Switch to Windows from Mac - Laptops suggestions for editing and daily use?

roxics

roxics

Veteran
I have two personal machines. My 2012 mac mini and my late 2008 macbook unibody aluminum (which got relabeled a macbook pro in early 2009).

Most of my side-job editing is done on the mac mini, but the macbook is my daily driver for everything else and sometimes editing smaller projects in a pinch. But it's old now and it's about time to upgrade to a new laptop. Unfortunately I don't like the direction Apple is going in.
I use a Windows 8 PC at work to edit on. So I'm used to both systems. I'm heavily considering making the switch from Apple with my personal systems.

I'm looking for a suitable replacement for a 13" macbook pro and I stumbled on the Razorblade Stealth. Anyone use one of these?
For $1399 you get a QHD Touchscreen i7 kabylake cpu (the newest with better H.265/4K support) with 16GB of ram and 512GB storage.
Already that sounds better than the new Macbook pros which have the older skylake processor, less ram, less storage and for more money.

My concern is the Intel HD620 graphics. I would like to play with Resolve, I'm not sure that will run it.
I notice the Razorblade Stealth can be connected to a break out box via thunderbolt which allows you to put in a desktop GPU. That's a pretty cool option to have. But at $500 plus the cost of the graphics card, you're nearly at the cost of a separate desktop system. Still a nice option if you want to keep everything on one system though, which might be handy for me.
 
You should look at high end gaming laptops as they tend to have much better graphics subsystems - although limiting yourself to a 13" screen may limit your choice.
 
I like the 13" size. I could go 15, but in Windows laptops that usually means a number pad on the side and off-center trackpad, which I hate.
Technically this Razorblade Stealth is a gaming laptop, just without the GPU which is external.

For me this will mostly be a daily driver for web and everything else. I want to be able to edit on it and run Resolve, but that's not the primary purpose.
 
David W. Richardson said:
It doesn't seem to have a microphone input, if that's important.
Click to expand...

I can't think of a laptop with a good-quality mic input... Me, I use a little external USB interface from Focusrite (there are many others, at the time, this seemed a step ahead of the lower-cost competitors) for scratch VO, driving my audio monitors & headphones, etc.. I have a Scarlett 2i4 (a couple preamps, MIDI interface, etc), but you could get a lot done with their $100 Solo model:
https://us.focusrite.com/usb-audio-interfaces/scarlett-solo

Focusrite has a bunch of models:
Solo_Product_Page_Img11.png


So do a bunch of other people, so I see lack of a mic input is NBD.

As for Windows laptops, I'm looking at some gaming machines right now. i7-6700, GTX1070 or 1080, etc. In addition to those mentioned, I'm looking at ASUS (a couple editor friends are happy with theirs), Sager, and MSI... leaning towards ASUS

https://www.asus.com/rog-republic-of-gamers/notebooks-products/

https://www.sagernotebook.com/home.php

https://us.msi.com/Laptops

Haven't written off HP and Lenovo yet...

Going to be an early January purchase...

Also, you may want to give BMD's Resolve Configuration Guide a good look. Here's the v12 version:
http://documents.blackmagicdesign.c...e9/DaVinci_Resolve_12_Configuration_Guide.pdf

See if there's a 12.5 update (sorry, I'm running out of time to check)...And note on page 49 of the above guide they list a Dell Precision M6800 as an approved/suggested mobile solution...And if you don't wan to buy that, the specs could at least be a guide to what you would want....Perhaps the BMD forum could be a good place for Resolve-specific laptop suggestions?

Good luck and let us know what you decide...
 
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