Dumb Question

[Jim Casey]

I am in the market for another laptop which I will probably use to slowly convert to digital DJing.

Can you guys give me an idea of specs to have.

I am much more comfortable with a store bought product than having someone build one for me. I have had massively bad luck with custom built products.

[djjef]

I have a few pointers:

a. Find the highest capacity Hard Drive you can find in one internally. Best Buy has a Toshiba with a 80 gb drive. I believe it is like around $1700.

b. 512 Meg of Ram is about average now

c. Pentium 4 chipset with Hyperthreading would prepare you for the future software a little more. Something like a 3 ghz or 2.8 ghz.

d. Firewire is good for expansion options.

Warranty, Warranty, Warranty.
If you buy from Best Buy then get the extended warranty. It can save you money in the long run. I have come out smelling like a rose twice with my wife's laptop being replaced with something like 4 times the system.

I also love my Dells. I actually have one system that still uses a Pentium 3 - 500 mhz Latitude that is absolutely flawless.

I suggest Dell but would still look at Best Buy as an option. The Dell would get you a replacement or repaired system next day where as the Best Buy route is taking me about 4 days now. 4 days may seem like an enternity if you totally depend on that Laptop for shows. I myself have 4 laptops and 3 rackmount systems so I always have backups.

Hope that helps.

[Glen Millar]

I have a Toshiba Satelite with a 30 GB HDD and will be testing it over the coming monthsas a possible back-up system to my main desktop.

One thing with Laptops I have read many times on many of the forums I am a member/moderator of is Soundcard and sound quality. As onboard sound for Laptops is at best adequate, there is no way they compete quality wise with a desktop which has a quality soundcard.

My plan right now for my laptop is to use an external drive for all my music and use USD for cue sound only. But that could change depending on testing I do.

[Cap]

My first digital DJ road show unit was a SONY VAIO PVL-600 (in 1999) followed immediately with a SONY VAIO PVL-620 (600 did not have Firewire). That unit (P3 600mhz 512mb RAM 80gb HD, internal SB Live-Value and a GigaPort-AG USB external sound card is still kicking butt with NO failures, stutters or glitches.

Digital Music is not a processor demanding technology until software video and lighting programs are added to the equation. Use your road show computer for your road show ONLY. No games, no superfluous software, no need to update the operating system per se, just bare bones software.

My on site road show computer is a SONY VAIO PCG-GRX560. P4-M, 1.6ghz, 512mb RAM, 80gb-5400rpm HD, 16.1" screen (comparable to a 17" desk top monitor), CD-R/W/DVD, GigaPort-AG USB external sound card, and an IEEE1394 external 120gb HD duplicate of the entire music library that resides internally on the lap top. I only have about 15,000 160 & 192 mp3's, every one remastered, one at a time.

I bring three (yes, 3) identical GRX560 laptops. Absolute clones. Backup for the backup. Small price to pay for my peace of mind.

Swapping laptops is fast and easy (haven't had to do it in real time but I practiced it anyway) using a PCGRX1 port replicator. In that manner, the power, the USB connections, and other connections, are permanent. Slide open the laptop's bottom port replicator cover, snap it in, push the on button, boot-up, and go. I have an identical replicator in my office connected to my internal network for fast and easy updates.

[djdonny]

Someone at another forum just led me on to this site. Man, these military-rugged systems look SWEET!

http://www.bsicomputer.com/portable/portables.htm

They quickly jumped to the top of my list. Priced between about $2K and $5K.

[Cap]

Impressive machines on that link, DJ Johnny. I didn't see anything about weight. Do you have any information on that?

I know this won't set well with mainstream thinking but has there been any considerations about how a roadshow computer will be used and the possibility of the purchase of a used machine on eBay? All three of the PCG-GRX560's purchase prices combined were less than $1,600 in total expense. Add another $200 per machine for an upgrade to 5400rpm 80gb hard drives (most laptops have 4200 rpm drives which are tooo slooow for me). Just a thought and another option.

[djdonny]

I didn't care much about the weight. I think it HAS to be lighter than a small rack case filled with mixer/CD player, or at least less bulky. It's not like my new 100lb+ sub.

Oh, and it's DJ Donny, not Johnny. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif[/img]

[Cap]

Sorry, Donny. I'm sometimes dyslexic when I drink heavily. That's why I belong to D.A.M. (Mother's Against Drunks).

[Jim Casey]

Donny,
That's the type of thing I have always wanted...something that looks like DJ Power, but without the ridiculous price tag

[DJ Iron Mike]

Guys, 80 GB is not the highest capacity hard drive. There are now internal drives that are over 300 GB and cost likewise. Best Buy sells those too. An 80 will probably suffice for now but my road drive is 160 GB and I have 20% left before it's full. No movies on it or anything. All music. I use a Compaq laptop and have had no issues I couldn't fix on my own.