Sub £900 Laptop advice??

Hi
I am looking into buying a portable laptop with good battery life over the next month or two and would appreciate your knowledge.
I will use the laptop for Photoshop and Video editing, possibly a little bit of gaming, (nothing too demanding) and general word processing and browsing etc.
My maximum budget is £800-£900.
I looked into the Surface pro, but didnt like the fact that there are minimal USB ports on said unit, so will class that as a no, unless someone can advise otherwise.
The other Laptop that keeps popping up when I am looking online is the HP Envy x360.
There are both Intel and AMD configurations, and to be honest, dont really know what all the details/specs mean.
I have bought Intel for a long time, as in the past AMD seemed to be a powerful, but inferior product?? But am now led to believe that AMD have 'upped their game'??
The HDD size isnt overly important, as I store all my files on a couple of external storage devices.
Below are the models name and basic specs for both the Envy AMD & Intel models:

HP Envy x360 13.3" AMD Ryzen 5 - 128 GB SSD

AMD Ryzen 5 2500U processor
RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 128 GB SSD
Graphics: AMD Radeon Vega 8
Full HD display


HP Envy x360 13.3" Intel Core i5, Geforce MX150 - 256 GB SSD

Intel® Core™ i5-8250U Processor
RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 256 GB SSD
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce MX150 2 GB
Full HD display

Any advice on the AMD/Intel query would be GREATLY appreciated, and any other suggestions would also be greatly recieved.

Many thanks in advance
Simon

As the forums belong to PC Specialist who build and sell custom PCs and laptops, we can't advise on competitors' products. You could try an open forum like Tom's Hardware.

People can suggest a PC Specialist laptop spec within your budget, though these will probably be larger, may have less battery life, and will have vastly higher performance than the kind of hardware you've listed, as they're a different segment to the ULV laptops. Things like the Vyper chassis with an i7 8750H and a GTX 1050 ti.

PCS do sell laptops with ULV CPUs like the i5 8250U though these don't have dedicated graphics.

Thanks very much and apologies for not reading the rules .
I never even considered a custom laptop, but will certainly consider it.
The size isnt a massive issue, but would like a reasonable battery life.

Thanks and sorry again
Simon

About the most performance a PCS laptop could fit into £900 would be:


Chassis & Display
Vyper Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 45% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8750H (2.2GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo)
---Get Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Storage Drive
NOT REQUIRED
1[SUP]st[/SUP] M.2 SSD Drive
250GB WD Black™ M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3000MB/s R | 1600MB/s W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 120W AC Adaptor
Battery
Vyper Series 46WH Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9260 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.1 PORTS + 4 x USB 2.0 PORT
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK MECHANICAL KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £892.00 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/vyper-15/6hhV0wd8Sg/

The CPU being twice as powerful for multithreaded tasks as an i5 8250U (Cinebench CPU scores from notebookcheck.net)

And the GTX 1050 ti being well over twice as powerful as the fairly weak MX150
https://benchmarks.ul.com/compare/best-gpus

Battery life probably won't be as good.

Apparently the Vortex still managed 1.75h (?) running Unigine Heaven on a loop:
https://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/pc_specialist_vyper_15_review,5.html
And that was with a GTX 1060, a GTX 1050 ti would consume less power. Unigine Heaven is a gaming benchmark that will typically load the GPU to 100%
https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven

However for general low power usage it would seem unlikely to last as long as a small ultraportable, since unlike one of those it's not using low power parts. It's a 45W TDP -H series CPU and pretty much a desktop graphics card (laptop 1050 ti is actually a bit better than a desktop 1050 ti I believe). It's not a 15W ULV CPU like an i5 8250u.

If you could go £80 further, PCS have an offer on the Recoil II here:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/configure-review/275/
Which has double the RAM, double the SSD storage, and a better screen.

They also have an offer on the Vyper here:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/configure-review/268/
Which is the same as my spec but with a slower SSD for £805.