What laptop are you guys using?

I am planning buying a new laptop, but it is bit tricky to choose the right one. I would rather take PC as Mac is out of my budget (max 600quid).
What laptop are you using, and how stable it is?

I found one HP Compaq 6720s for nice price, around 550quid.
Intel Core2 Duo T5470 1.6 Ghz, 800Mhz FSB, 2Mb Cache
2 Gb 667 MHz RAM
120 Gb SATA 5400 RPM HDD

Only thing which piss me off a bit, is that there is no FWbus, so I will probably solve it with using PCexpress card with FWbus.

Do you think it will be stable and it will have enough power for playing out safely? I dont want it for serious producing as I am doing it on my desktop PC. I want it only for Ableton sets, lets say 1-2hours, 8 channels, few Fxs here and there.

Cheers.

I would have thought that would piss it for what you want

I have used an ancient Toshiba for live pa`s running ableton with no problems , you need plenty of ram and thats seems to have it

oh and by the way i use a 828 motu connected over firewire , i didnt have a socket either but a 20 quid pcmia firewire card worked first time without any drivers or anything needing installing

600 is expensive for a core 2 duo mate, you should be able to pick one up cheaper than that.

and a second hand mac for that is WELL inside youre budget.

i be using a dell inspiron with a centrino duo running at 1.60ghz and 1 gig of ram.

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Originally Posted by RDR

600 is expensive for a core 2 duo mate, you should be able to pick one up cheaper than that.

and a second hand mac for that is WELL inside youre budget.

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Current price of this model is around 520quid incl. pcexpress FW card. The cheaper ones are with 667Mhz FSB and this one has 800Mhz FSB, though.

I was also looking on Macs, but I didnot find anything in this price range which would be close to the specs of this HP. I am bit worry about second hand stuff, esp when its bought from abroad...

Filterz: cheers mate. I forgot on soundcard, haha. Now I have internal E-MU1212M on my desktop, so I will have to check for some not too expensive solution and buy it..

Well, my lappy is blown away by the specs of the one you quoted, and you`ve seen my live pa.
I run a lot of crap in ableton, and it never blinks.

I`d still get something with a firewire socket though.

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

Well, my lappy is blown away by the specs of the one you quoted, and you`ve seen my live pa.
I run a lot of crap in ableton, and it never blinks.

I`d still get something with a firewire socket though.

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cheers chief,. Yeah, your PA is smooth as butter... so probly it should be fine with current specs.

this missing firewire socket is pissing me off as other than that is very nice for that price. I will still check for some others.... thx

See if you can find an Asus A8JS...
Not sure if they can be found in Europe.. but that's what I use and it has been completely solid.

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Originally Posted by xfive

See if you can find an Asus A8JS...
Not sure if they can be found in Europe.. but that's what I use and it has been completely solid.

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looks solid, but bit out of my budget.

Also, I cannot find it in any shop around. cheers..

ibook g4

runs final scratch. Thats it.

Lean and clean....

Bloodstar. I got a new 1.8Ghz Duo from Dell this time last year for less than 400 euros (£300). The secret is.. you have to shop on the Dell 'outlet' site. Dell Outlet is the part of the site where they sell off over-specced laptops or laptops that were ordered in error and returned to them. They have probably only ever been switched on once. You still get full warranty. There is some legal technicality that these latops cannot be sold as 'new' once they go outside the factory door and are returned. But they ARE brand new!

Check it out, it can be hard to find. Dell Outlet. Its well hidden on their site, they dont give you pics of the latops or let you hang around (if the item is in your shopping basket for more than 5 mins it gets deleted and you have to start again). They make it tricky and remeber you may not get the exact specs you want... but you can find some amazing bargains.

yeah dell are as cheap as chips (ie very cheap), they're not bad machines either once you re-install windows without all the crap they install for you.

that price is a fair price for a core2duo laptop, but yeah it would be better to have firewire, usb can still be a bit temprimental.

other makes to look for are toshiba, compaq and samsung

Quote:

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Originally Posted by massplanck

Bloodstar. I got a new 1.8Ghz Duo from Dell this time last year for less than 400 euros (£300). The secret is.. you have to shop on the Dell 'outlet' site. Dell Outlet is the part of the site where they sell off over-specced laptops or laptops that were ordered in error and returned to them. They have probably only ever been switched on once. You still get full warranty. There is some legal technicality that these latops cannot be sold as 'new' once they go outside the factory door and are returned. But they ARE brand new!

Check it out, it can be hard to find. Dell Outlet. Its well hidden on their site, they dont give you pics of the latops or let you hang around (if the item is in your shopping basket for more than 5 mins it gets deleted and you have to start again). They make it tricky and remeber you may not get the exact specs you want... but you can find some amazing bargains.

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TOP TIP!

^^^ Thanks massplanck, thats a good tip,. The thing is that payment in DeLL outlet can be done by card only from UK. :(

like i said they make it hard!

I actually live about 1hr from where all of Dells laptops for Europe are manufactured. Maybe I can break in and steal one!

Do you know any Czech people living\working over in Ireland\UK? Maybe they could order it for you?

Toshiba.

No complaints at all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by massplanck

Bloodstar. I got a new 1.8Ghz Duo from Dell this time last year for less than 400 euros (£300). The secret is.. you have to shop on the Dell 'outlet' site. Dell Outlet is the part of the site where they sell off over-specced laptops or laptops that were ordered in error and returned to them. They have probably only ever been switched on once. You still get full warranty. There is some legal technicality that these latops cannot be sold as 'new' once they go outside the factory door and are returned. But they ARE brand new!

Check it out, it can be hard to find. Dell Outlet. Its well hidden on their site, they dont give you pics of the latops or let you hang around (if the item is in your shopping basket for more than 5 mins it gets deleted and you have to start again). They make it tricky and remeber you may not get the exact specs you want... but you can find some amazing bargains.

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dude!!!!!!!! ime gutted i didnt here about this ages ago :laughing:

Core2duo, 2ghz, 2gb RAM.

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Fujitsu_Siemen..._1536__6558041

Fine with FL Studio, Reason etc, but took a bit of tweaking with Traktor 3. That seems to be the application rather than the laptop tho.

I think I overpaid to be honest (£800) but with those specs it will still be a good machine in a year or two, so won't need to replace for a while =)

Macbook Pro



.... like butter.

Gotta watch the machines that ship with Vista, I mentioned this on another thread but theres some serious ball ache issue with it.. Like the Compaq Presario V6XXX series for example... there is no XP driver for the SATA controller so you physically cannot install XP onto it...

One thing too look for though is a Lightscribe compatible drive... Dunno how old that technology is but Id never seen it till I got this compaq a few weeks ago but its wicked...

You burn your demo mix/cd/whatever, eject the disk, flip it over and then burn a lable direct onto the other side of the CD using the same laser... You need light scribe discs which are 30p each so a little more than your conventional disk but if you burn them in highest quality (takes a while) then you end up with disk that looks professionally made...

Not a decision making feature obviously but if you get the option to have a lappy with one Id go for it !!!