I’m in the market for a new laptop and I’m having trouble finding one that checks most of my boxes.
In addition to using the laptop as my every-day desktop for web surfing, YouTube, random projects, and casual gaming, I have started to edit video more and more as a professional thing. I’m also becoming more involved in various aspects of video production, and something that would really improve my workflow would be the ability to take a memory card directly from my camera and plug it into my laptop. This would allow me to double-check footage quickly, and it’d also allow me to better present things to the crew for collaboration. An external monitor can do this, but it would my camera’s software which slows things down.
So, ideally this laptop would be an upgrade to my current one “in every way,” and I think we’re close to that being feasible with the current generation of hardware. I’ve got the first-generation MSI GS63VR with an i7-6700HQ and a GTX 1060 (6GB), and 16GB of RAM. I removed the 2.5" drive to save on weight and energy, so I’ve just got a 1TB Samsung Evo. Each of these components struggles with different aspects of video production, but as far as I can tell the GPU and the RAM are the biggest bottlenecks.
The “grail” situation would be something like this:
Smaller and lighter than my MSI GS63VR (15.6" monitor, generally larger than modern 15.6" laptops; 1.9kg [according to spec sheet, with a 2.5" HDD])
Stronger CPU - Most modern U-series chips are more powerful than my 6th Gen HQ, I’d be totally fine using a U-series chip if it allowed me to have a lighter system with better battery life.
Stronger GPU - This seems hard to achieve without having a heavier laptop. I’m open to using an external GPU via Thunderbolt 3. I’ve done editing on a friend’s desktop with a 2070 and it struggles with a lot of things, too, so an external GPU might allow me to grow into a better GPU when I need to/am able to.
Storage - The Sambrant 8TB NVME drive that’s been making its rounds is tempting. Having that alongside a second, VERY FAST NVME drive for storing footage being worked on would be the dream.
I’ve tried doing my own searching, and it’s hard to find a laptop that is able to check all of these boxes. Among a lot of the new 13" “Ultrabooks,” 32GB of RAM seems hard to find, and there’s apparently a lot of details to double check if one wants to use an external GPU via Thunderbolt 3. The PCI-E lanes available, as well as a few other technologies that can have a huge impact on performance. None of the Ryzen 4000 laptops support TB3, which is a huge bummer. Having something like a R7 4700U with the ability to slap on an eGPU would be really, really cool.
Depending on your workflow, and the way in which you manipulate your files the GPU may not be utilized, well, for video editing on Windows.
Working off of a single drive is not always the best, even when working with SSDs; this could be a matter of preference. YMMV
Some of the PCIe gen 4 SSDs will not fit or function in laptops due to the heatsinks and the power requirements.
You’ll need to analyze your workflow to determine just how much GPU power you need for the work you do. In Adobe, GPU is used for effects primarily, but in the newest 2020 beta, afaik, they have added some gpu hardware rendering; which leads to the eternal quality vs speed discussions re: Nvenc. You can find a metric shit ton of posts elsewhere to highlight just how divisive that can be.
13" display panel @ 1080p will have you hating life relatively quick if you start doing editing as a regular thing. My laptop has a 17" 1080p panel and editing on it feels restrictive after I got used to my workstations 32" 4K panel.
The other qualm I have with 13" laptops is many of them are a PITA to ‘upgrade’ with having soldered RAM and other issues that make them not worth the time, IMO. See the list of U class AMD laptops here for reference.
I would suggest aiming more for an H class processor, than a U class one. You get more wattage, better cooling, generally larger displays, usually built in card readers etc. For example, the 6700HQ does better in Adobe encoding times than an 8th gen intel U part does.
If you’re already considering going down the E-GPU route maybe look at a laptop that gives you a beefier CPU but no discrete GPU, something like the Lenovo Legion Y740S
I don’t plan on working off of “just” the laptop pretty much ever. Yesterday, I brought my current laptop with me and used it at a cafe to edit for the first time. The 15.6" screen felt cramped and using a 13" screen doesn’t sound nice. I’m sure I could make it work if I needed to, but I definitely see your point.
If I ever specifically planned to edit on the go, I’d probably purchase a secondary portable ~15" display, and actually imagining that, I’m wondering if I can find a way to test-run premiere on a ~13" laptop and a tablet as a secondary monitor or something to see how that feels. Do you think a 13" laptop with a second monitor (15" or smaller) would be functional on-the-go?
The main thing about using the laptop “in the field” would be to double check things–maybe not even in Premiere–just to ask an interview subject, “Are you okay with how you said this?” Or try to explain why I need them to repeat something. That kind of thing.
RE: 13" laptops being a PITA to uprgade, I feel that. I didn’t look super hard at the larger classes of laptops, but it seemed like newer laptops in general are just more likely to have upgradeable RAM. Maybe I’m just trying too hard to find a thin-and-light laptop, since that’s one of the things that gets compromised in pursuit of smaller units.
Can I ask what you’re using to compare my 6700HQ to 8th gen U parts? Don’t doubt you, I’ve just mostly compared passmark numbers for different processors. And, IIRC, from 9th Gen onward, 4-core U series processors start being much pretty universally stronger than my 6700HQ.
That Lenovo unit is lighter than my current laptop (pre-removing the HDD, at least), so that’s nice!
Sure thing, I found the comparison here, at around the 2:30 mark
There are USB display link ‘travel’ monitors, that might meet your needs. I have not ever used one, so I cannot speak to their image quality. I have read about their size and weight being relatively good, compared to a typical full sized display panel.
The above link is just as an idea, you can probably find similar units at whatever retailer or etailer you prefer for your region.