Help looking for a desktop replacement laptop that will be good for the long term

dow2480

Estimable
Oct 28, 2015
2
0
4,510
My current PC is over 10 years old, and gasping its last breaths. My husband has offered to buy me a replacement for my birthday (next week!) and tasked me with deciding what I want. I'm looking to spend under $1400

I've settled on a laptop, since I have a lot of projects I've been putting off (photo editing, graphic design work, video editing, etc.) because my computer just cannot handle it. And with a young child, I can't be tethered to my office desk, so I want something I can port around the house with me (it would rarely leave the house though). I'm leaning towards 17", since I don't care about portability.

I want something that can easily handle the tasks mentioned above, and possibly even be able to play Sims 4. I also really want something that I can get at least 5 years out of. I don't expect it to be amazing in 5 years, but it shouldn't make me tear my hair out either.

I came across this new system about to launch from ASUS, http://store.asus.com/us/item/201510AM170008067/A18486, and am wondering if it would be a reasonable buy for having a system that should work nicely for my needs for several years. Or if it would be overkill and another system might give me longevity, and good performance, possibly for a cheaper price even (or some other trade-off, like more hard drive space). I was attracted to the Skylake processor, 16GB RAM, SSD (comes with 128gb, but I might upgrade to 256gb SSD instead) and 1TB HDD, good video card, IPS screen, and the ability to easily remove a panel on the bottom to upgrade hard drive and memory (though it looks like I'd be maxed out on memory at 16GB anyway).

Any thoughts are completely welcome! I'm researching this pretty much from scratch, as I've never had a laptop before!
 

apkfind

Estimable
Oct 28, 2015
3
0
4,510
$1400 was a great budget,which you can afford to various kinds of laptops. If you're looking for gaming stuff,The ASUS ROG GL752VW-DH74 you mentioned was just great. If you don't spend much time on gaming,that's not necessary,then I'd rather choose a Surface Book:http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us?ocid=OCTEVENT_MSCOM and also Surface Pro 4 can also offer nice working and entertainment experience.
 

dow2480

Estimable
Oct 28, 2015
2
0
4,510


Thank you for your response. :) I have access to a Surface Pro at work, and while it's a nice laptop, I think it's way too small for the kind of work I'll be largely doing on it (for instance, laying out family photo/year books, where I'll need to have a two page spread open and be able to easily see small details as I'm working on them). I think I need at least a 15" screen, and it looks like the Surface Book is only 13". Not to mention that the cheapest Surface Book is $1500, and only has 128GB HDD and 8 GB RAM. And a Pro 4 with 1TB HDD, 16 GB RAM and an i7 is close to twice the cost of the Asus.