I am a full time student looking for a new laptop. Any suggestions?

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mdsimmons1118

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I am starting to take college classes full time and am looking for a new laptop that would best be in the sweet spot between performance, portability, and battery life.
If possible I would like my max budget to be no higher than $700. I will mostly be using it for casual school related work but some personal projects such as Photoshop and editing YouTube videos in Premiere Pro so it does need to have decent performance for the price. Since I will be taking it with me every day, it will need to be as light as possible and with as much battery life as possible.
Here are a couple I found so I would like some input for which would make more sense or if there is another for me to check out, please let me know.
Laptop 1: https://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-i5-8250U-NanoEdge-Fingerprint-F510UA-AH51/dp/B0762S8PYM/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1533704276&sr=1-3&keywords=asus+vivobook&dpID=41ep9XKCNHL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
This one seems fine. The Intel Core i5-8250U is powerful enough and is a huge improvement over last generation's i5-7200U. The 8 GB DDR4 RAM is an ok starting point. The display is better than others I've seen 1920x1080 15 inches. AC WiFi and Bluetooth is a plus. And it's lightweight.
The only complaints I see is the 1 TB Hard Drive which will need to be swapped out for an SSD bought separately, and it sounds like it is a difficult laptop to open and replace this. Also the battery is better than some I've seen but still doesn't look like it lasts too long. There also are not very many ports on the sides from what I see.
Here is laptop 2: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834316477&cm_re=acer_swift_3-_-34-316-477-_-Product
It is a little more expensive than the first but some of the specs are the same with improvements.
There is a 256 GB SSD included which would be better. It looks smaller and lighter. It is aluminum so it would be more durable. The battery is better. and the backlit keyboard is a bonus.
Personally I think the Acer Swift 3 would be the better choice but would it make more sense to pay that much more for it when I could buy the ASUS Vivobook? Which laptop would be the better choice to buy? I am also open to other suggestions.
 

mdsimmons1118

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The only problem I see is it is the same as the $509 version just $110 more to have a 128 GB SSD added when it would be difficult but still possible to spend $90 to get a 500 GB SSD https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-500GB-SSD-WDS500G2B0A/dp/B073SBZ8YH/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1533707573&sr=1-2&keywords=wd+blue+ssd and upgrade it after purchase.

Right now, the Swift 3 in the second link is $599 and is ready to go out of the box with some bonus features the Vivobook does not have. Aluminum body rather than plastic, backlit keyboard, lighter, and better battery. So the Swift 3 would still make more sense for these reasons although the Vivobook with the SSD is a good option.
 

mdsimmons1118

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Thanks. I was just wondering if there was one out there with good performance for the price that I may have missed. Although I may need to wait until closer to Black Friday to buy one so the prices may even change by then?
 
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