I'm a DJ who likes to do a lot of music editing, burning cds, etc, and I need a good reliable laptop that will do me well. I have been reading a lot of stuff online, and I'm very confused as to what the best system to get.
I use a program called SoundForge to record my sets. The average recording is 80 minutes long, and takes about 800 megs of disk space when recorded. Editing these files in SoundForge can be painfully slow. Actually editing is fine, it's just when you apply effects and normalize the files that it takes a lot of time. SoundForge DOES NOT USE RAM, so I don't need 1 gig of RAM in the computer. I think SoundForge is completely CPU and disk intensive...
I also want to use the machine to encode video and re-encode video. Again, I think that process is mostly CPU intensive, NOT ram intensive.
I was hoping to get a notebook with:
??? Processor - Very confused on this.. Which is best, a Centrino 1.4 - 1.6ghz, or a 2.4/2.6/3ghz P4 with hyper threading??
512 megs of RAM
15" xga screen (1280x1024 res preferred, i hate those 1800x1200 screens that require a magnifying glass to read)
DVD Burner (2x or 4x)/CD Burn combo
40-80 gig hard drive (5400rpm minimum)
Built in 10/100 NIC and modem 56k
DO NOT NEED AN OS or any stupid software - love to get a discount for a machine without one!!
*** A real plus would be to have video input on my laptop to record from VCR, etc.. and maybe a tv tuner??
I am not going to use the computer to travel but mabe 2-3 times a year, although when I do, I might like the thought of having a very light weight notebook. I am mostly going to use it in home, at least until I start getting a lot of gigs, then I might be hauling it around on a weekly basis... so the more I think about it, maybe the lighter centrino based system might be good, but if I have to sacrifice a ton of performance when encoding sound, video, etc, I would say I'd rather have the hyper threading processor.
Please let me know what you guys think, and what kind of price range I should expect to pay used.. Maybe one of you even has one with my specs that you'd like to sell. I don't need top of the line, but I guess I am asking for quite a bit because I want a DVD burner. Maybe I should just get a CDRW drive instead, and then go buy a $27 dollar enclosure, and a $100 dollar dvd burner and hook it up externally.. ??? Who knows.
I use a program called SoundForge to record my sets. The average recording is 80 minutes long, and takes about 800 megs of disk space when recorded. Editing these files in SoundForge can be painfully slow. Actually editing is fine, it's just when you apply effects and normalize the files that it takes a lot of time. SoundForge DOES NOT USE RAM, so I don't need 1 gig of RAM in the computer. I think SoundForge is completely CPU and disk intensive...
I also want to use the machine to encode video and re-encode video. Again, I think that process is mostly CPU intensive, NOT ram intensive.
I was hoping to get a notebook with:
??? Processor - Very confused on this.. Which is best, a Centrino 1.4 - 1.6ghz, or a 2.4/2.6/3ghz P4 with hyper threading??
512 megs of RAM
15" xga screen (1280x1024 res preferred, i hate those 1800x1200 screens that require a magnifying glass to read)
DVD Burner (2x or 4x)/CD Burn combo
40-80 gig hard drive (5400rpm minimum)
Built in 10/100 NIC and modem 56k
DO NOT NEED AN OS or any stupid software - love to get a discount for a machine without one!!
*** A real plus would be to have video input on my laptop to record from VCR, etc.. and maybe a tv tuner??
I am not going to use the computer to travel but mabe 2-3 times a year, although when I do, I might like the thought of having a very light weight notebook. I am mostly going to use it in home, at least until I start getting a lot of gigs, then I might be hauling it around on a weekly basis... so the more I think about it, maybe the lighter centrino based system might be good, but if I have to sacrifice a ton of performance when encoding sound, video, etc, I would say I'd rather have the hyper threading processor.
Please let me know what you guys think, and what kind of price range I should expect to pay used.. Maybe one of you even has one with my specs that you'd like to sell. I don't need top of the line, but I guess I am asking for quite a bit because I want a DVD burner. Maybe I should just get a CDRW drive instead, and then go buy a $27 dollar enclosure, and a $100 dollar dvd burner and hook it up externally.. ??? Who knows.
