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Say in theory, if I were to shell out for a new lappy...... what kind of specs are considered 'standard'?

I'm considering buying something for 5 or 6 tonne, will be using it extensively for graphics and sound + watching the occassional vid.....

I hate macs and Celerons (or the AMD equivelent), so where does that leave me?

Are 64bit multicore laptops 'standard', or must one still pay a premium for that kind of jizzle? If that sort of spec isn't 'standard', what's the next best thing?

I'm seriously considering upgrading to Windows 7 too, so that is a consideration...

Thanks

Pat

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index.php ... tembuilder

Definitely get a multi core like Core 2 Duo.

64 bit lappys usually have some driver compatibility issues, spose the only real advantage of having 64 bit is being able to have more ram. Windows xp, vista, and 7 limit 32bit computers to 3.5 gig ram, wheras 64bit is unlimited in theory.

And DEFINITELY go for windows 7, Ive got the full Ready To Manufatcure version (torrent) and its so much better. Plus it only needs 1 gig ram to run, as opposed to vista which needs 2.

i just recently picked up an asus with Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor T6500 @ about 2.1ghz per core, 4GB of DDR2, 320GB hd, NVIDIA GeForce G9700M GT, and an maudio fast track pro for an interface. I gotta say it's mroe than enough, and I haven't had any problems running any DAW's or VST's in Vista 64. Honestly if I don't feel like plugging the maudio in, the CPU is ridiculously powerful even just running some ish like asio4all while I'm out and about.

Anyhow, you shouldn't have to spend more than $6-700ish to get something reasonable, when you go up in price from there you're just paying for bigger/faster components and screen etc.

later,

annias

thanks for the responses so far. Food for thought (and the google search bar haha)

Anyone elses views & experience?

Thanks

Pat

A couple of points of advice:

1. XP, XP, and XP. Vista is a joke, and Windows 7 drivers are new and untested. I'm sure you have seen the special XP install available from the Cockos forum here:
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=30162

2. Get a laptop with a separate GPU, with its own RAM, from a name brand manufacturer. There is nothing worse than pops and glitches resulting from overtaxing on board graphics, because there is absolutely nothing you can do to remedy it. Graphics are given top priority by computer makers, with stable audio a distant second if that.

3. In a similar vein find a laptop with a decent chipset. Scan gearslutz and the other audio forums to find which laptops work well for audio. As I guess you will be running Reaper, see what Reaper users recommend.

As for specs:

A quad core seems to be the best bet at the moment, Reaper supports them, and the Live performance stats posted on the Ableton forum show good results too. On a budget, I've been hearing good things about the AMD tri-cores, not sure if they come in laptops though.

3GB of RAM with XP is ample for any audio tasks you can throw at it.

Fast SATA drive from a reputable manufacturer.

That's it. Hope some of that helps

Wow, some quality pointers there...!

I'll be following through on what you recommend and doing a fair bit of reading before making any purchase..

Thanks

Pat

avoid the athelon xp+ series of processors as new version of pro tools won't work with them and i have a feeling it will be a matter of time before same coding is in other daws and cause issues

Also most PC type laptops have got wank audio. Be lucky if you get a line-in with the majority.

Depends what you want to do and whether you need low latency audio etc.. USB audio interfaces probably start at like £100 for anything worthwhile I imagine.

manray wrote:Also most PC type laptops have got wank audio. Be lucky if you get a line-in with the majority.

Depends what you want to do and whether you need low latency audio etc.. USB audio interfaces probably start at like £100 for anything worthwhile I imagine.

nah you can get a lexicon on the cheap that is good