home recording laptop?

[ianfh]

i am looking for a laptop that i can both use for home recording as well as college. i was thinking of either

LiveBook [15.6 inch]

* Intel "Sandy Bridge" Core i3/i5/i7
* Intel HD Graphics
* 15.6 inch LED LCD Widescreen Display
* Up to 750GB High Performance Drive
* Up to 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 Memory



Selected options:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium [64-bit]
Processor: 2.7GHz Intel "Sandy Bridge" Core i7 Dual-Core [4MB Cache]
Memory: 8GB [2 x 4GB]
Hard Drive: 750GB [16MB Cache]
FW Card: Rain FireWire PCI ExpressCard
Optical Drive: StormDrive Dual Layer CD/DVD Writer
Docking Station: None
Namba Gear: None
Extra Power Adapter: Extra Power Adapter
Extra Battery: LiveBook Battery
RainCare Support: RainCare Support [1yr] w/ Free 30-Day Creative Computer Support Trial

for $2129.00


--OR--

this one.
us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/LX.RHS07.010

i was really hoping that some of you would have some advice for me or if anyone has any experience with these laptops that they could share that would be awesome. thanks.

 

[mjbphotos]

Not a laptop expert, but that first one looks like a huge memory-ed model. You don't NEED that for home recording, but you have not given us any details on what you will be doing - what are you going to be recording, what DAW (software) you plan on using, what interface you have or will be getting ...

 

[Armistice]

Buy a lesser laptop and spend the $ you save on the biggest mofo monitor you can get. DAW software needs serious screen real estate.

 

[Kierkes]

Buy a lesser laptop and spend the $ you save on the biggest mofo monitor you can get. DAW software needs serious screen real estate.

THIS. Not even kidding you. Waiting a few more seconds for a plugin to load is nothing compared to having the plugin obscure the entire window, like on my 1366x768 screen that was advantageous to me when I needed low native resolutions to game smoothly. Let me tell you: switching from gaming to working in DAWs immediately flipped my view of screen resolutions.

Try to find a laptop with 1080p resolution (1920x1080) or even more. (Some still go for 1920x1200) It was funny, considering that the laptop I had before this one died back when I was a gamer, and it has a 1920x1200 screen, and I vowed to never screw with high resolution again, only to have it bite me when I decided that I wanted to do this stuff. xD

 

[tracy11]

i am not an expert on laptop or other thing like home recording.. but i like your idea i think that is very cool and interesting...

 

[Bobbsy]

The advice about monitor size is good. The other thing to consider is the speed and size of the HDD. A lot of laptops have relatively slow hard drives and for multitrack audio you really need at least 7200rpm, even faster if possible.

However, even at 750GB you'll find that serious audio work eats up disk space fairly fast, you you may be into the realms of external drives quite soon. Which leads me to:

Check for the presence of at least several USB2 connections...perhaps USB3. Also, the presence of either a Firewire port or an Expressbus (or similar) socket you can plug one into is a good idea.

 

[panchouu]

* Up to 750GB High Performance Drive

Well, Check if "High performance" means 7200rpm. Less than that, it could be used for recording, but will have problems if you fill that drive too much. For recording it is recommended to use an external drive, USB2 (or now 3!) or FireWire (either 400 or 800), I haven't heard of anybody using External SATA, but I guess it would work like a charm for audio.

Windows will work OK, but the top producers and studios usually prefer using Macs (although the compatibility gap is ever shorter). I personally prefer macs, but don't discriminate Windows users as quite a percentage of mac users do.

Returning to what you asked: With that computer is more than enough, just try to get an external drive, 7200rpm at least (more is likely to get very pricey).

 

[ianfh]

thanks for all the advice guys
i don't yet know what DAW i will be using. i don't really know anything about it. if anyone has any advice on some free and/or cheap ones that are good that would be really helpful though.
both of those computers have a 15.6 inch screen and the rain's disc drive is 7200 rpm but the acer is only 5400 rpm. the rain's specs are actually from the custom shop thing they have online so i could cut back on some of the specs and save some money. which ones do you think i should cut back on? i am extremely reluctant to pay 2 grand for a laptop but i don't know which things are good and which things are necessary.

 

[Talby]

I work in IT and the laptop specs you have are great and all but just remember they do over heat especially when running a DAW. So keep it well ventilated