I'm considering getting a laptop for uni next year and I'm looking for some advice on what to look out for, as I've never had one before.

This won't be a gaming laptop, as I have a desktop already - I'm looking for something to bring with me to uni to work on during breaks, as I won't be living close enough to uni next year to pop home and the library comps are hideously slow.
So it doesn't have to be high end, but I'd like it to decent. We also work with films for one of our modules so it should run smoothly working with HD films from my camera. Would probably also take it on holiday with me, so I'd also use it for things like DVDs.
Also important is a good WiFi connectivity (I read a review of an HP one that had a bad one apparently).
Basically, not a gaming laptop but perhaps a "multimedia" laptop, but not too expensive. I've been looking at ones between 300 and 400 pounds (GBP) so far.

Which brands are good, which should I avoid?
Also, what should I look out for in terms of the graphics card? I've seen a few with the laptop versions of ATI and Nvidia cards, and many with UMA or something - does this matter too much if it's not for gaming? (I might use it for a couple of old games on holiday or something but that's not important).

Thanks :foodndrink:

If you are doing video editing there are some programs which offer hardware acceleration but it isn't required at this point. Some chips do offer better encoding and decoding performance but at this point the CPU is fast enough for the average user. An integrated Intel chip should be decent for your needs. How much battery life do you need? Lenovo is a very good brand for this kind of thing, you may want to look and see if any of their laptops falls in your budget.

Last year for video editing we used iMovie so if we continue to use that next year I'll be on the uni's Macs anyway, but still use the laptop for uploading and converting if necessary (did that last year on my desktop), though I might do editing for personal use. But yeh, it sounds like the integrated video cards would be good enough for what I intend to use the laptop for.
Haven't thought much about battery life but the longer the better, though I'd be bringing the cables with me to uni probably and use the laptop points there if I'm in the library.

I'll have a look at Lenovo too then, thanks :thumbsup: