What new laptop should I get? suggestions please!

  • Thread starter Thread starter ollie99
  • Start date Start date
ollie99

ollie99

New member
Heya
I'm looking to buy a new laptop within the range of £500-£600.
I don't know a lot about laptops in terms of specifications. I will know what a good one is if I go on it and own it for a while, but in terms of looking on the internet and stuff I really can't tell the difference between a good one and a bad one other than by the price.
So all that I'm asking is does anyone have any suggestions? I'm quite clueless at the moment.
I will be using it for recording and general stuff.
Thanks
 
"I will be using it for recording and General Stuff."

That last is a bit worrying. If by "General stuff" you mean internet and "office" work, probably wirelessly then don't! Keep all that stuff for whatever you are using now to talk here. It is not so much the risk of infection but that of ad hoc programs busting in and causing glitches.

You obviously have some recording gear and so you could take advantage of the Distance Trading Regulations. Buy a laptop online and then very quickly load up your recording program and hardware drivers and give it hell! Any problems, ship it back! Ok, maybe not that practical but it is difficult to be specific because models and specs change all the time and what worked fine for one person a year or so ago might be glitchy junk today.
Then! We have the spectre of Win 8 to contend with. The pundits seem divided as to its music performance but the general view seems to be it is at least no worse than w7. I note that companies such as cpc.co.uk sell laptops without an OS, way to go?

FWIIW I have an HP Pavillion g6 i3 2.66G W7/64 with 4G ram that seems fine for modest work. It is also quiet enough that I can make acoustic guitar recordings in the same room as it (well, I could until guitar and guitarist buggered off to France!).

Dave.
 
cheers for the advice :)
My current laptop is actually in the g6 series as well and despite it being a bit slow now and then it does the job I need it to and not too badly. The problem is the fan is broken so I thought instead of spending money getting it fixed I will just buy a new laptop.
I can use my laptop fine but it will cut out after about 20 minutes use because it overheats, so that explains why I would much rather buy a new laptop for recording and 'general stuff'. Otherwise I would do what you have suggested, but even then It's not that bad using it for both things, I've been doing it for a couple of years now.

I actually quite like windows 7, and because I heard about windows 8 not being very good I had the idea that I could just buy a laptop much better than my current one but with windows 7 instead of 8, but after a quick look on pc world it doesn't even look like they sell windows 7 laptops new anymore.
 
ecc83 said:
"I will be using it for recording and General Stuff."

That last is a bit worrying. If by "General stuff" you mean internet and "office" work, probably wirelessly then don't! Keep all that stuff for whatever you are using now to talk here. It is not so much the risk of infection but that of ad hoc programs busting in and causing glitches.
Click to expand...

I can't recommend an apple system enough.
I give my MBP no special treatment whatsoever and it has been flawless for a good while now.
It's just perfect man. I'm sitting cruising facebook while the vocalist is doing take 10 in a 30 track session with the buffer at 128.

You could totally just fix the fan yourself though.
 
Last edited:
Steenamaroo said:
I can't recommend an apple system enough.
I give my MBP no special treatment whatsoever and it has been flawless for a good while now.
It's just perfect man. I'm sitting cruising facebook while the vocalist is doing take 10 in a 30 track session with the buffer at 128.

You could totally just fix the fan yourself though.
Click to expand...

But they're god damn expensive!

I generally have no idea how to make it work though? I have thought that when I get a new laptop I might as well open my old one up and see if I can mess around with it, but I've had it for a while now anyway so a new laptop wouldn't hurt, and I have the money at the moment so I don't wanna spend that on something else then not have the money when a new laptop is more urgent in a year or so.
 
ollie99 said:
But they're god damn expensive!

I generally have no idea how to make it work though? I have thought that when I get a new laptop I might as well open my old one up and see if I can mess around with it, but I've had it for a while now anyway so a new laptop wouldn't hurt, and I have the money at the moment so I don't wanna spend that on something else then not have the money when a new laptop is more urgent in a year or so.
Click to expand...

They may be expensive, but I'm pretty sure they're worth the hassle. Like steen said, it requires minimal effort to maintain the condition of the computer. I have one laptop that is easily overheated and had to replace parts of it just to get it working again.
 
DarrenVocal said:
They may be expensive, but I'm pretty sure they're worth the hassle. Like steen said, it requires minimal effort to maintain the condition of the computer. I have one laptop that is easily overheated and had to replace parts of it just to get it working again.
Click to expand...

The thing is I am 16 years old and have no way of getting that much money in even the next 3 years.
Plus, I am actually happy with my laptop that I have now apart from it overheats but the fan only stopped working because I dropped the laptop. So all I want is a laptop which is similar but given I've had that one for a while now I feel with not much more money I can get a laptop which is considerably better. I just want help picking one like that out.
In the future when I have a higher income than £20 a month then I will invest in a mac because I know it will be worth it but right now that isn't really an option.
 
ollie99 said:
I generally have no idea how to make it work though? I have thought that when I get a new laptop I might as well open my old one up and see if I can mess around with it,
Click to expand...

If "mess around with it is your choice of words, just don't. ;)

ollie99 said:
The thing is I am 16 years old and have no way of getting that much money in even the next 3 years.
Plus, I am actually happy with my laptop that I have now apart from it overheats but the fan only stopped working because I dropped the laptop.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Listen, if you're happy with the laptop other than the fan, and not comfortable fixing it, I bet someone on here would replace the fan for you.

I would certainly do it, but you'll probably find someone closer.
I'm near Belfast. PM me if you like. :)
 
Last edited:
Steenamaroo said:
If "mess around with it is your choice of words, just don't. ;)



Fair enough. Listen, if you're happy with the laptop other than the fan, and not comfortable fixing it, I bet someone on here would replace the fan for you.

I would certainly do it, but you'll probably find someone closer.
I'm near Belfast. PM me if you like. :)
Click to expand...

Yeah exactly haha

It's the fact that I've had it for 2-3 years now so I thought instead of going through the hassle of getting it fixed I might as well buy a new one.
 
Well, it's up to yourself but you're totally buying a new car because a tyre is flat.

I repair laptops quite often for people. More often than not it's a replacement internal screen cable (bad hinges).
I actually did one today.

Some laptops are quite handy. The base panel lifts away and reveals the fans etc. Others are a nightmare.
If yours is handy maybe you could just do it yourself?

What model have you?

If you just want a new laptop because you want a new laptop, fair play.
I'm just saying if it's fine bar the fan, I wouldn't be shopping.
 
Not a bad idea, Ecc, but personally I'd want to fix that fan.The inbuilt ones are usually right on the heatsink and I'm not sure an external cooler would be enough.
 
I don't recommend a Mac. The hardware and software costs significantly more without offering any benefit. I recently bought a new laptop specifically for field recording and "general use" (I use it at work). It's an HP factory refurb unit with an i7 quad core, 8 gig of RAM (I expanded it to 16), 3 USB 3.0 ports (which lets me record to and mix from a separate 3.0 USB drive -- I have a 1 terabyte drive I use for this purpose) and 1 USB 2.0 port, a 1920 x 1080 15.7" HD screen (necessary if you want to use scoring software or you're mixing a lot of tracks), a full-size lighted keyboard (great for dark venues) with a separate numeric pad (very useful for navigating and entering values directly), a fast 750 gig hard drive (I replaced it with a 512 gig SSD) a 6-hour 9-cell battery, CD/DVD writer, WiFi, WiDi and BluTooth. It cost $799, which is right around the top of your range.

The machine is lightning fast, can handle anything I throw at it, and is quite rugged.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Well, it's up to yourself but you're totally buying a new car because a tyre is flat.

I repair laptops quite often for people. More often than not it's a replacement internal screen cable (bad hinges).
I actually did one today.

Some laptops are quite handy. The base panel lifts away and reveals the fans etc. Others are a nightmare.
If yours is handy maybe you could just do it yourself?

What model have you?

If you just want a new laptop because you want a new laptop, fair play.
I'm just saying if it's fine bar the fan, I wouldn't be shopping.
Click to expand...

HP g6 1012SA 4gb

Think of it more as I could do with a new car because this one is a bit old, now the tyre is flat anyway so this is a good time to buy a new one.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Not a bad idea, Ecc, but personally I'd want to fix that fan.The inbuilt ones are usually right on the heatsink and I'm not sure an external cooler would be enough.
Click to expand...

Oh I quite agree Steen' ! I just reasoned that our impecunious OP could stave off failure while he saves up/researches getting the laptop fixed.

Don't want to get all political on anyones A but it is almost a crime given the state of this world to dispose of such complex equipment for the want of a fan! In any event. TWO computers are much more than twice as useful as one!

(I bought a Dell P4 2.66G tower from a charity shop 2 weeks ago for £9.99! Password protected but a format and fresh XP home install had it spruced ready for one of the grandsons.)

Dave.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Not a bad idea, Ecc, but personally I'd want to fix that fan.The inbuilt ones are usually right on the heatsink and I'm not sure an external cooler would be enough.
Click to expand...

I had thought about a laptop fan stand before I decided I want to buy a new laptop altogether.

Actually, since the fan has broken, whenever I have been needing to use my laptop for longer periods of time I have just used a standard room heater thing turned onto its cooling setting and propped it up towards the top left corner of the laptop (the corner where most the heat seemse to be coming from) and that keeps it cool and works fine - obviously very impractical.
 
ollie99 said:
I had thought about a laptop fan stand before I decided I want to buy a new laptop altogether.

Actually, since the fan has broken, whenever I have been needing to use my laptop for longer periods of time I have just used a standard room heater thing turned onto its cooling setting and propped it up towards the top left corner of the laptop (the corner where most the heat seemse to be coming from) and that keeps it cool and works fine - obviously very impractical.
Click to expand...

Ok, BTW found this...
It will be adequate for HD video editing.

The quadcore AMD Phenom II x4 P960 in that laptop is roughly the equivalent of a dual core Intel Core i5 in terms of total capability. You could do far better with a high end quad Core i7, but that would cost considerably more.
Source(s):
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.p…
2 years ago Report Abuse
 
ollie99 said:
HP g6 1012SA 4gb

Think of it more as I could do with a new car because this one is a bit old, now the tyre is flat anyway so this is a good time to buy a new one.
Click to expand...

Hey fair enough. I'm not here to talk you into anything.
Hope you get some first hand reviews....I haven't really used windows laptops for a while. :)
 
ollie99 said:
Does this laptop look like a good buy?
Click to expand...
Honestly? No. First, it's a Pentium machine, i.e. single core. Most music software supports multiple cores, and you really need that capability when rendering a mix, using VSTs, mixing tracks or adding single-track effects. Next, it's only 4Gb of RAM, which is simply not enough to run Win7, a music program and have enough memory left for the music itself. It's also an order model (or, at least, has older specs), i.e. no USB 3.0, no 802.11n, and a relatively slow single-core processor. Finally, it doesn't specify screen resolution. My bet is that its 1366 x 768, rather than 1920 x 1080. Take a look at this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/DV6-7227SA-...e=UTF8&qid=1370552732&sr=1-2&keywords=hp+dv6t for the same price.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top