Best mix of weights and cardio

People often want to know whether they should be doing cardio or weights as if you must choose one over the other. For most of our goals, we are best doing a mixture of both.
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When trying to build muscle, people often avoid cardio. I don't think that's a good idea. Cardio is good for you and I always believe in doing some regardless of whether you're trying to gain or lose weight. If you are trying to gain weight and you do cardio then you just need to factor those calories in when you figure out your macros to make sure you're still in an overall surplus.

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The opposite side of that is people who think cardio alone is most effective for weight loss. A combination of weights and cardio is more effective for losing weight than either cardio or weights alone. Further, the more muscle you have, the more calories your body will burn each day which will make losing weight easier down the line as you have more muscle.
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So, to sum up, you should most likely be doing both cardio and weights. Depending on your goals, you can vary how much cardio you do and it's one factor to be mindful of when figuring out your macros. One of the reasons I like using cables and machines for a lot of exercises is because cables allow for constant tension to be placed on the targeted muscle throughout the entire rep. When it comes to lateral raises, the tension on your side delt is lost at the bottom of the rep whereas a cable keeps tension on your delt the entire time. Does that mean you should ditch the dumbbells? Not exactly. However, if you struggle with doing dumbbell lateral raises with proper form, you might prefer cables.
Personally, I do dumbbell lateral raises on my strength days because I find dumbbells more comfortable when going a bit heavier but I use cables (or a machine equivalent) on my hypertrophy days because I prefer constant tension when I’m using higher reps. Both are good exercises and you don’t necessarily need to do one or the other.