Spec Check - Is this Laptop OK?

[Robert Benda]

I'm looking for a laptop that might handle some video editing, too. Wondering if this looks respectable? At $580 it seemed like a nice option for something to take on the go.


Samsung NP700Z3A-S03US
Intel Core i5 2450M (2.50GHz)
8GB Memory DDR3
750GB HDD (5400rpm)
AMD Radeon HD 6490M (1GB GDDR5)
Windows 7 Home Premium

Only 1 USB 3.0, but I think that will be fine. I won't be doing external HD to external HD transfers a lot :)

[Adam Gold]

The fast simple answer is No, don't be silly, of course not, not unless the rules of physics have changed since all the other threads that say you can't really comfortably or productively edit HD of any flavor on a laptop, and via USB if that's where you plan to store your footage. To do that you'd need a laptop that's considerably more expensive than its desktop counterpart. Your chip and HDD look way too slow and your video card appears woefully underpowered for AVCHD or anything like it.

But a more thougtful answer would be "It Depends," as it always is.

It depends upon what kind of footage you will be editing, on what NLE. Four-cam AVCHD with Premiere? Probably not. Using Windows Movie Maker to do a static slide show with simple cuts and dissolves with HDV? Maybe.

The real answer lies on the Minimum Hardware Requirements page on the website of your chosen NLE, and only there. Read the specs and take them seriously and go "one louder."

But as of now we just don't have enough info to give you a good answer.

But of course I could be wrong. I usually am.

In any event this should be in the Editing or PC forum.

[Chris Hurd]

Thread moved per suggestion, thanks.

[Robert Benda]

Sony Vegas' requirements suggest
2 Ghz
4GB RAM
512 GB GPU

So I figured this would meet that standard of minimum requirements plus some extra. It's not a high end machine, but looks OK, but I don't even try to keep up with the changes in chip architecture anymore.

I found what appears to be a much stronger fit, though I wanted to avoid Windows 8 like the plague.
AMD A10-5750M 2.5GHz (quad core)
16GB DDR3
1TB HDD + 120GB SSD
AMD Radeon HD 8970M (2GB GDDR5)

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Adam Gold

The fast simple answer is No, don't be silly, of course not, not unless the rules of physics have changed since all the other threads that say you can't really comfortably or productively edit HD of any flavor on a laptop, and via USB if that's where you plan to store your footage. To do that you'd need a laptop that's considerably more expensive than its desktop counterpart.

I have a business laptop (a lenovo thinkpad) with a i5 3337u cpu, 6gb of ram, no dedicated gpu but one integrated on the motherboard, my hd is a 7500rmp 500gb HD and it has only one usb3.0 connection, the screen is also only 1600x900.

Spec wise my machine is slower then Robert's config and actually it's not intended to edit on, but I"m able to edit with the files on a usb 3.0 disc and can scroll without any stutter on my timeline and it plays in realtime, cutting and editing is a breeze, I also can do 3 camera's in a multicam project, the sound stutters a bit in such a case but editing multicam would be no issue.

How this is done you might ask? If you own Edius you can, in my case I edit a 1080p project on my main pc and if I want to continue on my laptop I select the field edit export option and Edius will create proxy files and export all project data as well. This data I write to a external disc and then it's just a matter of opening that project file on a laptop and your flying :)

This ofcourse has limitations, the files have a lower image quality as the original but its more then sufficient for rough cutting, even multicam edits, if you want to continue the edit on your main pc for further colorcorrection and exporting then you just connect the ext drive again and import the changes you made on the laptop. The laptop in this case could be used to do the editing part only when you are on the move but at the start and at the end you need your main edit machine to handle the proxies and exporting to a high rez file.

I have worked in this way for a client where i first shot everything, loaded in onto my main pc at home, did some rough editing selecting the good parts and exporting by created proxies and saved them with projectdata on a ext disc. Then I went to the client to continue the "fine" editing on my laptop with him so he could select shots himself and when I got home again I loaded the project on my main pc and finished it further, for this feature alone Edius has been worth every cent I invested into it so far.

[Ed Przyzycki]

In my opinion, you have to take a deep look at exactly WHAT you will be editing. (bitrate, framerate, compression, etc) I bought a laptop in 2011 (Intel Core i7 740QM -1.73GHz, 6GB Memory 500GB HDD 64GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M, 1920 x 1080, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit), and along with Premiere CS5, it still edits my XDCAM-EX (Sony EX3) 35MBit/s codec footage perfectly. I'm NOT editing 4:2:2, 50Mbit or higher, 2k or 4k, of course, and I don't really ever deal with any of the processor intensive formats/codecs, either. (I shoot and edit my own stuff, and that's about it). Of course, my machine isn't going to cut into anything I throw at it, but that wasn't it's intent.

[Robert Benda]

Here's what I ended up ordering:

AMD A-Series A10-5750M (2.50GHz)
12GB Memory 1TB HDD
AMD Radeon HD 8650G
Windows 8 (64-bit)

Sadly, the GPU shares memory, but oh well. It's a major upgrade over my old laptop and should let me do some editing on the road.

I also found out I can upgrade my older laptop's A6-4400m chipset to the same A10-5750m as the new laptop. It's $150 and it'd be fun to do the work myself (even a handy YouTube video showing my exact model). Though I'm not willing to risk it without having another laptop. My older laptop would end up with similar specs as the new one, except still have Windows 7 (it has a Radeon HD 7520G and 16GB DDR3 RAM) and in a nice 14" model.

[Adam Gold]

Please post back and let us know how it works out. It would be good to have some real-world feedback.