New Laptop help!

I've become overwhelmed with all the choices on the market and thought I'd put it out to my favourite community on the net for advice,

I'm looking for a new laptop for work. A very important factor is the camera (for skype) , connectivity for external mic and enough power to run multiple programs at once. My initial thought was Macbook, but every review I read screams NO!

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Unless you're already well absorbed into the Apple ecosystem, I'm usually opposed to going mac. For the requirements you've mentioned, most any modern laptop will do well. I'd say look for something with 8+ gigs of ram, a low end i7 processor. If you're in the US and have a Costco nearby (or the equivalent), they're great for this kind of purchase, IMO.

I am well absorbed, but don't need to be. Currently use an old Ipad 2 for video conferencing and a low spec toshiba laptop for everything else. What I'd like is something that'll take care of everything. I'll also be making and editing videos, so that's a consideration too.

Oh, with videos, you'll want more ram and a better processor IMO (unless you can afford to wait). I'd say a mid/high end i7 based on budget, and 12+ gigs of ram.

I find The Wirecutter has pretty solid advice that is not driven by sponsorship.

Even though I use Macs, I will second Keleth's suggestion. Unless you work in desktop publishing, photography, graphic design, or music composition, avoid Mac. Otherwise, then by all means, buy the Macbook Pro.

I'll note that at my company (which is a large Fortune 500 company) most of the people in my department (~1500 people) have and use Macs and video/skype/zoom is a common use of them. They seem to be okay with the experience. I personally stick with Windows since I spend my time in Outlook and MSFT Office all day long and I prefer the experience of that software on Windows. I use a Toshiba Z30 and have been happy with it.

That said, I would not use my Toshiba to make/edit videos. I think you want something with more juice to it than that.

Gonna echo Keleth here and add that for video editing, you really want a quality graphics card as well. The onboard graphics of your processor is probably not enough. Something like an Nvidia Geforce 970 or 1050 would be a solid budget friendly card.

A big part of this is budget. What are you working with? Some articles to consider are screen resolution, color/contrast capabilities, and whether you need encryption since it's for a business. Some encryption requires a particular drive compliance, too.

Thanks for the advise guys! I went with the Dell Inspiron 7000 in the end.