[Annacassandra]

Hi there. This is my first post and could really use some advice. I'm OK with computers, but no expert.

My parents very generously bought me a birthday gift for a new job: a nice, Lenovo yogabook with 8g of ram and 256g solid state storage. It really suits my needs...except one. I recently found out my new job will have some light to medium video editing. I'll be producing around 6, 3-5 minute videos a year. Some effects (green screen and the like) but nothing too major. These videos will end up on the company's website for training purposes. Anyway, the Yogabook has an integrated, intel400 gpu but that's it. I downloaded a trial of Cyberlink's Power Director 11 and it seems to be running fine. Takes a little time to generate thumbnails, but it's still pretty fast. I tried to crash it by loading up effects and only managed to do it when once or twice with a ludicrously large amount of effects on it. There's not much stuttering, but maybe I'm missing something. Why is this little card able to do this? Shouldn't it stutter and generally be messed up?

I have a few weeks left to return the yogabook and get something like a Lenovo Y500, which can have 16 gigs of ram, a 1T hard drive (only 5400) and separate NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M (you can add a second card, apparently). It looks nice. The 1T drive is, or course great, but I just figured I'd offload the files for each project once I'm done with it to keep the Yoga's 256g clean. My movies won't be long enough to need a lot of space for temporary files, I think.

So, can I keep the Yogabook, or will I be sorry and should therefore go with something like the Y500? I'd miss the touch screen, lightness, speed and general awesomeness of this machine but I need to make sure I can get by with it or I have to trade it in. Any advice or help with my thinking on this would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Anna

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Gday Annacassandra,
I have not used these Lap Tops so my observations are from reading and comparing reviews and benchmarks. On any computer, if getting stuttering slow downs, try using a lower resolution, less Eye Candy and most important, only install programs that are essential for your work. Look for alternative programs with smaller footprint that use less resources etc. Adobe reader, no, Foxit Reader, yes. Set most programs to start manually, you don't want an office application to start with windows if you are not going to use it. Except for, Windows Update, security, virus protection and browser, set the rest to manual Update. Store as much information as possible in the Cloud, or external USB/HDD. I would be looking at the Asus, see below.

Here is a review for your Lenovo, very nice, > http://www.laptopmag...eapad-yoga.aspx
You will notice that the ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A out performs it except in File Transfer and Open Office, NB. The ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A has 1.9-GHz Intel Core i7-3517U CPU.
Review, > http://www.laptopmag...rime_ux31a.aspx
test results, > http://www.notebookc...ok.77076.0.html

Price > http://www.bestbuy.c...tab=accessories

Resounces Site, > http://www.notebookc...-News.23.0.html

[iammykyl]

Gday Annacassandra,
I have not used these Lap Tops so my observations are from reading and comparing reviews and benchmarks. On any computer, if getting stuttering slow downs, try using a lower resolution, less Eye Candy and most important, only install programs that are essential for your work. Look for alternative programs with smaller footprint that use less resources etc. Adobe reader, no, Foxit Reader, yes. Set most programs to start manually, you don't want an office application to start with windows if you are not going to use it. Except for, Windows Update, security, virus protection and browser, set the rest to manual Update. Store as much information as possible in the Cloud, or external USB/HDD. I would be looking at the Asus, see below.

Here is a review for your Lenovo, very nice, > http://www.laptopmag...eapad-yoga.aspx
You will notice that the ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A out performs it except in File Transfer and Open Office, NB. The ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A has 1.9-GHz Intel Core i7-3517U CPU.
Review, > http://www.laptopmag...rime_ux31a.aspx
test results, > http://www.notebookc...ok.77076.0.html

Price > http://www.bestbuy.c...tab=accessories

Resounces Site, > http://www.notebookc...-News.23.0.html

[Annacassandra]

Thanks, iammykyl!The Zenbook looks great. A version even has a discrete gpu. However, I have one question. The Asus maxes out at 4g of ram. My current yoga has 8. Won't that make a big difference in video editing?

Thanks again,

A.

[iammykyl]

Gday.

Usually more RAM is better, but perhaps having i7 makes up the performance. I was unable to find a direct comparison for rendering\encoding. the only way you could confirm which would be better is to run the same test on both machines, that probable not practical.

To get 8GB of ram, you have to go back a model, loosing Touch and SSD, > http://www.amazon.co...f=cm_cr_pr_pb_t > http://www.bestbuy.c...=specifications or up a model and pay heaps more.

Sorry not a great deal of help to you. I don't want to, hope haven't, confused you for making a selection.