Need opinions on a laptop before purchase

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
, , ,
1

Need opinions on a laptop before purchase

I’m looking for a laptop solely for DJing. I recently regressed to being a manchild and bought a ridiculously powered desktop. This obviously came with a large punch to my bank account!

My old Toshiba Satellite has now decided it’s time to take a **** and die, perhaps out of jealousy, or more likely because it’s going on 6 years old. In fact in ran Traktor fine until 2.5, then it was just like “Oh God NO!”, it’s AMD processor struggling with the girth of the new remix decks. Anyways, I digress.

It’s christmas time, and the only thing I could think of needing is a laptop. Now I don’t want to blow a stupid amount of money on a MBP that I’m only going to use to DJ on. That and I just don’t generally buy into the Apple cult. Anyways, I had my eyes on some i7 beauties when I noticed a laptop that seemed perfect.

A Lenovo Z580, brand new.
CPU i5-3210M 2.5GHz
8GB RAM
1 TB HDD

For £549. It comes with windows 8, which I’ll probably just dual boot for stability issues, and I’ll probably replace the DVD drive with an SSD since, what the hell is a CD.

Any opinions and experiences with Lenovo or this processor? It appears this is less than half the price of the entry level MBP, and I’m sure the processor “turbo boosts” to 3GHz or so. I just dread dropping over half a grand on something to find that when I put on more than two effects it turns African and starts clicking and popping all over the show.

EDIT: Ho sweet baby jesus, just found it for £429 with only 6GB of ram. It’s like £20 to upgrade that o 8 GB, So yeah, £450 for the above laptop. Oh it just has intel 4000 graphics, no integrated nVidia 630m. Don’t really plan on gaming on it, though!

2

No experience with that model, but the CPU is more than you’ll ever need for DJ’ing, and Lenovo has a good reputation in terms of durability. Go for the 430 model, as you point out the GPU doesn’t matter. Good find!

3

Cheers. I’ll be acquiring it promptly!

4

Not a bad price for an i5, and truth: lenovo cases are (generally) reinforced with a steel framing under the plastic (if it’s an old-school looking squarish shaped case. I know nothing of some newer rounded-normal looking cases). Should stand up to some serious use - it’s still the go-to brand for most corporate buys because they don’t worry as much about people banging them around.

5

Hey

I work with Lenovo since i can think. Looks good to me. But why do you want to replace the CD with SSD? Sure its faster. But with the Core 5 and 8 Gigs of Ram you normaly dont need one. I would rather buy some more RAM. With a 64 bit Operating System you can double those 8 and make 16 out of it. But if you make that make sure how much Memory you can put on that Mainboard. But if it`S supported i would rather do that then buy a expensive SSD.

But Looks good that Piece. If wouldn’t have 3 i would get one myself :smiley: