I haven't had to buy a Windows computer in 20 years

Laptop brands are still trying to get away with 8GB RAM machines for general use, and especially at that value point of $200 you'll probably see 2-4GB models too.

You have a niche use-case but RAM does indeed appear to be the main bottleneck. You don't need fancy graphics, or a particularly fast CPU. You likely only need good single-core speeds.

The i5-12400 is a workhorse on the CPU front that isn't crazy old, and should do you well enough on the single core front. Pair that with 16GB of RAM and I would think you'd be set.

$1,000 might get you more if you wanted to be safe and future proof a bit more. However, RAM prices are very high right now and venturing up to 32GB of RAM might hard.

Something like this: https://www.bestbuy.com/product/asus-zenbook-14-14-fhd-oled-...

32GB RAM, nice screen, touch screen, very modern CPU (beating the 12400 benchmark). $100 under your top end of budget. It is only a 14 inch screen, great for portability, but maybe you like a bigger screen for reviewing as much content as possible?

Have you considered installing Linux and seeing if WINE/Proton can run that software? Might free up a bit of RAM headroom, and if it doesn't work out, you haven't lost anything more than a bit of time as you'll just be grabbing a beefier laptop anyways.

Used ThinkPad. T4XX preferred.

Thinkpad T480, get an old enterprise machine off ebay and add more RAM

I did this a while ago, wrote about it here: https://maxrozen.com/getting-your-own-good-enough-laptop-for...

Framework 13 with the Ryzen AI 5 340 and 2.2K display costs around $900. https://frame.work/laptop13

Add RAM and SSD from a third party, e.g. Amazon, which saves you some money.

Also note that since it's a Framework laptop you can always upgrade the mainboard and display later when you want to.

The cheapest full setup will be around ~1300 (including RAM, storage and all necessary accessories like the expansion cards for external IO).

Also note that if you can set aside ~32 Gb of RAM for virtual machine usage you can run Linux with potentially a GPU accelerated VM containing Windows on this thing which allows you to run native Windows (not simulated, like in WINE) and thus native Windows apps on top of Linux on pretty much bare metal speeds.

I would recommend getting nice used/refurbished laptops from ebay. Take the time to do your own install of Windows, cause who knows what's on there.

I recently got two; a refurbished HP EliteBook 645 G10 and a used Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 2. Both around $300, with a recentish processor (Zen 3), 16 GB ram and a 256 GB SSD. Scratches and dings included at no additional fee. The Thinkpad has fewer USB ports, but the Elitebook has an annoying fan.

If you need more than 16 GB ram, you probably need to consider if it's better to get one that already has that much, or if you should get one with replaceable RAM and swap... 16 GB is enough for my needs; one of the machines has 1 channel soldered, 1 DIMM; the other machine is 2 DIMMs. I was doing the same work on a $100 laptop with 4 GB ram; it wasn't fun, but I could do it --- but if my needs change I can upgrade.

The "refurbished" machine had a proper out of the box experience and windows 11 professional; the used one had win 11 enterprise installed with a user named user --- I put a fresh copy of windows 11 pro on that (bios activation); after some judicious changes in group policy editor, and disabling the push content in the lock screen, it's not terrible.

Not my listing, caveat emptor, but something like this might be a reasonable option since you are sort of indicating 16GB ram might not be enough ... https://www.ebay.com/itm/257198634361 $250, ThinkPad L14 Gen 1; 6-core zen2, 32GB ram, 512 GB SSD. The L14 is bigger and clunkier than other 14" thinkpads, but more modular... and IMHO, having more bezel underneath the screen elevates the screen a smidge which helps ergonomics a tiny amount; of course, the keyboard is still an ergonomic disaster with the reach over the trackpad, but that battle has been lost for decades.

Gotta say that I think the people recommending linux+wine for this are nuts. There's just no point to that. You want a laptop to run a particular software program. Find out what the minimal system requirements for that program are and get something that meets or exceeds them.

In your case, that seems to mean an Intel Core 5 or 7, Intel Ultra 5, 7, or 9, or AMD Ryzen 5, 7, or 9 processor, Windows 11, 8 GB RAM or 16 GB "if using CATalyst VP with Dragon Naturally Speaking," whatever those are, and 256 GB disk space.

Looks like you can get one of a bunch of Lenovo ThinkPads and IdeaPads that meet those requirements starting at about $600, although including Windows Pro and 32 GB RAM will make it more like $750.

One more vote for used and reasonably recent Thinkpad T series. These are laptops used by businesses and rotated every few years. T480 is getting a bit old, I think T14 gen 2 has the best price/usability ratio at the moment. I'd get at least 16Gb RAM, 32Gb if you can afford it (many recent laptops do not allow RAM upgrades). Windows is pretty resource hungry. You can replace SSD with a bigger one if you want.

If you're not comfortable getting used from eBay get "refurbished" one from Amazon. Honestly there's no much differences in how they're handled, but you will be able to return if something's wrong. It the US the cost will be just under $400 for a decent business-class machine.

If you want you can reinstall OS from scratch (Windows product code comes in laptop's ROM), I always do to avoid bloat/malware/whatever from the seller.