Was thinking about this one what do people think?
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/lapto...-a-1n1-15-6-laptop-21731464-pdt.html#longDesc
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/lapto...-a-1n1-15-6-laptop-21731464-pdt.html#longDesc
Laptop for £500 or Under for production
- Thread starter flat1985
- Start date
look for 'used - as new' or refurbished.
I was actually going to suggest a laptop with the i5-4200m processor! I bought my sons one of these each for xmas:
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/essential/g-series/g510/?sb=:000001D4:0002689C:
Exactly same spec except 4GB less RAM, and obviously made by Lenovo. It's the fastest i5 processor for laptops according to benchmarks (benchmark score around 4500). Not as fast as i5 desktop processors, but for the money it's the best you are going to get.
The i7 laptops are generally quite a jump in price, and yeah they do bench higher, but the gain to cost ratio could be better. Also, with i7's you tend to have quite a bit of headroom. I have an i5 desktop, benchmark score of 6000, and I can run about 80 tracks of audio and 20 MIDI/VSTi tracks, plus group tracks, and vsts for each track. I can push it quite far, so with the i5-4200m processor you should be able to get about 75% of the total tracks I get on my desktop i5. Which is still pretty decent, especially with the option to bounce MIDI if things get tight on CPU.
My sons were playing some intensive games on their new i5-4200m laptops, and it seemed to handle it very well.
So for your budget, you have chosen the best processor. Which is the most important element when choosing laptops imo, then obviously manufacturer because Acer for example are not worth touching!
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2008
- Location
- Perth, Western Australia
im managed to get a good laptop for cheap brand new here in Oz, worked out to 350quid UK money.
Specs:
ASUS
Intel® Core™ i7-36300QM Quad Core (2.4GHz, 6 MB L3 cache, Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz)
Windows 8 Edition 64-bit
750GB 5400rpm HDD
1 x USB 2.0 ports, 2 x USB 3.0 port
8gb of DDR3 Ram.
So far i am VERY impressed. been using it for production and its all been smooth sailing so far ( touch wood!) very happy with it.
Specs:
ASUS
Intel® Core™ i7-36300QM Quad Core (2.4GHz, 6 MB L3 cache, Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz)
Windows 8 Edition 64-bit
750GB 5400rpm HDD
1 x USB 2.0 ports, 2 x USB 3.0 port
8gb of DDR3 Ram.
So far i am VERY impressed. been using it for production and its all been smooth sailing so far ( touch wood!) very happy with it.
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2008
- Location
- Perth, Western Australia
Let us know how it is bro 
Let us know how it is bro
Laptop is working great really happy with it, Windows 8 is a bit annoying at first though but getting used to it.
One thing i am stuck on though is that i bought a pioneer ddj wego for a little mess around mixing and that but i am having trouble setting up with traktor pro 2, I can hear out of the speakers and headphones but at the same time instead of one at a time? Anyone know where i am going wrong?
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2008
- Location
- kent
dont get a laptop for producing It gets slow and laptops only gerally last a year or two then they become slow as hell
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2007
Talking from experience, No they are not infact far from it. I am using a Toshiba atm and id highly recommend you stay away from them. Cheap shit. Well I say cheap I paid £600 for mine brand new and its been nothing but shit since the day I got it. I wish i went with dell again best system I have ever owned.
I switched to a laptop back in 2002 and cannot imagine not having the portability. I have made so many of my tracks at airports, hotels, friend's houses, laundromats, etc. Even just bringing it in the other room so I see my wife has allowed me to get much more music done. It's a big win over the drawbacks imo.
Processor is good. Next important thing is the make/build quality.
Computers do slow down over time, and that is usually software issues. When you install programs, some of them are set to start at start up, and you get a build up of icons on the bottom right hand side of the screen. The trick is to minimise what loads at boot up. CC Cleaner is good for this, because in the 'Tools' section you can disable what starts at start up, and if you reduce this down to the bare essentials, then it will make your machine boot faster, and give you more resources back. Stuff you disable can easily be started up from it's program shortcut.
I also go into services services.msc and turn off any services relating to programs or windows functions that are not needed, so they are also not starting when the machine boots up. Every little helps and it's worth spending a bit of time doing this, and then you might need the odd tweak periodically. You can also get rid of temporary files from within CC Cleaner, and I find it faster to uninstall programs from within it too, because it populates the program list really quickly. Anyway, great free program that I highly recommend. I've brought many a slow machine back to life by using it to tidy up what starts at start up.
Computers do slow down over time, and that is usually software issues. When you install programs, some of them are set to start at start up, and you get a build up of icons on the bottom right hand side of the screen. The trick is to minimise what loads at boot up. CC Cleaner is good for this, because in the 'Tools' section you can disable what starts at start up, and if you reduce this down to the bare essentials, then it will make your machine boot faster, and give you more resources back. Stuff you disable can easily be started up from it's program shortcut.
I also go into services services.msc and turn off any services relating to programs or windows functions that are not needed, so they are also not starting when the machine boots up. Every little helps and it's worth spending a bit of time doing this, and then you might need the odd tweak periodically. You can also get rid of temporary files from within CC Cleaner, and I find it faster to uninstall programs from within it too, because it populates the program list really quickly. Anyway, great free program that I highly recommend. I've brought many a slow machine back to life by using it to tidy up what starts at start up.
I dissagree, I bought a £300 Toshiba Satellite nearly 6 years ago and it still runs well, in fact recently sold it on to a mate. Only thing about Toshiba is their batteries aint great.
Spent £600 on a Satellite about 2 years ago an that runs amazing still.
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2011
im selling mine end of month..... with reason5 / cubase 5 and 10years worth of samples, and about 5000mp3s spanning all genres of dnb (liquid/jump up/old skool etc)
Its about a year old..... Acer... not sure exact specs, sellling as im now using a mac.
Its about a year old..... Acer... not sure exact specs, sellling as im now using a mac.
Mason John
21st Junta
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
- Location
- Norfolk, Virginia, United States
Yeah OP, this is a good anecdotal. Lenovo and ASUS tend to be the best OEM desktop/laptop manufacturers. Very top of the line and zero issues.
It really comes down to if you want Windows 8 in this case. Some people still complain it's a mess (there was an 8.2 update I believe brought back "normal" settings like older versions) but others claim it's slightly faster than 7 on similar setups. Of course, 7 is the more mature of the two since it's been around longer.
Good luck shopping!
Similar threads
- Locked
- Discussion
