Off Topic Looking for advice re buying a laptop

Hello all - mnost of you already know me as I've been part of the forum almost since it's inception but I'm a mackem looking for genuine help on buying a laptop.

Need to make sure it's got plenty of ram and have around £650 to spend. Need HD output as well so I can plug it into my telly to watch the away games!!

If anyone knows of any good deals I'd be eternally grateful - I'm looking for something capable of video and audio editing (been pointed in this board's direction as you seem to have a few techie types on here)

Cheers in advance

 

My thought would be to get the best Laptop for RAM and HD output with plenty of disk space that you can within budget and the additional software packages to meet your needs for video and audio editing, a fully spec'd laptop with specialist software installed and ready to go would be way out the top of your budget from a specialist supplier. I have software packages for a virtual studio and for guitar effects and modeling on my laptops, I have an Asus and Acer both getting on a bit now.

 

People will confuse the living daylights out if you just pick one or build one ideally.

 

Ah, audio editing. I don't know which software you have and what is the earliest operating system that it can work on is.

The reason why I say that is that a number of my chums who are proper recorded musicians (and I don't mean 'musicians' such as DJs or rappists) have laptops which run XP (yes, you read that right) and has a firewire connection.

Why XP rather than a later version of Windows? Simple. Speed. And you may find you will need this for audio editing.

The latter is getting like hen's teeth but one can still get laptops with that that still run XP (check online for drivers). Or go to Windows 7 and try not to go any higher than that.

I'm not too fussed with that as I'm always told that I'm not a proper musician as I sit behind everyone and bash things to my own time signature. But my favourite laptops tend to be Lenovo (as the one that I am using today) as they have drivers going back for all operating systems.

I assume you won't be worried about onboard sound cards as you know, as well as everyone else who has ears, that Windows borks the sound signal and that you'll be using an external DAC from the USB. The question I would ask yourself is how you plan to get the signals in from your instruments into the machine if you're using a laptop. This is where firewire comes into its own assuming that you have the suitable external peripherals such as a small mixing desk.

Hope that this helps a little
Malc

 

Windows XP was the best version. Everything before and after was/ is crap.
Laptop wise - Stay away from anything Hewlett Packard related. They overheat like a bitch and their batteries have had a tendency to die/ explode in the past. I made the mistake of buying two HP laptops. Both died due to heating issues with the motherboard. The internal fans were simply **** at expending heat. I currently have a Dell. It's good for what I want. I'm old school though. I prefer desktop PC's because I can build to the spec I want at a fraction of the price.

 

I use an Asus ultra book with i7 processor and ssd and win 10 which I use for live sound.It was about £700. It handles 32 channels of audio in and out no problem over Ethernet and Dante. For editing I use wave lab elements and reaper. If you're editing video and graphics a recent I7 laptop with extra spent on maxing the ram and a good ssd will be what you need.

 

Don't go to PC World for your laptop mate....disingenuous bar stewards they are.

If anyone is interested, I bought a 48" Hitachi TV last week for £289 from Argos (with Netflix app). An absolute steal, highly recommended.

 

When I was DJ'ing out playing off a laptop (I've gone back to playing off wax) I had one built with XP when I had to change laptops. Much more stable than recent versions. Don't know much about 10 though.

For studio use I have gone to a desktop Mac and won't go back. Considerably more expensive however and depending on what sort of audio editing you want to do should easily be able to find something capable.

I second the Asus suggestion. They are good laptops for the money basically because it's not such a fashionable brand.

 

Get one built. You have a specific need. If you go to a local small IT firm and explain what you need, your budget, they will do the rest.

Better still find a relative, friend, their son/daughter who will do it as favour with no mark up

 

Agree. If there is a small IT place by you they are usually a very good shout.