Let’s suppose a teammate approaches you, asking for the best recommendation for a laptop scheduled to endure at least three years in the future. The teammate is going to travel and live cross-culturally, create video/audio content to report to supporters, and communicate via secure messaging platforms like Signal, Zoom, and Telegram. Your buddy wants to use work platforms like MS365 – and don’t forget — he wants to edit his own videos quickly (and they need to be suitable for megachurches, too – so … at least high-def, if not 4K). He will travel extensively, so durability, weight and size are key factors for him. Security is important too. He asks for your recommendation – and your first question is, “How much can you spend?” He says he’s received a gift from a donor. He’d like to stay under $3000 if possible. To see where we go with this question, click Read More.

First, we suggest you meet with your buddy to come up with some preferred features. What would be on your list? Take a moment and think it through – and then see how yours is similar to or different from ours. Here’s the list we came up with (below). Keep in mind: These are *preferred* features. Once we go to the pricing step, we might have to cut back here and there:

Apple or Windows PC (Your buddy needs to tell you which; for the rest of this example, we’ll assume he asked for a Windows PC; Would someone be able to provide the variation for Apple please?)
Operating system: Windows 10 or later, Mac 13.0 Ventura or later
64 Gigabytes of RAM – the “thinking power” of the laptop
2 Terabytes of SSD hard drive space – the *storage* drive part. (This is bigger than the typical laptop due to the video editing in high res.)
At least an Intel i7 or AMD Ryzen 7main processor chip
A discrete graphics co-processor chip with at least 4 gig VRAM
14″ screen
4 pounds or less
1″ or thinner
Thin travel-sized

What else? What are we missing?

So now we go from vendor to vendor, looking for the best price and package.
In my research, Lenovo Thinkpads were too big. But there were Dell and HP models that might do. [Either way, please note – we aren’t trying to promote any one particular notebook – and we aren’t receiving any kickbacks or promotional fees from anyone. We’re just trying to search out a good path for others – if they need to purchase this kind of notebook.]
I guess, for now, we’ve settled on an HP Zbook Firefly 14 G11 for starters — to satisfy this prototype. We configured it here….
https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/ConfigureView?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&catEntryId=3074457345621246821&urlLangId=&quantity=1

As you can see, it configures to $5263, but if you watch this page, you can catch this exact configuration on sale. Plus, if you call HP and speak to a live person (who loves you), you’ll also receive a healthy discount from the sales person in the form of a great coupon. We just were able to pick up this workstation for $2500 — around $500 under the $3000 goal.

What did *you* come up with? Please click comment below and share what you would have done differently. It’s the only way we’ll all learn!!

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