Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

For those that don't know I am shall we say computer illiterate. I am getting better but here it goes, My laptop died several months ago. Due to my music addiction (G.A.S.) I haven't replaced it and have been using the desktop my heatherns phuked up! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I am ready to get a new one. My wife has one of those tablet thingy's. I tried it the other night and HATED it. It's like using a smartphone. I am still trying to get proficiant with a regular computer. My question is what do I need to look for in a laptop that would be used by a musician? I would prefer to stay in the $500.00 and under catagory! Is that even possible?

I hate to say it, but go to WalMart. They sell HP brand for $300-$350 that are decent specs. Avoid "tablet" and other compact computers, as they do tend to offer less for more. One with a 15" or bigger screen should do it.

$500 is right on.

Make sure it's a dual core and buy it new.
These days they come jam packed with crap.

All you have to decide is if you want to go regular PC laptop or apple laptop?

Apple (IMO) is harder to use, albeit better for music creation.

The reg PC is the opposite. It has more you can do with it, but susceptible to other woes.

BEFORE you buy it, locate it, tell us which one you are looking at and we'll all tell you what we think of the laptop BEFORE you buy it.

That way, hopefully you get what you need and you do not get screwed.

EDIT: only a 30 minute wait in line to get gas in NJ now. ugghhhh

Chief Engineer Scott wrote:$500 is right on.

Make sure it's a dual core and buy it new.
These days they come jam packed with crap.

All you have to decide is if you want to go regular PC laptop or apple laptop?

Apple (IMO) is harder to use, albeit better for music creation.

The reg PC is the opposite. It has more you can do with it, but susceptible to other woes.

BEFORE you buy it, locate it, tell us which one you are looking at and we'll all tell you what we think of the laptop BEFORE you buy it.

That way, hopefully you get what you need and you do not get screwed.

EDIT: only a 30 minute wait in line to get gas in NJ now. ugghhhh

Thanks Cap'n I'll do that. Wanting to get one this weekend but not gonna be hasty about it! Yeah I remember those gas lines after Ike they REALLY SUCK!
What about this one. http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1260 ... 949-2#desc

is the determining factor, portability?
or what?
no matter what $500 is way too cheap in any case

Dual core processor and at least 4G RAM.

I don't know jack about computers either. I do most of my computer work on the smartphone.

Jeff

1) Quad Core - minimum
2) 8 GB ram Minimum
3) Check the SOUND CARD specs and follow with what you require.
4) You should invest in one or More Terabyte Storage Drives. Remember, each song you produce will easily soak up 4-10 GB of your drive space. Produce it on your PC, back it up/store it on the Terabyte.

FOr about 70 bucks, you can get a Black X ThermalTake Drive swapper. These let you copy your old Drive onto you new Computer either through a USB connection or you can pull out the old drive and upload directly into computer. By Old Drive, I mean the Desk Top, Back up files. The rest you wouldnt want to copy...Just reinstall your apps. (unless you creat an ISO image file of yorue old Computer)

What remains is whether you want Tower of Laptop. Laptop is obviously portable, where desk Top is not. (Techniclally you could take it everywhere with you a portable , Much like a toilet fixture could be technically taken everywhere ... ...but why...? LOL

START HERE: http://www.tigerdirect.com/indexus.asp? ... PAodPQgACA

These4 guys have deals at times.


http://www.tigerdirect.com


Same with pricewatch.com

My gaughter bought a Sony i5 (Quad core) for about $600. She said she saw the same one at Tiger direct on sale. Hers is really fast and furious.

Okay I did it. I got an acer aspir v3! It is a quad processor I 7 drive it has 4 gig expandable to 8. It has HDMI port it has all the ports. The spacing on the keyboard is easy even for a computer ignernt son bitch like me. You folks will notice an improvement in my spelin even though I have intentionally misspelled some words there is BRIGHT red lines under all miss spelled words. It has a 15.6 inch screen. In a nutshell this thing is PHUKIN NICE! I'll be back later I am loading my c.d.s into I tunes

Good deal. Acer has the least amount of breakdowns, or at least that is what my friend who runs a computer service says. I had an Aspire for a while and really liked it.

Slacker G wrote:Good deal. Acer has the least amount of breakdowns, or at least that is what my friend who runs a computer service says. I had an Aspire for a while and really liked it.

I am REALLY struggling with this windows 8

There is a way to set it so the controls look like windows classic.

I do that to most of the systems I own just to simplify.

I don't like the new O/S, too many processes running at the same time.
i.e. I run 17 processes including the task manager.

With the new o/s, it's more like 30-40 or (gulp) more.
That crap slows down your system.

Jeff, please tell me that your Hard Drive is not a 5400 rpm drive.

This is why I wanted to see the specs. 5400 is too slow.

I run 10, 000 rpm, small hard drives and sometimes that doesn't even cut the mustard.

Does it have a raid array? Raid 0, when you want performance out the wazoooooo. (but willing to sacrifice stability)

Slacker G wrote:Good deal. Acer has the least amount of breakdowns, or at least that is what my friend who runs a computer service says. I had an Aspire for a while and really liked it.

I tend to agree...Except the video card on my just crapped out... SInce its an On board card, I guess that means I have to replace the whole motherboard

PaperDog wrote:

Slacker G wrote:Good deal. Acer has the least amount of breakdowns, or at least that is what my friend who runs a computer service says. I had an Aspire for a while and really liked it.

I tend to agree...Except the video card on my just crapped out... SInce its an On board card, I guess that means I have to replace the whole motherboard

PAPER, never use onboard video. It uses resources from your computer that would otherwise be better utilized.

Take any old crappy laptop video card and insert it.

If you need a crappy one, I have a few lying around.