Ask Paul: May 5 (Premium)

Well, it's finally May, and the weather is finally warming after a terrible April, but don't go outside until you've read through this mammoth installment of Ask Paul. There's a lot going on this week.
PC upgrade
noelt1955 asks:

Hi Paul. I retired early last year and am currently using a (docked) Surface Pro 3 at home that has been great but has passed its use-by date. I no longer need a notebook computer and I want to toy with some amateur video editing for fun. I have a multiple monitor setup in my study and happily use Samsung Dex on my Galaxy Ultra s21 when away in our RV (thanks to Starlink). My budget is around US$1,500. I'm in Australia but have a wide choice available. Maybe I should switch to a Mac Mini, but I must admit to being more comfortable in the Microsoft world. What's your advice?

If I'm reading this correctly, you have $1500, and need a device for video editing, but don't want to buy a laptop? If that's correct, then there is only one obvious choice: an iPad or iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard or a third-party alternative. Why? Because iMovie, which you get for free on those platforms, is the very best and easiest video editing solution and iPads are fantastic. Was I doing this personally, I'd go for the biggest screen Apple makes, so a 12.9-inch iPad, which starts at $1099 U.S., and then the Apple Magic Keyboard, which is $349 U.S. That brings you in just under $1500, but you will need external storage or more internal storage for video, of course.

That said, if you handed me $1500 and said this was primarily for video editing, I would get a laptop. I prefer Windows, so I'd go with a premium HP or Lenovo laptop, with at least a 14-inch display. But if you like the iMovie idea, Apple will soon launch a 15-inch MacBook Air that should be right around that price point too.

Or, if you want to stick with Surface, the Surface Pro 9 is an obvious choice. Here, too, I would go with a laptop (Surface Laptop), in part for the bigger display, but everyone has their own preferences. And on that note, I suspect others will have different ideas about this. It may be useful to get a range of opinions on this.
Xbox eternal
jrzoomer asks:

Paul in light of a failed Activision deal, do you think Microsoft would be better off folding (or selling to an interested party, if possible) the Xbox division? It's certainly not priority #1--earlier this year they did cut jobs at HoloLens, Xbox, and Surface.

I once believed that Microsoft should have spun off Xbox for all the obvious reasons, but with Microsoft's shift to cloud computing, that thinking changed. And the one thing that Xbox benefits from---that HoloLens, Surface, and even Windows (mostly) do not---is that it can fit and grow within that world. In fact, there's an argument to be made that cloud computing, and the resulting subscription services, are what makes Xbox make sense as a platform. Now that games are being delivered from the cloud, as opposed to on disc in ...

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