which are the truly important features on a laptop for music production?

Question by jose c: which are the truly important features on a laptop for music production?
I know the new tech on core duo processors are a good deal…but what about RAM or the GHZ of the machine for instance?
I live in Bolivia and laptops are more expensive here…i dont want to buy useless things like built in cameras or dvd recorders. I just need good performance for music production.
THNX!

Best answer:

Answer by Geek4u
For music production you don’t need ‘The-Most-Cutting-Edge’ hardware in your laptop, you should check out 2.0+ Ghz laptops, you can get a Compaq Presario for a few hundred dollars, the cheapest model has a 1.6GHz dual-core AMD Turion 64 TL-50, and the better models up to 2.0GHz dual-core Turion.
You should go at least for 1GB RAM minimum, 2GB I recommend.

If you use Windows, forget Vista and install XP SP2 (not the useless buggy SP3, at least not yet)

In music post production (and in live production) it mostly depends on the hardware you use to interface with you music, as example an audio-interface.

The Compaq Presario has a Firewire interface which is good since a lot of audio-interfaces use Firewire (or USB), one reason why I got my Presario: cheap, has Firewire and is robust.

I have a Mackie Onyx Satellite to go with it as audio-interface, which has Firewire, I also use Cubase 4 in pre- and post production and Wavelab 6 for post.
My Presario has a AMD Turion TL-50 the 1.6 GHz model, with 1GB of RAM, and I can’t complain, no lag in Cubase while recording and rendering a track with effects layed on is quite fast.

Of course you can go with any other company, just saying I have had good experiences with Compaq, just remember at least 2GHz or 1.6 if it’s dual-core, and at least 1GB RAM, you can upgrade laptop RAM for about 30$ if you only have 1GB but want to get 2, just to be safe.

hth ^^

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