Is there any particular reason why you need 2TB or larger storage drive? I believe you'd have more options and flexibility if you had a few quick external drives since you're seeking a laptop.
Same goes for a CD/DVD drive, you are greatly taking away options here as a good majority of laptops don't have them nowadays and instead squeeze in better cooling and hardware in general. If you need a drive it's better to get an external dvd reader over USB as you will ultimately have more options and be able to get a better laptop in general.
I am sure there exists touch laptops with DVD/CD readers, just not very sure about what kind of options.
What kind of animation and video editing, and what software do you use?
2. Hard not to nowadays if you buy a mid tier and above laptop, but ensure it has an SSD drive of sorts as a boot at least as they will remain snappier compared to a typical HDD.
Don't install a lot of stuff you don't need or use and it goes for everything, but most importantly software and services that runs in the background. On a modern laptop one program might not do too much, but once you start adding up all the various things you installed and used over the years, if you don't clean it out or know what kind of things you once had or ran on your computer it will without a question slow it down.
Getting a new laptop you want to without a doubt(depending on which brand it's from as some are worse than others) uninstall and get rid of all kind of bloat software that usually ships with the computers.
3, Don't take this too close to heart, but personally I feel like a good browsing habit/knowledge helps you more than these kind of antiviruses. Personally I've only stuck with windows built in protection since I swapped to win10 and it has been working just fine. Many years ago I'd say go for nod32 which does cost money, but to my understanding is the best too. But yeah, nowadays I don't really bother. But if you click fishy links all day long and download random .exe's and what eves and don't see the problem with that then maybe you want to invest in something proper. A good browsing habit and understanding never hurts though.
Just some general things really, nothing specific.
