I know that soon i'll need to be looking for a laptop, and i'll probably have to get a "gently used " model from ebay or the likes - what are the minimum requirements that i'll need, for using it as backup, recording, etc. - and will i need to change out the sound card?
thanks
Jill

Jill, I was thinking there were two recent threads but I find only one...
http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/011159.html

Laptop is not the best for recording. What are you using now? You can do recording on laptop, I'm just saying low budget and laptop are not ideal.

i just want to have it for backing me up - my actual "recording" is done here at home on my new desktop. Also want it for song sheets, etc.

So, i'm wondering what is the minimum that I should consider looking for, to at least start.

Jill

if you do midfile play and regular laptop work

MUST HAVES(well not quite but you can get all the below features for 499$ new)


celeron 1.3 and up (or anthlon 1.8 or more-same price but Anthlon has more CPU power)
15"
dvd rom/cd r drive+ card drive
at least 256 mb ram
at least 40 g HD
fire wire(important for audio)
3 or more usb ports
s video out
internal wifi card(you can surf internet - in say -starbucks etc without external add ons)
and of cource 8 cell batt-4 hr.most of them are 4 cell- 2hr).


I would recommed a new one.and you can find the for 499$.

you can get-toshiba m35x-s 114 for 499$ new(after rebates)or Acer(with anthlon) for same price(more CPU power but no Svideo and fire wire)



[This message has been edited by jamman (edited 08-01-2005).]

Jill,

Dell has been advertising a Laptop with everything you need, and will probably ever need, for just $499. Ironically, it's basically the same one I paid $699 for just over a year ago. Check it out at www.dell.com

Gary

.

I am using a free laptop. I paid nothing for it and it was worth very penny.

Seriously...a few weeks after I got my DGX a friend gave me a laptop he was not using any more. There is nothing wrong with it - he just got a newer one.

It does all the MIDI things I need just fine.
Band in a Box, standard MIDI files, OMB, etc. All the MIDI based programs work very well.

This machine has a PI (I think) and Windows 98.

If you are doing the audio on your desktop, as you say, then your needs in a MIDI computer for the keyboard will be quite modest. This is the way I work. I see no need to work on audio files on the laptop. I can just wheel the DGX over to the desktop whenever I need to record or edit audio.

It is when you get to recording and playing audio files that you need a more powerful machine.

.

FWIW, found this on another site.

-

I personally have a fujitsu/siemens amilo A (athlon 64 based laptop) , I use it as a desktop replacement and I'm very happy with it. but people have posted a lot of brand based advice , I'll try to give some basic specs based advice:

1. CPU: if battery life is important get a pentium-m [the cpu componenet of the centrino package] (NOT pentium 4 mobile - thats completely different) or a centrino[which includes a pentium-M and chipset and wireless card], if battery life is not as important and you need more power I'll reccomend an AMD athlon 64 or turion based lap.

2. RAM : at least 512MB if working on music or video you may want more. 333Mhz or above reccomended.

3. disk: as much as you need (if working on multitrack audio or video editing you may want to avoid 4200 rpm models and get a 5400 or 7200, although this may not make much difference).

4. optical drive: these days it is a good idea to get a laptop with a DVD+-RW just to keep your options open, in case you later want to burn DVDs/cds.

5. screen: make sure you see the screen in person and are happy with it AT ITS NATIVE RESOLUTION, lcd screens don't look as good in non-native resolutions so if the native resolution is too high/low it may be a problem later. if you want to play games on it keep in mind that the higher the resolution the stronger the video card you'll probably need for newer games.

6. GPU: if you play games this is VERY important , because it can't be upgraded (except in very specific gamer models)so you are stuck with what you get. I'm not really up to date on this but for gaming try to avoid shared memory cards and genetic intel extreme graphics ones and get a descent one from ati/nvidia.

7. keyboard: if you plan on typing or using the keyboard a lot, make sure you check it out in person before you buy , some otherwise good models have sucky keyboards, and it you plan on doing a lot of typing this can be a real issue (although you can always use an external keyboard this is not practicl on the go).

8. ports/connections: make sure there are easily accessed USB 2.0 ports (not on the back only). it you are doing recording / video editing a firewire/i-link/ieee-1394 port can be a good thing to have , this is important because they are difficult to add later and many models come with them , but many don't. many models come with an S-video output, if you ever want to hook the laptop up to a TV to show photos or a video this can be usefull.

9. wireless : almost all laptops have this , but if you plan to use it , it's probably a good idea to make sure.

10. audio card/interface : almost all laptops come with shitty audio interfaces , and there is little that can be done about this. if you need descen t IOs you may have to upgrade with a PCMCIA /usb / or firewire .

well thats all I can think of right now.
good luck with the laptop hunt