A new laptop? Which one to get?

My brother is interested in buying a new laptop for music production. He asked me if I knew of any from the forum and alas I dont, I have looked around but he wants quite narrow specifications so I thought I would ask in case someone in the forum has bought a new laptop and could recommend it.

He wants a laptop that has at least:

  • 4 gig of ram upgradable to 8 gig.
  • A graphics card that isnt intergrated i.e. g-force.
  • Decent processor around 3mb cache
  • 350-500gb hard drive
  • 1074mhz/second
  • A sound card which is either integrated but with the capabilities to run midi instruments and other useful tools in music production, or if not a sound card which is easily upgradable to that specification.

Oh and btw he doesnt want a mac which I have seen many topics where they suggest that.

Sorry for not researching this myself but I am useless with the hardware side of computers and he is just useless with researching lol.

Thank you :slight_smile:

Got the same problem, been looking for one myself!



Anyone know what the hell i3, i5, i7 processors are? Are they any good? Better than Dual Core?

I have an i7 in my music producton PC - as a benchmark with Ableton and a s**t loads of plugins with Firefox working on my second monitor, I am only using around 23% of my CPU



My advice on laptops is wait till santa has finished his deliveries and wait for the sales

Been looking at the i7’s … they are mega pricey! Over a grand like! :w00t:



I’ll wait until Santa has spilled his sack!

Hi if your buying a new laptop lookout for something with 3gb of ram i have heard that laptops and pc,s wont use any more than 3gb a 2.0 processor preferably higher and 320 gb hardrive this is the basics but it is all you will need as for i3/i5/i7 these are the top of the range intel processors hope this helps

[quote]gogz (09/11/2010)[hr]Hi if your buying a new laptop lookout for something with 3gb of ram i have heard that laptops and pc,s wont use any more than 3gb a 2.0 processor preferably higher and 320 gb hardrive this is the basics but it is all you will need as for i3/i5/i7 these are the top of the range intel processors hope this helps[/quote]



Concerning ram 32 bit will use 3gb (maybe 4) but 64bit utilises alot more ram - personally I only have 4g in my pc and run windows7 32bit without any problems but then I don’t play games on it



So a laptop with i5/i7, 4gig ram - large hd - but you probably have an external, as many usbs as possible 4 at least - decent graphics depending what else you are using - and my own personal advice don’t buy a dell or packard bell as their customer service stinks

[quote]gavisthename (08/11/2010)[hr]Got the same problem, been looking for one myself!



Anyone know what the hell i3, i5, i7 processors are? Are they any good? Better than Dual Core?[/quote]



i3 is dual core, i5 is quad and i7 are 4 or 6 cores depending on model, well the latest newer models of the i7 are 6 core anyway…


I’m running 6GB in my Windows 7 64bit. However you are half right, as Windows 7 32bit will only run a max of 3.25GB RAM

I got a new laptop recently and most new laptops ship with windows 7 64bit now, well in pc word anyway, both ones with 3 gig and 4 gig ram seemed to have 64bit windows



I’d say get at least 4 gig ram, make sure you get DDR3 and not DDR2, an intel chip with cost you more then amd but if you have the cash go for an i7 or i5. If you watching the pennys a top range AMD will give you i5 performance and leave cause for graphics consideration. Not important for production however, but for example I also use mine to watch HD movies sometime so I went for one with a mid rage ati card just in case I decide to play the odd game on holiday or something, so might be worth considering depending on your usage.



Most laptops with out dedicated graphics cards will play HD movies etc without issues due to ram and processors being powerful enough so unless your gaming, editing or converting video a lot you dont really need to worry about graphics.



Oh you if it for production your gonna need an external soundcard.



Whats the budget???

Lol I am just sitting back and letting the technical knowledge wash over my head.

Are there any good models you can recommend? Preferably a limit to under £1000.

Get the new macbook pro. there cheap and tasty…

here u go:



SAMSUNG NP-Q330-JA02UK



or



TOSHIBA Satellite A660-1FM



or



HP Pavilion dv7-4180ea



for that price… shop around however, u might get better