Notebook buying advice: How to find a notebook for videos, CAD and more
10.8.2020
Translation: machine translated
If you want to use your notebook to edit videos, work with CAD programmes or be creative in a similar way, it needs more power than an office laptop. Let me take you on a search for a multimedia creative power device.
Our notebook buying guides are all about finding the right laptop for you. I give you basic tips and assessments for different areas of application and show you some examples of notebooks. My aim is to use filters so that you only have to decide between a small selection of devices in the end.
What you won't find here is an assessment of individual laptop models or recommendations for different equipment variants. The notebook market is too fast-moving for that and I refer you to the individual tests from our editorial team.
Powerhouse for image and video editing
If you want to use your notebook not only to write emails, create presentations and work in Excel spreadsheets, but also to create graphics, edit videos or realise CAD projects, you need more computing power. The main difference to other office notebooks is the standalone graphics card, as an integrated graphics chip does not have enough power.
Every current graphics card has more power than the integrated graphics chips, but there are still big differences. For more performance, you need to budget more and plan for higher battery consumption. Also important: Nvidia optimises its Quadro models for creating videos and other creative content. They are not suitable for games. The Geforce cards are designed for this, but you can also use them to render videos.
The processor should also offer a certain level of performance. In principle, new chipsets not only always potentially have a little more computing power than their predecessor, but also often consume less energy. This is good for battery life and one of the reasons why I make sure that new processors are installed wherever possible. For Intel, this would currently be the ninth and tenth generation, for AMD the third and fourth generation. Otherwise, the higher the number behind "Ryzen" for AMD or "Core i" for Intel, the newer the CPU is and therefore potentially offers more power.
In order to work properly on your projects, the screen should not be too small. 15 inches is the minimum, 16 or even 17 inches is even better. But the larger it is, the heavier and less mobile the computer will be. When it comes to resolution, you shouldn't settle for Full HD. It should be at least WQHD with 2560×1440 pixels so that you can work properly. Due to the display size, size and weight take a back seat when selecting devices.
You need more storage space for videos, CAD projects and graphics than for Office documents. That's why your computer should have one terabyte of SSD storage. This may be more expensive than a conventional hard drive, but it will also give you a speed advantage when working. There are also notebooks that have an HDD installed in addition to an SSD in order to offer more storage capacity at a lower price. However, if you set appropriate filters, your selection will be significantly smaller. As a compromise, you can opt for less SSD memory - but no less than 512 gigabytes - and an additional external hard drive or external SSD. But please get one that works with a fast connection such as USB-C or Thunderbolt.
If I feed our filters with these criteria, these are the five most popular models at the moment.
If you want a smaller display or a second hard drive in your power notebook after all, you can check out our filter and customise the selection yourself.
When I was but a young student, I'd sit in my friend's living room with all my classmates and play on his SuperNES. Since then I've had the opportunity to test out all the newest technology for you. I've done reviews at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, and have now arrived at Galaxus.de.