Hey I’m looking for a new laptop for DJing, as my old Macbook is beginning to feel a bit long in the tooth, and isn’t really handling Traktor or Torq real well. Here’s a form I filled out on another (non-DJ) forum, and I’m hoping that it helps you guys guide me in the right direction.
PS I’m not looking for a Mac. They’re simply overpriced, imho, and I can’t afford it.
What is your budget? Between $600 and $800.
What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? ~15.6" I’m willing to go up or down if the price is right and the features really fit.
What screen resolution do you want? Higher is of course better, but I’m not a stickler.
Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Somewhere between the two. I do need to be mobile (DJ gigs) but most of the time the laptop will be at home. I need power for audio applications.
How much battery life do you need? The longer the better. My old Macbook only gives me 90-120 minutes and that feels really wack, especially for long trips. I’d love to get at least 4-6 hours, or longer.
Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? Some FPS would be nice, but it’s definitely not my primary priority with this purchase.
What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.) Audio is the primary goal. I need something fast and powerful, with low DPC latency. This is my main concern. I’ll be using Traktor Pro, Ableton, and Torq, primarily.
How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? The more the better. At least 500GB would be nice, or, barring that, the ability to upgrade the HD myself, by hand.
If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. I generally get stuff from Newegg, but I’m open to branching out.
How long do you want to keep your laptop? I’d like to hold onto it for at least 4-5 years. That’s about the lifespan for me.
What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? DVD writer at the bare minimum. I don’t really need Blu-Ray.
Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don’t like and explain the reasons.
Toshiba has some known issues with Traktor and DPC latency in general, so I’ll be avoiding that brand. Other than that, I’m open to almost anything.
What country do you live in? USA
Please tell us any additional information if needed. While it’s not a deal breaker, I really, really would like a firewire port with a TI chipset, as this is the best, most compatible firewire chipset / port.
I had the same requirements as you! I just bought an hp dv6t Select edition. It has an i5 with 6gb of ram. I ordered it today. Comes with a backlight key board and 4 usb ports. If ur serious about looking into one i can give u a good link to some a good prices. just pm me.
I’m (kind of) in the same boat. Got a PC built and rebuilt by myself later and looking to switch to Mac. You can find some good condition MBP’s for $800-$1K on Amazon, Craigslist, and Yardsales sites. As long as the hardware is sound (and you can get a killer 60-80gig SSD drive off Newegg for around $150ish) things should be good.
I just got the Acer 1803T at frys for 599 + 159 for 2 year in store warrenty which is a must as i have dealt with dell on 2 laptops of my own in the past that took months to get worked out.
11.6 inch screen, i 5 chipset w 4 gbs ram & 500 gb HD. Dosnt run hot at all when running 4 audio channels in abelton. with FL & acid running. Great little machine been realy really happy with it. i was gonna go macbook but the lower end which start at 999 come with core 2 and the mbp at 1100 comes with only a core 2 duo.
I looked at a # of differnt machines before buying this model. Going in i knew a few companys i wanted to stay away from. I work in IT so iv bought 100s of laptops for customers and myself included. Brands to stay away from are toshiba, samsung, dell(except xps & alienware but these are there high end models and i hear since dell took over alienware the quilty isnt 100% up to par with there former reputatian.), Low end HPs & espically Sony i have returned to many sony laptops.
brands to look at are:
Acer
apple (obviously if u got the money)
Fujitsu (Every system i have bought from the is still working today 7+ years later, there systems are rock solid and the only repair i have done on them are HD replacements usally after 3-5 years),
Alien-ware(i still love the specs on there systems even though they are aimed at gamers, Digital DJs should consider alien-ware as there systems are built with heavy power use in mind)
Highend Dells, (u might get lucky and get a good one)
Highend HP, (the specs on there tablet touch screen 12’ are very very nice. and the price point was like 899 i believe.)
Just my 2 cents, I hope this helps.
exactly what i thought to. thats why i went with the I5 acer for 599 why by a new laptop with an older chipset makes no sense. the only advantage to buying the mac in this situation is the resale value, they resell much higher and faster then older pc laptops.
Personally i’ll never buy another PC again, i’ll always buy Apple even though they are over priced, but we’ll leave that discussion to previous threads on the forums (If you wanna look em up, you can search for them ).
I browsed through a few custom laptop companies for you (Two of which I have used in the past, but they are gaming laptop companies) and couldn’t really find anything interesting in your price range, simply because they all have high end video cards in them which hike up the price.
The laptop I linked above was what I chose because it has a larger screen size - 17.3", and a larger hard drive. Although personally I have a 2TB external hard drive which I store my library of songs on just because I don’t want it slowing down my computer at all.
For the price of an entry lever MBP u can get a high end pc thats faster and has more features then the MBP. They are very nice comps tho. I will get one just dont need one now
Yeah, I looked that up, along with Cyber Power PCs, and Sager for Laptops for him as well, and they are not in the price range, especially since they all have high end video cards in them. If I were buying another PC i’d definitely go the gaming route (As in look for laptops meant for gaming) since they are built to endure usage under long amounts of time while being pushed to their limits.
i speced an alienware 11.6 inch screen at like 759. only problem was its a core 2 duo. and i wanted the i5 or i7. I know acres got same system i listed the 1803t with an i7 chip starting at 799. But thats right at ur limit of 800.
U right though gaming machines is really where its at on the pc side. For the most part they are built the same of better then any MBP u could get. the middle to high end alienware machine’s are supper sick.
Hahahaha yeah, dude my uncle bought a i7, 13’ Alienware with EVERYTHING upgraded. Basically paid about $3k and some odd dollars for it, and he let me use it for a few months. Thing was fucking amazing. I could play 3 different games at the same time with things going on on all screens simultaneously and I could switch between screens and what not without any computer lag at all.
Here’s a picture of my desk :
Ohh and he let me use his iPad (64gb + 3G) too!
Kinda sucks that I have to give them all back on Saturday .
If i was going to fork out the cash for an alienware laptop id just go for a Mac mainly because with alienware you pay for the graphics card and as Djs their is no need for a high end video card. Id prefer to get a Mac book which have a proven better track record than a pc platform with audio.
Personally i believe a finally tuned pc is almost as good as a mac without the ‘Mac Tax’
You can’t compare the specs like that. Since OS X is built from the ground up for those SKUs, they are much more optimised. You get way better experience than on Wintel. Take it from someone that was a militant PC fan. With this MBP, I get real world 8-10 hours on battery and the thing is fast and stable. For DJing and music production, the current baseline Macbook model is more than enough. Even the “low specs” of the new Air are getting rave reviews. You can even get Steam for Mac now! I understand that you can’t afford one, but why not wait a few more months and get something that will last? PC laptops are not very durable and the screens are usually cheap crappy ones.
If not, why not get a laptop designed for music production? They usually test the hardware configs for DPC etc.
Actually video cards are a very over looked thing. One of the main reasons people experience lag on there pc/laptop (aside from obvious malware) is because they are trying to run to many things at one time which does require good video lots of apps = need for not only ram but video memory. A video card with a nice chunck of dedicated memory will make ur laptop/desktop preform much much better then say an onboard video care which usually has no dedicated memory or even sucks memory from your RAM.
Also part of the mac tax is the video card, every Macbook or MBP come with a high end video card installed, U cant run OS x without high end video its just to graphic intensive.
But I have owened both and still love both. I love os x and I luv win 7 at this point there isnt much differnce really. Win 7 preforms far and above my expectations and actually seems to be built in a simliar way to os x.
Horsecrap. Desktop rendering requires very little power. Even integrated Intel chipsets can handle GL/DX rendering of “3D” desktops as found in OS X, Vista, Compiz, Windows 7, KDE Plasma. If you want to watch HD movies or play games then GPUs are useful, but again, even the cheapest chipsets have HD decoding built in. People even manage to run Hackingtosh netbooks, FFS.
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