computer advice

[patrick bateman]

@Patrick Bateman, my budget is about £800, could stretch to £1000 with a bit more saving

With this budget I would surely go after the top brands.
Lenovo, Dell or Sony/etc etc.

go after the i5 or i7 processsor.
4gb of ram
think if you should go for a solid state system disk, and then an external disk for files or if you should go for a 500 gb 7200 internal disk (this is often a $$ question since SS disk are still very expensive)
screen resolution is also important. the better and bigger it is, the more you can have on your screen
of course lot's of usb ports and if you can get it with IEEE 1394b connection (as mentioned earlier in this thread) then go for it.
external soundcard
and then go out and hold the pc in your hands, feel the build quality.

[gowans]

im on a sony vaio vfn-fw21m, cost about £1200-1400 at the time. they are are really well built laptops and look half decent so i would definitely recommend a sony laptop. you could get a better model than the one i am on now for much cheaper, as this was bought around 2 yrs ago and it runs ableton no problem, external soundcard is a must though if you can budget for it mate. im pretty sure the latest sony's will have firewire 800 and usb 3.0.

[lejockey]

@patrick bateman, I am guessing the solidstate is like a usb stick then? I have a 500 gig external so am hoping I can get away with a smaller, maybe 250 gig internal.

Thank you all so much for your help.

[patrick bateman]

@patrick bateman, I am guessing the solidstate is like a usb stick then? I have a 500 gig external so am hoping I can get away with a smaller, maybe 250 gig internal.

Thank you all so much for your help.

solid state = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive
no moving parts.

Load of OS, load of applications = extremely fast!

but = $$$

[ec50]

@patrick bateman, I am guessing the solidstate is like a usb stick then? I have a 500 gig external so am hoping I can get away with a smaller, maybe 250 gig internal.

Thank you all so much for your help.

solid state = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive
no moving parts.

Load of OS, load of applications = extremely fast!

but = $$$

KISS in all its glory...

batemanWIN

[BeatBoxBaby]

Quit being a chump, everybody knows you can't make mnml without a Mac.

brilliant

/thread

+1

[infernal.techno]

Stale Mac fanboy/girl jokes aside, I still suggest Asus. They haven't been making full laptops/desktops for a long time, but they have been making motherboards and other hardware since 1990.

Their motherboards can be found in Apple products such as ipods, imacs and macbook pros before Apple started manufacturing their own motherboards (2006 models I believe).

Go to any game forum or audio forum and users who are running Windows based machines usually have Asus moherboards.

I got mine at half off...$450 my housemate got an Asus as well, spent a little more money and got the dual core processor (but a smaller hd)

Dell makes a pretty good system too, but I had enough dealing with server machines at my last job...and my last home desktop was a Dell as well, that eventually crapped out

[Robot Criminal]

Ok guys, I did ask this not to be a 'buy a mac' thread. Why would I buy a Mac when I have bought all the software for a PC?

ehm. khm. mmmmaybe then install windows on it like I (and I'm sure many people) did? Easy-peasy + it runs great!
(ok soon u'll find yourself running mostly osx anyway...)
can't go wrong with an 15" i7 MBP