What system specs should I look for?

1_What is your budget? $1000

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? At least 15”, bigger than 17” not desired.

3_What screen resolution do you want? Sorry, but I don’t know.

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Desktop replacement but will travel with it occasionally, so 15” -16” would be ideal.

5_How much battery life do you need? I’d like to be able to use it for a 2+ hour movie

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? I have young kids so basic games will be the norm, but my 7 year old might want to play something like Dirt 2, so I will list that as the most demanding game on the laptop. I’d like to play it with settings on High.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.) Video Editing is what I want to get into. I have a Sony MiniDV DCR-TRV22. I guess it’s about 7 years old or so. So I have accumulated many tapes over the years that I’d like to do something with. This is the reason for my post. Also, photo editing, music, occasional movie on the road. I don’t have a Blu-ray player, so that would be a bonus so I could connect it to my TV, but not a requirement at all.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? 500?

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. N/A

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop? 3+ years would be nice.

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc? I’d like to put my videos on DVD’s, not sure if that was the question.

12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. Any PC brand will do as this is my first laptop and I have no personal experience to avoid a particular brand.

13_What country do you live in? USA

I think more important that a specific laptop, I'm interested in what minimum specifics I should look for. As in:

Core i3 or i5 or i7?
How much memory? 4GB, 6GB, 8GB?
Is any dedicated graphics OK, or should I look for a certain card?
What about hard drive speed? is 5400 OK?

I know you can always go bigger and faster, but I of course don't want to spend money on something I don't need. I have done a lot of research so I am not asking this in haste. Please help, and by all means please link to a specific laptop if you would like.

Thank you,
Tom