Laptop

[ernstinen]

Hi guys,My wife wants a new laptop PC as our main home computer. It might be used by me for music eventually. Hope the computer-savvy here can give me some ideas!Here's the one thing we definitely want: A 17" screen.Initially it would be used for simple things like email, photos, Office programs, Quicken etc. But we don't want it to be a dinosauer in a couple years.I noticed that a Toshiba Satellite Notebook advertized this weekend features an Intel Core 2 Duo T5200 with DVD Burner, 2048MB DDR2 memory, 160GB HD, 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN (whatever that is --- we DO want it to be wireless to hook up to a high-speed cable modem). It's got USB and Firewire, I'm pretty sure.How about the included Windows Vista Home Premium? Any ideas about Vista?The price is about $1200.I've had good luck buying refurbished computers. It might be hard to find a used laptop with a 17" screen, but if there is one running Win XP, would that be a good idea, or is XP going to be obsolete soon!?Thanks so much in advance!Ern

[booker]

I'm no expert Erns, but I do have a Toshiba laptop and it works very well for my basic computing needs. I haven't done any music on it, so I can't say if it works well or not, but I do use the wireless internet thingy. Love it. No problems or hang-ups yet. If I could have bought a Mac, I would have.

[53mph]

Thing to look out for on a laptop for music is the overheating factor.I'd suggest not going for heavy power (like P4 processors etc) but going for a laptop efficient processor such as the Centrino. I've got an older Centrino model than the newer Duel Core ones and an interesting thing about them is that they are like the old P3 in structure and process the info in a different way to the P4. The result is that for many music applications it actually rubs faster than a P4 (something to do with the seek commands) I don't know about the Duel Core systems but as long as it's Centrino it should be ok. Have you thought about the 64bit AMD chips...you could take advantage of all the new 64bit music apps.Be wary of the big hard-drive. Laptops often come with 5400rpm drives, not the faster 7200.Check with the dealer that the drive is a fast one and a quiet one. The drives can over heat like a mother on laptops.If you're really keen on using it for music, concider buying from a music laptop specialist. The price often comes out about the same but they will choose components best suited for music laptops and streamline the system for music use.BTW I don't know what Vista is like with music software. Any compatibility issues with older software? Worth looking into.