best laptop to buy

[DJSheikh]

Hello everyone, i was wondering, what are the features i should be looking for when i buy a new laptop? I want to hook up a maschine and midi fighter to it later on. How much ram should it have? What is the best processor?
i've considered the mac but i want something a bit cheaper then that.
-Thank you

[brocklambert]

Buy a refurbished Mac with at least 4GB of RAM and you are all set.

[DJDoubleYou]

my advice is, save for a macbook or buy a second hand late 2008 unibody model with as less RAM as you can find (if les RAM = cheaper). Upgrade the ram to 6GB or 8GB (don't remember what's the max). And you'll be fine, cost: +-500

[DJSigma]

I would not buy a 4 year old Macbook with a Core 2 Duo CPU. That's a total waste of money.

What's your budget? I would look for something that has a Core i5 or Core i7 CPU and has at least 4GB of RAM.

[statussix]

Envy beats i7 worth a look. You can tag a reasonable price in the US for a new model with an online voucher.

[dripstep]

I would not buy a 4 year old Macbook with a Core 2 Duo CPU. That's a total waste of money.

I've got a used 2007 macbook pro and it runs 2.6 like a dream.

Lenovo/ibm think pads are pretty solid laptops as well.

[ZxZDeViLZxZ]

Hp laptops stay away from...

Asus laptops I have not seen issues with and last however stay away from ones under 500
I5 or i7 minimum upgrade to ssd straight away well worth the coin

Lenovo laptops have a solid history but again stay away from the sub 500

Toshibas used to be great but have seen lots of issues in past few years even on their high end range...

Budget should be looking at 600+ if you don't you'll regret later.

I have a gateway fx7811 that I run dual ssd and 8gn ddr3 intel x9100 system is 2008 vintage and just in past year have upgraded CPU and ram so buying expensive at the time makes more sense then buying sub par every few years..

[GI Trackt]

If you have ANY desire to ever sync Traktor to Maschine, buy a mac. end of story. Macs have much more stable virtual audio ports for midi clock sync'ing. PC's have very unstable virtual audio ports (a third party driver needs to be downloaded - LoopBe1 - and it isn't that great at all). You can read about this on traktorbible.com.

If you don't care about sync'ing Traktor to Maschine, then PC for sure! Much cheaper :-)

[Shishdisma]

If you're using a Maschine, you don't really need virtual MIDI, you can just use the MIDI loop on the Maschine hardware, so a Mac doesn't have that much of an inherent advantage there.

[epikeddie]

2011 13" MBP here with 256GB SSD to run the apps and programs and 320GB HD (removed the drive since I use an external drive anyways).

I use Logic, Ableton, and Traktor without any issues and never a crash here to report.

With all that aside, my buddy's '08 13" MBP is also running like a champ. So is my buddy running a black MacBook.

We all religiously take care of it and make sure we don't do stupid stuff to it. Plus these aren't our daily workhorses either - our jobs provide those.

PC or Mac it's been debated a lot. It just boils down to how your manage everything. I would give a slight advantage to Mac for its ease of setting up though. But that comes at double the price of a PC.

I just don't have time to fiddle with settings. Just ask yourself what's best for you?