I need some advice about what to look for in regards to a pc laptop that can handle recording but also school work. any ideas? i need about 6 tracks in and my budget is 1200 for just the computer. Thanks for any help!
I would suggest a firewire interface such as these . Once you decide on the interface that will suit your needs, then you will know how much $$ you have left for your laptop. I would suggest either a P4 or an AMD 64 based unit with or without Firewire built in, as you can always get an IEEE1394 PCMCIA adapter if it is without.
right now im just buying the laptop... at a later date ill be purchasing a MOTU, but for right now i have a small m-audio interface. thanks for the reply
If you are serious about buying MOTU hardware later, why are you not considering MOTU Digital Performer 4 as your software? The 828 mkII comes with Audio Desk which is a fully functioning DAW application w/o all the extras of DP4. Granted DP4 is Mac only BUT... New G4 ibooks are hitting around your price range with firewire 400 ports. If you are in School you get some good discounts, I got almost $500 off my 15.2 Powerbook last fall. I use both Mac and PC and stay out of the "who's better wars" so in all fairness on the PC side I would recommend Compaq's new R3000Z 64 bit AMD system, again this is in your ballpark. This is the system I am recommending to my Mother in Law who does Tax prep work and owns a travel agency. No firewire though, but you can put a firewire card into the pcmia type II slot. What ever you decide on keep this in mind - you want a minimum of 512 mb's of ram and a CD/RW. In today's modern computers everything else is fluff. I bought Apple because they retain their value, laptops like mine are still selling on Ebay for 2,250 and up and that's what I paid for mine 9 months ago. Still PC's do give you greater software flexibility. So IMHO you need to look down the road at what you are going to add to this system then buy the system that matches future purchases. Hope this helps
J.
If just found out if you get the 64 mb video card option on the compaq system you get a firewire 400 port, sorry
You can get one of eMachines' newer Athlon64 laptops for around $1200.
I have an older Athlon 2600+ eMachines laptop and it works very well with DAW apps. The 15.4" widescreen display is a huge bonus and all their laptops now come with Firewire ports and 5,400RPM HDs.
