MacMINI/lcd display or powerful laptop(Please read and debate)!!
okay dj tech tools.
i got an imac 2.33 dual core intel with 1.5 gb with plenty of hard drive space.
Traktor 3 runs great on it with my soundcard. the thing is that im going to start djing and i space and portability.
Say im at a gig.
should i useā¦?
a maxed out mac mini with 2gb of ram and a simple lcd display and bluetooth keyboard
or
a pc laptop under $1300 with 2 gb and a downgrade to xp
I use an XP notebook myself, my gigs are unimportant house parties though.
Until september though, when i am doing a private club function - which is essentially a birthday party where stuff ups will be tolerated.
Iāve lost count of the number of times where iāve mixed for 2+ hours without any problems on my XP laptop. BUT i only use the laptop for mixing, there is nothing on there to mess it up, the only thing to mess it up is hardware failure which hasnāt happened yet.
If you run a dedicated system that is kept clean for traktor you should have no problems either way.
This this $1300 laptop something you are thinking about purchasing ? or has it been purchased ? if its something you own, what are the specs ?
Is it just me or does that poll make no sense ? 
what is ur hardware sir?
yes, the poll is fād up. its my first time here and i cant fix it.
anyways, this laptop will either be a intel core duo barebones type or a gateway with some extra punch in it.
The industry idea of āmaxed outā for a laptop is a machine fitted out for gaming. The kinds of āmaxed outā you need for audio workstation is of a different flavour - maximize IO bandwidth, one fast harddrive, one large one for data storage, RAM, CPU and as much connectivity (USB, firewire, network) as you can lever into the box. Graphics accelleration is not important, onboard graphics is good enough for Ableton Live, onboard sound is fine youāre not going to be using it.
Speccing out a machine for a music workstation can turn up some surprising results. Last time I did it, I bought second-from-top of the range components, picked a motherboard with only the features I needed and ended up with a kick ass Shuttle PC that cost about 2/3 of a standard top of the line gaming machine.
Custom building for audio workstations is the way to go, and itās all about maxing the IO, RAM and CPU.
If space and portability are your needs Iād go with the laptop.
If you can spec it out as needed (as described above) youāll be fine. I spin out on a two year old Dell Inspiron, bare bones when live, and it has only given me a few small problems that required a restart, but never to the point of ending the music (video froze once, but audio kept going, so I spun on CDs while it restarted; it locked up while closed once so when I opened it I had to restart; started bringing out my laptop stand and there havenāt been any problems thus far).
Itās secure and reliable about 95% of the time. For a two year old Dell that I havenāt exactly treated well, Iād say thatās a pretty good number. 
In my final scratch days Iāve mixed for around 5 hours with no muck ups. With Traktor 3.3 my longest gigs have been 2 hours and there have been no problems.
Fatlimey brings up a pretty good point with the shuttle pcās , if you dont mind carrying around an LCD screen you could build yourself a really kick arse shuttle pc that would eat most laptops in terms of performance for very cheap.
if you dont mind carrying an lcd why not just save you money and take the imacā¦whats the difference? plus i believe they make cases for them. seems iāve seen some big name djs who do that.
however, i would recommend the laptop. i prefer apple but there are alot of great pcās out there. do some research i have seen forum discussions on what motherboards and other components are suppose to work great for audio and can be found in the non-big name suppliers. its all the same component manufacturers and most of the time it doesnt matter who supplies āthe boxā.
I used to have some of the same problems with my four year old HP laptop and I found out that it was overheating because the fans were clogged with dust and debris. Iāve yet to open it up and clean it but for now I have a brand new HP and I use a laptop cooling unit under both.
Iāve always been a pc user and the only problems Iāve had with playing for long periods of time on my HP was due to overheating which I imagine can happen to a mac too. Iāve mixed for 5 hours straight on my new HP with no problems.
Iāve been trying to read up on the Eee PC as a possible dj laptop. Has any tried it out?
I use a dell e1505 with 2 gigs of ram its a intel centrino duo witha 80 gb hd. I first got it for school, then I put ableton on there and run it will the xsp.
The only time it has failed me when I am doing a party it was outside and very hot out there 95-100 and it kept overheating and once I got it in the shade turned out to do a pretty sweet set.
and remind you I use this for school, I have school papers, notes, and I use the internet on it for research and myspace and what not.
I plan on getting a laptop just for djān looking for a used mac book. but other than that my inspiron works just fine for me right now.
It has always been youā¦ Thatās why I wonāt bother answering. 
Macbooks (like Ean uses) are lightweight and ultra portable, have six pin firewire ports to drive a firewire sound card without a wall wart, a hard wearing outer casing and virus/malware free rock solid OS.
With the white 2.4 ghz core 2 duo version at $1299, it would be a no brainer for me.
Unfortunately that was not an option in the poll.
but possibly an avenue heās not thought of.:
True that!
ā¦but donāt forget, a keyboard and mouse as well. IMO if youāre really going to be gigging, constantly, just make the investment in a laptop dedicated to your music.
Looking at the specs of an EEE PC Iād love to try that out with the 1.6 Ghz Atom powered version. There are 3 USB ports (2.0 of course) which would be all that I would need, and you can get a 40 GB SSD or 80 GB regular HD with the higher end models. Yeah, damn Iād love to try that out.
I wonder if I could buy one, install Traktor plus songs and get my VCI on it to test it outā¦and return it if it didnāt work out?