Looking for a $1200 or less laptop for film school

[Jacob Bodine]

Hi everyone,

I have a dilemma. 3 days before the start of film school my trooper Chromebook's battery died. I knew I needed a laptop for the first day of classes (projects start immediately and they don't provide computers or software) so I ran out to Best Buy to try out some option and ended up with a Surface Pro 4. Long story short, I had to switch that surface out for another after a plethora of issues, and this new one has problems too, and at best, doesn't really fit my needs all to well. So essentially, I am asking for help sifting through the hundreds of laptops available to find one that has:

- Good Battery Life (Greater than 6 hours with decent load like photoshop or premiere)
- Fast processor (i5 or i7) preferably Skylake
- At least 128gb of storage (I have a 4tb external drive)
- On that same note, an SSD
- Good build quality/ low chances of breaking within the time I own it
- 13-15" FHD or UHD screen, maybe touchscreen
- Good keyboard for notes
- Under $1500 (most manufacturers have a student discount program that will remove $150-300 off of the price so it needs to end up around $1200)
- A discrete GPU for video editing (let me know what you think on this one, I'm not sure)

I know this is a lot to ask, and I'm really not sure it's possible so thanks for any help. It should also be noted that I have a really powerful editing desktop (i7 6700k, 32gb DDR4, 980ti), but I obviously can't bring that to class. That being said, I don't really need to something that will export, it just needs to run the Premiere timeline smoothly without freezing up. If it helps, here's an amazon list with some that I've found: http/a.co/0yvXjVe

Thanks again

 

[genthug]

How's this work? https/www.amazon.com/Lenovo-15-6-Inch-Touchscreen-Gaming-59441814/dp/B00S9SHUUI/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1473441160&sr=1-5&keywords=gaming+laptop&refinements=p_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A13580790011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A2423841011%2Cp_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A13580800011
Unfortunately it isn't Skylake, but it fits the rest of your specs and is UHD touchscreen.

 

[Jacob Bodine]

How's this work? https/www.amazon.com/Lenovo-15-6-Inch-Touchscreen-Gaming-59441814/dp/B00S9SHUUI/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1473441160&sr=1-5&keywords=gaming+laptop&refinements=p_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A13580790011%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A2423841011%2Cp_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A13580800011
Unfortunately it isn't Skylake, but it fits the rest of your specs and is UHD touchscreen.

It looks like the battery is only 5 hours best case and the graphics might be a little weak. Thanks anyway!

 

[genthug]

https/www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Touchscreen-i7-4720HQ-Bluetooth-Windows/dp/B013J7EY9S/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1473441580&sr=1-4&keywords=gaming+laptop&refinements=p_36%3A-125000%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A2423841011
Slightly over your budget, but has a 960M over the 840 in the other one. Still only 5hrs on the battery though.
https/www.amazon.com/dp/B015XBK5NM/ref=psdc_565108_t1_B01IJ3WQ06
Also fits. I will say though, I have a workstation laptop (Lenovo W541) and a 9 cell LiON battery. I'm lucky if I get 7 hours out of the battery. And it's a big a** battery. You're asking a LOT from your laptop to be able to run 6+ hours while running heavy duty programs.

 

[Jacob Bodine]

https/www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Touchscreen-i7-4720HQ-Bluetooth-Windows/dp/B013J7EY9S/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1473441580&sr=1-4&keywords=gaming+laptop&refinements=p_36%3A-125000%2Cp_n_size_browse-bin%3A2423841011
Slightly over your budget, but has a 960M over the 840 in the other one. Still only 5hrs on the battery though.
https/www.amazon.com/dp/B015XBK5NM/ref=psdc_565108_t1_B01IJ3WQ06
Also fits. I will say though, I have a workstation laptop (Lenovo W541) and a 9 cell LiON battery. I'm lucky if I get 7 hours out of the battery. And it's a big a** battery. You're asking a LOT from your laptop to be able to run 6+ hours while running heavy duty programs.

Thanks for the quick replies. Did you get a chance to look at the amazon list in the OP? I think some of those might be a good choice, but my forte is more in desktop stuff so I don't quite know. the ASUS is the one linus used in his 4k video editing on an ultrabook video but again, I don't really know laptop stuff. Thanks again

 

[genthug]

Right, forgot to mention that. Can't access your list because you're not one of my amazon friends (? that's a thing?). Honestly, most laptops will be fine if they're from a reputable dealer... like ASUS. The biggest quandary you're going to run into is battery life, which is only really determined by the size of LiON battery the laptop is running.

 

[Jacob Bodine]

Right, forgot to mention that. Can't access your list because you're not one of my amazon friends (? that's a thing?). Honestly, most laptops will be fine if they're from a reputable dealer... like ASUS. The biggest quandary you're going to run into is battery life, which is only really determined by the size of LiON battery the laptop is running.

I just changed the setting on the list from "Public" to "Shared, so try the link again. I'd love an opinion if it's possible.

 

[genthug]

I like the Zenbook. Not impressed with the GPU in it, but it should work for what you need it to do.

 

[velo3100]

The insperon will be able to handle what you need the best due to the gtx 960m but it won't have a 6 hour battery life while doing editing. You could look for the dell xps 1080p version as this should get the battery life you need but it won't be as powerful as the insperon.