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My laptop is on borrowed time and I need something new for personal use. I went to Best Buy last night and told a salesman that I wanted something that has just enough juice for me to fool around with video editing, like splicing together vacation cell phone video clips and videos of people screwing around on bikes. He showed me a $2600 Macbook Pro and told me I needed to buy a full version of Final Cut Pro or it would be impossible. I felt like the guy who walks into a bike shop and explains he wants a bike to doodle around Town Lake on Sunday mornings and pedal around the block with his kids and is shown a $8000 carbon enduro race bike and a moto helmet. Awkward. What should I look for in a more pedestrian computer? I have researched Windows/ Mac/ Chrome options and I feel like Chrome OS is going to underwhelm me, Macs are just more expensive than what I can justify spending on something purely for personal convenience. Any case to be made for anything other than Windows for me? Looking at computers, I am lost in a sea of technical jargon that makes me think I am going to make the wrong choice no matter what. I don’t want to play games (no time for that nonsense) or watch movies on it (I have a big ass TV on my wall at home for that). Portability, simplicity, and value would be most important to me. Web browsing, Google docs, MS Word and Excel, a little photo/ video / audio hobby-level experimenting, etc. I am not the kind of person who needs the best of everything. What’s the SLX level computers? What features should be most important? Is $500 unrealistic for a no-frills laptop that won't be totally obsolete in a year?