find ones that don't have overheating problems.

My gaming laptop doesn't overheat, but I hear it's difficult to do upgrades on a laptop compared to a desktop so keep that in mind.

I have an Asus G75VW, which was pretty good back when I bought it, but it could use some upgrades that I don't feel comfortable doing because laptops are fairly fragile.

Thanks. I did check them out and there’s no indication of shipping policy… I’m presuming it’s just Canada.

Ryzen 4000 (both mobile and desktop) definitely grabbed my attention. I think some of the stronger integrated GPUs can almost catch up with entry level dedicated graphics like MX250. It looks like a very good bang for the buck.

Yes, the Ryzen 4000 with 8 cores is what you are looking for.

Video editing is CPU intensive, and the more cores the better. The Ryzen 4000 series have currently the best price/performance ratio.

I was choosing between a laptop and a desktop and bought the latter. A Desktop and Laptop can't really be compared.

I’m a liar.
I didn’t realize that Ryzen 5 and 7 were in laptops for less than a grand.
A 5-4600U with 6/12 Cores/Threads or better a 7-4800U 8/16 Cores/Threads.
The additional thread count will, I believe, be a noticeable improvement over your 4/8 count i7.
This is also some what dependent on how peppy a video card you currently have. And what software you are using.
These are some gaming rigs that hover around the 1K$. There are even some Dells in that range. 15.6” screens for that price.

All the Best,
Jeff