My daughter is heading off to university this year. I thought you lovely folks might be able to help with a laptop recommendation or at best a place to go looking for one. I figure I will get something pretty close to the latest and greatest. She is a music student so she might do video editing or music production. Most of all however it will just be a day to day work horse. I think it must be Windows based as I don’t know what software she might end up using. Can’t imagine anyone on here recommending a Mac and Linux would be just cruel for an 18 year old music student. 
Many thanks in advance for your assistance. I will be sure to post what I end up getting.
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How much would you be looking to spend?
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Why would Linux be cruel?
That’s actually what most non-engineering/tech students get.
No…? Definitely doable. Especially nowadays, but I’m not here to evangelize.
As far a quality laptop goes, you want something that will hold up for the four years they will be at university. Usually, students will get a laptop that is an ultrabook because they need to lug it around all day. A laptop getting a lot of praise these days is the 2018 version of the LG Gram.
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I was going to get myself the Thinkpad T480. It features two batteries, an internal battery, and an external one as well. Or you could just run the thing off of the single internal battery. It also has the latest intel processors and a dedicated GPU as an option. It is a little heavy in my opinion, at around 4 pounds.
Students get 10% off thinkpads when buying with the student discount. Although be sure to look for coupon codes online as they may offer more off then what the student discount does.
https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-t-series/ThinkPad-T480/p/22TP2TT4800
A Thinkpad with the following will cost $1510 dollars before the discount. You can customize to your hearts content over at the link above.
- i5-8350u
- Windows 10 Home 64
- 14 inch 1080p display
- 16GB DDR4 2400 MHz RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce MX 150 2GB GDDR5
- 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3 HDD
- First battery - 3 cell 24Wh
- Second battery - 6 cell 72Wh
Or if she wants something that looks sexy she could go for the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro. It has almost the same specs as the Lenovo but is $300 cheaper ( if going for the 8GB model off of Amazon. The Xiaomi is up-gradable to 16GB. ) and does not feature the ability to have dual batteries. It does however have a 15.6 inch screen instead of the 14 inch screen of the Lenovo and comes default with a 256GB M2 SSD.
Macbook Pro 13" non-touchbar is the most appropriate choice for a music student. All her friends will have one.
If she prefers windows or you want to save some money, the Dell XPS 13 is a great option. With a coffee lake CPU you can get 4 real cores in an ultrabook now, which is a huge deal for video rendering. You can often find deals on Dells, but if you need to buy right away I would go with the Microsoft Store as they do offer an educational discount and they don’t install crapware on the computers they sell.
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I was thinking $2000 would be tops.
Music production doesn’t require a lot of horse power… Anything thin & light between $650 - $1000 will do the job for music production. If you want to get something more ‘premium’ for your daughter… Dell XPS 13 or 15, or Lenovo ideapad 720S. You don’t want to go too pricey but you also don’t want to go too budget. I’m assuming she will be using the same laptop for 3-4 years. I’m sure others in the forum will have better suggestions. 
I second this recommendation.
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Also check with her school, the bookstore often offers educational discounts too. The laptop is probably tax-deductible if you itemize, but often that only works if you buy direct from the school’s bookstore.
Keep in mind that even if you traditionally have always itemized, the standard deduction doubled this year so you may no longer do it.
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The most used brands arround me (computer science student) are used Dell notebooks (mostly XPS and Latitude series) and HP notebooks (Probooks, Envy, Pavilion, a few elitebooks).
Lenovo machines gave too many people trouble.
Does not require too much horsepower. Dell XPS 13 or HP Envy 13 maybe?
Video editing is a classic example of something that requires tons of horsepower. And now that coffee lake CPUs can shove 4 cores in ultrabooks, you can actually get that in a thin/light laptop.
I’ll go along with @Ruffalo and @BryanGoosling’s suggestions of XPS 13 and IdeaPad 720S (or Macbook Pro 13 without touchbar (keeping in mind they should be refreshed with quad core chips soon)).
If she wants a bigger screen, both the XPS and IdeaPad 720S models have 15 inch options, and are even more capable than their smaller counterparts. These larger models should be getting 6-core options in the next month or so.
Even as a Linux enthusiast, for the specific case of a music student I actually probably would recommend a Macbook, because as I understand it there’s a lot of art-related software available for OSX that you just can’t replace on Linux. Additionally, as closed a platform as it is, OSX still has a UNIX underpinning that is lacking in WIndows, and that counts for something in my book. Watching Louis Rossmann’s videos has taught me that you’ll be SOL when the hardware eventually goes bad, but with any luck she’ll probably have her degree done by then anyway.
Other options are the obvious ones of Dell’s XPS line and T-series ultrabook Thinkpads, or the P-series if more horsepower is needed.
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I don’t see anyone recommending Chromebooks which I think is strange.
If your budget is $2k, a $600 Chromebook and a $1000 desktop would be a good buy and leave you with a couple hundred dollars for maybe a microphone after tax.
Also remember that she will probably want to buy some musical instruments. Those things are expensive!
Those two things go especially well together, actually. Well, at least the slightly older macbook generations.
Not a recommendation, just wanted to write that down. 
The problem there is software compatibility.
In that case I would actually really look at a macbook. Sounds stupid but with one of those you have the option to run any software on whatever OS you need. And I still think macbooks are pretty much the top end in terms of build quality.
(inb4 Louis Rossmann comment. I know, I’m not talking about repairs.)
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Something like a Thinkpad (X1 Carbon, etc) would be a good idea. They’re well-built, sturdy and the new ones are powerful enough to competently handle whatever you can throw at them. The 15W quad-cores Intel and AMD are pushing out are imo the best things to happen to small, thin laptops. Throw in the discounts the Lenovo store will give you and you’ve got a hell of a deal.
Why in the world would you think that’s strange after looking at the OPs requirements and budget? Weird.
Buying a separate laptop and desktop makes zero sense unless his daughter is an enthusiast-level gamer.
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Not so sure about that.
Having a dedicated, even if low powered (Ryzen APU?), desktop at home gives you the option to have some storage to backup your days work or in the case of video editing, have your home rig chip away at it while you are in college/uni.
Edit: Not saying it is nesecarry, but having an external drive at home to backup the notebook is definetly a good idea.
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A cheap ultrabook for class and then a powerful computer back at the dorm or at home makes sense.
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