Thanks! I think I'll go with this one [...] and this dock which I think should work from what I can tell. Then I just need to get a separate screen and keyboard/mouse.
For the "adobe stuff" I use Photoshop and Premiere and they run really badly on my old laptop so I'm sure they'll work much better with a new one!
Thanks!!
That system will do far better than the old Acer will with PS and Premiere, but if you're doing it with any frequency, I'd look for something pushing about 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB. 8GB will work, but it's the minimum entry point. Same with Intel integrated graphics. This is where I want to point out that buying current gen laptops, even refurbished, isn't always the most financially frugal path.
Should you pay for the tools you actually need? Absolutely, but you've also been limping along using these apps with an ancient, consumer grade, hand-me-down laptop that never pushed you to desire upgrading or replacing until it was literally so broken that you have to replace it... so I'm inclined to believe that you are some combination of either very patient (which means any upgrade will be a good one) or you really don't use these apps very often to actually warrant spending real money on a workstation. BTW, Precision is the Dell professional enterprise workstation line, and comes in laptop flavors, though their numbering system's a bit different.
This said, if more horsepower is genuinely needed, buying a couple three generations old refurb with higher specs either from the Dell direct refurb store that
@katsiki recommended, or if you're scared to wade through perfectly cromulent mid-tier refurbishers on Newegg and Ebay, here's a name list of the current largest and most respected of the top-tier Microsoft Authorized Refurbishers (MAR) in the United States in alphabetical order that you can purchase directly from: Blair Technology Group, EPC Inc., Joy Systems, Sage Sustainable Electronics, TekRefurbs. I've personally done a lot of business with EPC myself, and never had a problem. Don't be afraid of B grade equipment, either, as additional savings can be had. The battery and SSD will be the only two parts you really need to worry about with excessive wear, but if a laptop has a one year warranty available, you'll probably be fine.
For example:
TekRefurbs Dell Latitude E5570, i7-6600U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1 year warranty - $715Joy Systems Dell Latitude 5580, i5-6200U, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 90 day warranty - $715Sage Dell Precision 7710, i7-6820HQ, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1 year warranty - $615Sage Dell Latitude E5570, i7-6820HQ, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1 year warranty - $550...and those aren't the only machines out there.
It's also worth noting that there's typically not much that can go wrong with a docking station outside of the power supply going bad. Open box and refurbished docking stations on Ebay are way cheaper than new from Dell directly. For example, the linked 90W WD19 dock can be had for under $100 from several reputable IT equipment resellers on Ebay. The equally capable WD15 dock that's compatible with your linked 5510 can be had for around $50.
Just, keep an open mind. You can get a lot more for a loss less than you think if you know where to look.