Over on our forums, user Shiveng asks for help finding a sub-$700 notebook with a full HD (1080p), a slim chassis and enough performance for video editing and entertainment. Shiveng also names a discrete graphics card and the latest Intel “Kaby Lake” CPUs as nice-to-haves but not absolute requirements. If Shiveng wants an extremely portable and premium design, we strongly recommend the Asus ZenBook UX330UA. This 13.3-inch laptop has an aluminum lid and weighs just 2.7 pounds, but it also has a 1080p screen, a Kaby Lake Core-i5 CPU and a 256GB SSD. It even lasts over 10 hours on a charge. The UX330UA offers performance that’s good enough for some video editing, but it doesn’t have discrete graphics. While it’s a much-heavier 5.6-pounds and doesn’t have the attractive design of the UX330UA, Acer’s Aspire E 15 E5-575G-57D4 (opens in new tab) gives a 15.6-inch, 1080p screen, Nvidia 940MX graphics, a 256GB SSD and an Intel Kaby Lake Core i5-7200U CPU for just $599 (opens in new tab). To find a laptop with a discrete GPU and a faster, quad-core CPU for under $700, Shiveng may want to consider an older model that’s technically discontinued but still for sale. We’d go for the lighter UX330UA with its 10 hours of battery life, but any of the three laptops we recommended above will give Shiveng performance that’s good enough for some video editing, along with a sharp 1080p screen. Most importantly, they all have SSDs.
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