[ni'k]

if any of you have any suggestions?

i want one that will last me a LONG ASS TIME.
price - em maybe £700 max, but cheaper would be better.

it will be used for music, editing music, hooking up a usb mixer, watching films, downloading music - has to be a laptop so i can transport it from house to garage rehersal place down the road.

17inch monitor preferably, don't want much less than that.

[ni'k]

don't give a shit about looks. has to be fast enough to handle editing and videos.

also must have the BEST sound quality possible.

i figured i'd ask here in case anyone had any good suggestions.

also no sony, dont trust it.

[akprodr]

I was dissapointed in my Asus aj8 (?)

By the numbers it was spiffy but I'm not sure that the drivers were well written. Seemed pretty darn slow. Plus the 'built-in' software--power options for example were really clunky.

Asus MB = good. Laptop? not convinced.

[!@#$%!]

17" machines tend to be heavy and expensive. most don't have great sound but you can add a firewire interface for recording/editing music.

as for durability, thinkpads are best-- they have a rolling cage, titanium frame, a gutter for keyboard spills-- if you're drunk around your computer often, you might want to look into it.

an alternative to laptops could be to build yourself a SFF machine or buy a mac mini. not a laptop, but portable enough-- specially the mac mini, it's the size of an ice cream sandwich (sorta). DIY route you could have your pick of hardware which might include a case with handles. motherboards... come in all kinds.

problem with a laptop "lasting forever" is that they are hard to upgrade. a case, even a small case, can have shit replaced as time goes by and remain moderately current.

for simplicity, you could get the new macbook but it lacks firewire (which sucks for a number of reasons) and the polycarbonate case is not exactly built tough-- it demands that you remain sober at all times. not sure the 13" macbook pro would be within your price range but it's more resilient and has better everything. then again they are coming up with a new lineup of macbook pros in january/february, so you might wanna wait.

a good place to look at is the apple refurbished, it's hidden in the store, and you can get something decent and a good warranty. but "the best sound" will again require an external interface. i have a digirack 003 but it's fucken pricey.

finally, you can get a small computer and buy a larger monitor for video editing. if it has HDMI out, you could even edit in an LCD TV-- 13" is too small for video editing but that's why you have video out ports.

[Norma J]

Yes. Like above poster, I suggest a Macbook.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Norma J

Yes. Like above poster, I suggest a Macbook.

i mentioned it but didn't offer a firm suggestion for it. for the money, the mac mini is the better deal though-- more power, more memory, your choice of monitor (a cheap and good samsung or a 50" plasma, up to you), and a much lesser price-- cheaper also for the apple care (warranty tax). i just bought one and it's fucking sweet. it ALSO has firewire, which for video + audio editing is a fucking standard. and it's fucking small. ok, the monitor will have to be carried separately, but the mini is mightier than the book.

[EVOLghost]

 

dood, you're gettin' a dell

[ni'k]

cheers for the advice symbol man.

dell studio 17inch doesn't look too bad.

altho i'm tempted for a mac mini.
i've never had a mac before and fucking hate apple cos i spent £130 on an 80gig classic for it to break and be unfixable and me to repeatedly stab myself as i tried to open the thing.

what are the disadvantages of mac? can i install ubuntu in it? are there programmes that only work for windows? anything i should know before i buy one?

[jon boy]

Originally Posted by ni'k

cheers for the advice symbol man.

dell studio 17inch doesn't look too bad.

altho i'm tempted for a mac mini.
i've never had a mac before and fucking hate apple cos i spent £130 on an 80gig classic for it to break and be unfixable and me to repeatedly stab myself as i tried to open the thing.

what are the disadvantages of mac? can i install ubuntu in it? are there programmes that only work for windows? anything i should know before i buy one?

there are certain things you cant do on a mac that you can on a pc and pc's are generally a bit more user friendly/familiar than macs. i do like macs but if push comes to shove i choose pc's. plus you cant play games on a mac.

[automatic bzooty]

that "you can't play games on a mac" idiom is definitely outdated. though even back in the late 90s, when my family only bought macs, we always had more games installed than we'd even ever want to play...
also a lot of my friends have incredibly nerdy gamer sides to them and they swear up and down by the macbook.

yeah. s'not true!

[Glice]

Originally Posted by ni'k

what are the disadvantages of mac?

The main disadvantage will be the shunning from decent society you'll receive as a result of that shit-eating grin that Mac wankers get. Also, you'll be impotent.

Computer-wise, they're fairly similar to PCs, but you just seem more handicapped using one.

[ni'k]

yeah i dont like apple. its like when you see someone wearing white ipod headfones - you immeadiately clock them as having shit music taste and probably paying to download mp3s because they don't want to be illegal.

give me windows - boxy, sharp, breakable and crap, over apple - smooth, sleek, breakable and crap

[ni'k]

btw glice any progress on that nina power article?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by ni'k

yeah i dont like apple. its like when you see someone wearing white ipod headfones - you immeadiately clock them as having shit music taste and probably paying to download mp3s because they don't want to be illegal.

give me windows - boxy, sharp, breakable and crap, over apple - smooth, sleek, breakable and crap

that's exactly what i hate about mac, namely, the fucking twattery and arrogance of their advertising and the fucking poser shit that comes with owning macs.

however, i had to surrender to it given its much simpler way to run it. everything seems to work together with great ease and you spend more time working on your work rather than working on the computer. it's not a surrender-- i was seduced, and it's hard to go back.

macs can do everything windows can cuz you can run windows on it-- dualboot. you can get yourself an old copy of XP and run it and play all the shit you want. not sure about ubuntu-- ask verme again. but remember, osx is unix, just more user-friendly-- so a lot of linux programs have mac distros.

another advantage of the mac for your purposes is that it comes with imovie , idvd, garage band and some other shit preinstalled. imovie is not my thing but it's simple and intuitive for most users. i dvd is awesome, i love it, because when you get the program to erase the shitty apple logo you can customize to look any way you want and you get some really good quality DVDs. some people here swear by garage band for music but i haven't fucked with it.

if you wanna up your video editing game and get final cut express or pro (express is cheap and works with some consumer-level HD resolutions), it will work seamlessly. i work with Avid, and the compatibility issues are shit with PC-- you need this video card and that kind of firewire, etc-- too much headache-- that's one of the reasons i switched, cuz Avid works very well on the mac.

the mac mini is great, the graphics are integrated though, so it will display 2D very well (video, movies, etc) but if you wanna get 3D work or games it might get clunky. i don't do 3D or games so that's not an issue, but my dvds work awesome.

when i was ass-broke and had no money however i ran windows on DIY machines-- takes a little reading to learn to build but you can customize everything and it's fun-- requires time though, so if you have time available to fuck with your machine you could run one. shit, you could even build and run a hackintosh-- google the word, and check it out. OSX without damaging your street cred.

me however i depend on my machines to make a living so i need the simplicity of this twat computer to get things done faster. plus they are fucking flimsy, so i pay extra to have a fucking warranty. i miss my built-like-tank thinkpads, but they weren't compatible with Avid and i had to give them up.

but i have to say i love my mac mini-- i have it plugged to a stereo with bigass speakers, so i can watch movies and listen to music and use it as a general purpose thing-- photo editing, etc . i haven't yet fully exploited its potential as it's only 1 month old but i'll be installing protools on it to see. i have a 22" samsung monitor on it, i paid maybe $300 for it 3 years ago and it looks fucking great-- you could get a used one for lots less these days. at some point i'll wanna jack the machine to a bigass tv (i don't have a tv, but i like movies, and some shit on hulu)-- looking forward to editing on a beast-sized screen.

i also have a white macbook, bought this past summer, but the new models that just came out have no firewire. no fw = no thank you. both i had to pay for "apple care" to upgrade their shitty one-year warranty. i know, i know, but i need them for work.

if money is short and you can't pay for applecare consider building yourself a small form factor box that you can take to gigs like other people would carry a small amp. my own frankencomputer lasted me 10 years as parts were successively upgraded. i had to give it up when it started giving me shit at work.

if you like windows however and you want a dell laptop then don't sweat it, it's good enough for most things, plus you can get lots of warez (and the viruses that come with it), and since your life doesn't depend on it so go for the fucking kill, learn to tweak the bios and get in its guts and fuck with it with a dremel tool; if you'll ever own a frankencomputer, this is the time for it.

[jon boy]

Originally Posted by automatic bzooty

that "you can't play games on a mac" idiom is definitely outdated. though even back in the late 90s, when my family only bought macs, we always had more games installed than we'd even ever want to play...
also a lot of my friends have incredibly nerdy gamer sides to them and they swear up and down by the macbook.

yeah. s'not true!

some of the newer ones can and if you run some microsoft software but ultimately not a gaming system.

[Glice]

Oh, fuck, I'd completely forgotten. I've got to do a presentation tomorrow, so I'll have a look when that's out of the way. Sorry!

I actually haven't got a problem with Macs - they do what they do for what they do incredibly well; for my purposes, I'm happy with Vista, but I tend to use this as a word-processor/ pornbox/ waste of time. If I was going to get into home recording (I'm not, I have plenty of recording geek mates) or visual art (I'm shit at art) I'd probably go with a Mac, but it's horses for courses, innit?

[ni'k]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

that's exactly what i hate about mac, namely, the fucking twattery and arrogance of their advertising and the fucking poser shit that comes with owning macs.

however, i had to surrender to it given its much simpler way to run it. everything seems to work together with great ease and you spend more time working on your work rather than working on the computer. it's not a surrender-- i was seduced, and it's hard to go back.

macs can do everything windows can cuz you can run windows on it-- dualboot. you can get yourself an old copy of XP and run it and play all the shit you want. not sure about ubuntu-- ask verme again. but remember, osx is unix, just more user-friendly-- so a lot of linux programs have mac distros.

another advantage of the mac for your purposes is that it comes with imovie , idvd, garage band and some other shit preinstalled. imovie is not my thing but it's simple and intuitive for most users. i dvd is awesome, i love it, because when you get the program to erase the shitty apple logo you can customize to look any way you want and you get some really good quality DVDs. some people here swear by garage band for music but i haven't fucked with it.

if you wanna up your video editing game and get final cut express or pro (express is cheap and works with some consumer-level HD resolutions), it will work seamlessly. i work with Avid, and the compatibility issues are shit with PC-- you need this video card and that kind of firewire, etc-- too much headache-- that's one of the reasons i switched, cuz Avid works very well on the mac.

the mac mini is great, the graphics are integrated though, so it will display 2D very well (video, movies, etc) but if you wanna get 3D work or games it might get clunky. i don't do 3D or games so that's not an issue, but my dvds work awesome.

when i was ass-broke and had no money however i ran windows on DIY machines-- takes a little reading to learn to build but you can customize everything and it's fun-- requires time though, so if you have time available to fuck with your machine you could run one. shit, you could even build and run a hackintosh-- google the word, and check it out. OSX without damaging your street cred.

me however i depend on my machines to make a living so i need the simplicity of this twat computer to get things done faster. plus they are fucking flimsy, so i pay extra to have a fucking warranty. i miss my built-like-tank thinkpads, but they weren't compatible with Avid and i had to give them up.

but i have to say i love my mac mini-- i have it plugged to a stereo with bigass speakers, so i can watch movies and listen to music and use it as a general purpose thing-- photo editing, etc . i haven't yet fully exploited its potential as it's only 1 month old but i'll be installing protools on it to see. i have a 22" samsung monitor on it, i paid maybe $300 for it 3 years ago and it looks fucking great-- you could get a used one for lots less these days. at some point i'll wanna jack the machine to a bigass tv (i don't have a tv, but i like movies, and some shit on hulu)-- looking forward to editing on a beast-sized screen.

i also have a white macbook, bought this past summer, but the new models that just came out have no firewire. no fw = no thank you. both i had to pay for "apple care" to upgrade their shitty one-year warranty. i know, i know, but i need them for work.

if money is short and you can't pay for applecare consider building yourself a small form factor box that you can take to gigs like other people would carry a small amp. my own frankencomputer lasted me 10 years as parts were successively upgraded. i had to give it up when it started giving me shit at work.

if you like windows however and you want a dell laptop then don't sweat it, it's good enough for most things, plus you can get lots of warez (and the viruses that come with it), and since your life doesn't depend on it so go for the fucking kill, learn to tweak the bios and get in its guts and fuck with it with a dremel tool; if you'll ever own a frankencomputer, this is the time for it.

appreciate the info man.

some of the sffs ive looked at would be too big to lug on a bicycle down the street but the macmini would be fine. from what you've said it looks like i'll go for one of them, but i'll also have a check to see if building a frankencomp is something i've got the skills for.

[Norma J]

Originally Posted by ni'k

yeah i dont like apple. its like when you see someone wearing white ipod headfones - you immeadiately clock them as having shit music taste and probably paying to download mp3s because they don't want to be illegal.

give me windows - boxy, sharp, breakable and crap, over apple - smooth, sleek, breakable and crap

Load of shit.

No more needs to be said.

[pbradley]

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

I've recently been put up for an internship with Apple for either their "Human Interface" or Marketing.


Also, at the moment, I'm using the Windows portion of my macbook.

[amerikangod]

Get one that comes pre-loaded with pictures of my dick.

I've been doing a lot of promotional deals in the fourth quarter of 2009 to get my dick out there.