A Windows 11 laptop

[ef37a]

For my son in the new year. I have just had a tiny bit of good news on the wonga front and his need will be greater than mine in 2025.

We have both had very good service from Lenovo Think Pads and so I am thinking of a refurbished one for him. My initial search has found an i5 with 512G ssd and 16G of ram for around £500, my sort of budget idea. 15.6" screen.
I am not averse to an AMD powered machine but how do the various codes work between Intel and AMD?

He is mainly working on music with Samplitude ProX3, Cakewalk and Reaper but is beginning to dabble with video editing. I think 16G of ram would be considered the bare minimum for video work?

I am in absolutely no hurry, just gathering data.

Dave.

[Drew Stephenson]

My main machine has 16GB of RAM and handles most video tasks fine. I have done video work on considerably less well specc'd machines but I wouldn't recommend it.

(Typed on a second hand Lenovo laptop).

[resistorman]

I use Samplitude and Reaper on AMD machines, no problem. Also light video editing, but I have 32GB and a beefy AMD 6750x video card on that machine. That said, I've done plenty of video editing on lesser machines, 16 gig should be fine for small projects.

[tea for two]

My initial search has found an i5 with 512G ssd and 16G of ram for around £500, my sort of budget idea. 15.6" screen.

that's well expensive. Approx 1/2 that price on the usual suspects 2ndhand sites with 1year warranty, 5year warranty. Price dependendent upon which generation i5, which graphics card, if the screen is OLED or standard.
I've never purrchased a new laptop only used 2nd hand with warranty.

I am not averse to an AMD powered machine but how do the various codes work between Intel and AMD?

He is mainly working on music with Samplitude ProX3, Cakewalk and Reaper but is beginning to dabble with video editing. I think 16G of ram would be considered the bare minimum for video work?

I am in absolutely no hurry, just gathering data.

Dave.

I've had AMD Ryzen laptops for Cakewalk been fine.

HD video 16GB RAM I found is fine with on board graphics of AMD Ryzen.
4K video I had 32GB RAM and dedicated graphics card on a desktop. Was fine although I would liked more RAM was expensive then, RAM prices dropped now to 1/2 of what it was.

Worth checking the laptop can take 32GB RAM. Some laptops have 8GB + 8GB max.

Could be worth looking at rated 100% DCI-P3 screen on a laptop for video editing. My Asus Ux371 11th gen Intel laptop has this.

An alternative could be 2ndhand with warranty :
Asus Pro Art screen 27inch £200 odd + one of those hold in palm desktops with AMD Ryzen 8Cores 16Threads by Beelink, Geekcom, Minisforum, NiPoGi, Trigkey £250 odd. I don't have this I've just read seen some positive things aboot them.

Another alternative 2nd hand 2021 M1 macbook with 16GB RAM approx £600 with warranty. Or latest dinky M4 mcmini 16GB RAM £600 new.

[amanise]

I've had two Lenovo idea pads which were fantastic. My mate had a Thinkpad which I was well jealous of. I can vouch for them as well. They'll stand being chucked around the back of a truck on a forest road in search of wildlife. Should do for music.

These days I run an HP, after using many for research work. Mines a i5 with 16Gb RAM and a 256Gb SSD. It runs Reaper fine. Works well with demanding UAD plugs and the monster Rhodes V8 VSTi. I would imagine that spec would be fine in a Thinkpad.

I have done quite a bit of video on main DAW which is a ten year old ish Dell Optiplex 990. Same memory but bigger SSD drives. It's easily capable, but you have to plan some of your tasks on feature length HD vids because of it being a tad slow. It a,ways works though. Boot it up while you're making and drinking your morning coffee. Shame it's not been chosen for having a future life by Microsoft really.

[ef37a]

Thanks for the suggestions so far chaps.
Tea, where are you? I cannot find the spec I want under about £500.
Must be 15.6", like his dad once he hit 50 he needed specs. When I treat myself I shall try to get a 17 incher but they are a bit like rocking horse droppings! Everyone is going to get "tiny and booteek" whether they want it or not!

A mac is not in the running so don't waste yer qwerty. He is pretty slick with a PC now but won't want to start again, in any case Samplitude won't run on a mac.

As an aside, I have just installed Cakewalk on my "new" W10 desktop. Isn't is colourful! Ran the demo out of the KA6 no trouble...bibberty bob!

Dave.

[James Perrett]

My initial search has found an i5 with 512G ssd and 16G of ram for around £500

It is important to know which generation i5 we are talking about. You can find refurbed machines with fourth generation processors running Windows 11 although they may not be officially supported but for that kind of price you should be looking at a new machine - here's a 12th generation i7 with the same spec for £439.

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/cty/pdp ... /cn32044sc

[tea for two]

Tea, where are you? I cannot find the spec I want under about £500.
Must be 15.6", like his dad once he hit 50 he needed specs.

They now have 5years warranty !! on their used 2nd hand gear. I've purrchased my AMD Ryzen laptops, desktops from them since 2020. Also purrchased most of my audio gear camera gear from them.
15 inch screen between £200-£300 there's 171 laptops in stock some better spec than others. Between £301-£500 there's 210 laptops 15inch screen in stock. Cex. I just typed 15 in search, then clicked Filter then clicked Availability, then clicked Category, then Price.

[OneWorld]

...................l try to get a 17 incher but they are a bit like rocking horse droppings..................

Dave.

For that reason I cling onto an old 17 incher, which despite its age, it still trundles along quite happily with MS Office etc, it's an HP and I doff my cap to them, the machine just keeps on processing. Unfortunately is has hard wired RAM so I cannot upgrade the RAM, but running Win7 with 4gigoram and it gets along fine

That said I just been on eBay and there's quite a few 17 inchers but these really did catch my eye.....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/146248619319 ... SwtSpnUo1i

A 3 monitor setup that folds into a case!

[ef37a]

...................l try to get a 17 incher but they are a bit like rocking horse droppings..................

Dave.

For that reason I cling onto an old 17 incher, which despite its age, it still trundles along quite happily with MS Office etc, it's an HP and I doff my cap to them, the machine just keeps on processing. Unfortunately is has hard wired RAM so I cannot upgrade the RAM, but running Win7 with 4gigoram and it gets along fine

That said I just been on eBay and there's quite a few 17 inchers but these really did catch my eye.....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/146248619319 ... SwtSpnUo1i

A 3 monitor setup that folds into a case!

Oooo! That looks like a recipe for a reliability nightmare One! But thank you for the effort. I have a W7 HP laptop, an i3 g6 and it keeps trundling along. Gaffer tape holds the battery in! I regularly go on line with it and have no bother, that is why I am happy to stay with W10 for the foreseeable for myself but would like to get son fixed up.

Now, I have formed an impression over the years that Dell laptops are a bit flimsy? They have also been said to have "issues" with audio? Crackles and such and not being happy with certain interfaces. It certainly seems that I can get more ram/CPU/HDD grunt for my £500ish budget with a Dell so I would like those reservations to no longer apply?

I am especially keen to get him an SSD no smaller that 512G because the one in his 14" Lenovo is only 240G and gets stuffed PDQ.

All that said, he is a very careful chap with his stuff. He has kept his Ricky 330 and £2000 classical guitar safe for many years despite several moves.

Dave.

[adrian_k]

Now, I have formed an impression over the years that Dell laptops are a bit flimsy? They have also been said to have "issues" with audio? Crackles and such and not being happy with certain interfaces. It certainly seems that I can get more ram/CPU/HDD grunt for my £500ish budget with a Dell so I would like those reservations to no longer apply?

My mate runs Studio One on a Dell laptop no issues. And I think James P of this parish has recommended Dell in the past.

Things change, I used to warn people off of HP laptops due to a bad experience but have ended up with a cheap HP W11 that has worked flawlessly for three years. (RME and Cakewalk).

[Wonks]

But on any laptop, always clear off all the manufacturer’s bundled apps, especially music related ones, as they normally hinder rather than help.

[James Perrett]

Now, I have formed an impression over the years that Dell laptops are a bit flimsy? They have also been said to have "issues" with audio? Crackles and such and not being happy with certain interfaces. It certainly seems that I can get more ram/CPU/HDD grunt for my £500ish budget with a Dell so I would like those reservations to no longer apply?

Dell have different ranges of laptops. I use a Dell Precision which has a metal outer case so is in no way flimsy and works well for audio. Nowadays the Precision and XPS ranges are based on very similar hardware but the XPS is designed more for gamers while the Precision is designed more for serious CAD and data crunching.

The next step down is the Latitude range which is designed for normal business use and will probably be less power hungry than the Precision/XPS ranges.

At the bottom of the business range are the Vostro laptops while the Inspiron range is aimed more at home users so will probably have the most competitive prices. Unfortunately I don't have much experience with the Vostro and Inspiron ranges as we nearly always went for the Precision range for work - and I've stuck with those for the studio (albeit the studio ones are refurbs).

[amanise]

Now, I have formed an impression over the years that Dell laptops are a bit flimsy? They have also been said to have "issues" with audio? Crackles and such and not being happy with certain interfaces. It certainly seems that I can get more ram/CPU/HDD grunt for my £500ish budget with a Dell so I would like those reservations to no longer apply?

My mate runs Studio One on a Dell laptop no issues. And I think James P of this parish has recommended Dell in the past.

Things change, I used to warn people off of HP laptops due to a bad experience but have ended up with a cheap HP W11 that has worked flawlessly for three years. (RME and Cakewalk).

Used and administered Dells for years too. The research unit was a collaboration between the NHS and Leicester Uni. The NHS standard kit was all Dell, and the Uni kit was all HP. Both great, but if it's any indication of which is best - the when the hospitals bulk contract with Dell expired they had become so jealous of the Uni HP kit that they converted everything to HP.

The one issue I had often with the Dell lappies and audio was due to the power supplies being really noisy when the batt demanded charge. Some were so bad you couldn't use them for video calls unless you fully charged up first and ran off battery only. Then they were fine.

My HP i5 is fine in this respect if I use the HP charger. If I use the £20 after market charger I bought for downstairs, it's very noisy. Just cheap chargers I spose.

[tea for two]

Hopefully to narrow down choices from hundreds laptops 2nd hand with warranty upto £500.

CPU : for audio and video editing AMD Ryzen5 Ryzen7 5thgen 6thgen 7thgen; Intel i5 i7 10thgen 11thgen 12thgen.
Screen : for video editing I'd say at least 450nits brightness I have this on my laptop. Preferably stated close to 100% DCI-P3 and or stated close to 100% Adobe rgb.
RAM : double checking it can take minimum 16GB, preferably takes 32GB that user can install, as some only do 8GB max.
Storage : Nvme readily user upgradeable.
Ports : Intel laptops can have Thunderbolt4 ports, AMD laptops can have USB4 ports. At least should have one 10Gbit/s usbC port.
Graphics : dedicated graphics card would be a bonus for video editing butt can we know add to fan noise for audio.

[ajay_m]

CEX have a refurbished Lenovo legion 5 for £575 with a Ryzen 5800H, RtX3060 graphics and 8G RAM
I have one of these. It is a fantastic laptop, with tons of ports. You can fit up 64G RAM and 2 NVMe drives. I replaced the stock 8G RAM with 32G, and then added a Samsung 1T NVMe drive then subsequently replaced the 512G stock drive with a 2T Samsung drive.
It is insanely fast and has a pretty good GPU which runs MS flight SIM quite nicely. This would definitely be my pick. Only downside is that it has the battery life of a mayfly but if you are using it plugged in that's not an issue and for raw power and reliability it's been terrific.

[tea for two]

For my son in the new year. I have just had a tiny bit of good news on the wonga front and his need will be greater than mine in 2025.

.... around £500, my sort of budget idea. 15.6"

He is mainly working on music with Samplitude ProX3, Cakewalk and Reaper but is beginning to dabble with video editing.

Please run any potential laptop by us on ere foruume before parting with wonga.

In addition to the Levono Ajay_M recommended.

There is an Asus brand new that's under budget 450squid in zon, has :
stated spec screen 100% DCI P3 Pantone validated with colour accuracy Delta E ≦2 would be an excellent spec for video edting;
600 nits peak OLED 15inch,
12th gen i5 12500H, 16GB RAM, 1TB nvme ssd. Although only 5Gb/s usb ports.
Asus Vivobook 15 OLED x1505za.
https://www.asus.com/uk/laptops/for-hom ... led-x1505/

I don't know how it would perform for audio, I'd guess it would be alright. My Asus laptop 11th gen i7 with similar spec screen is alright for my basic Cakewalk I turn oorrff bluetooth, wifi.

[ef37a]

For my son in the new year. I have just had a tiny bit of good news on the wonga front and his need will be greater than mine in 2025.

.... around £500, my sort of budget idea. 15.6"

He is mainly working on music with Samplitude ProX3, Cakewalk and Reaper but is beginning to dabble with video editing.

Please run any potential laptop by us on ere foruume before parting with wonga.

In addition to the Levono Ajay_M recommended.

There is an Asus brand new that's under budget 450squid in zon, has :
stated spec screen 100% DCI P3 Pantone validated with colour accuracy Delta E ≦2 would be an excellent spec for video edting;
600 nits peak OLED 15inch,
12th gen i5 12500H, 16GB RAM, 1TB nvme ssd. Although only 5Gb/s usb ports.
Asus Vivobook 15 OLED x1505za.
https://www.asus.com/uk/laptops/for-hom ... led-x1505/

I don't know how it would perform for audio, I'd guess it would be alright. My Asus laptop 11th gen i7 with similar spec screen is alright for my basic Cakewalk I turn oorrff bluetooth, wifi.

Thank you for your time Tea. Looks good. I see it is Win 11 Pro? I have always only had home versions, is there any benefit to the pro version of 11? Also it says "up to 16G ram" is that a maximum? Seems a bit miserly these days?

I shall indeed run any laptop spec passed the Top Blokes in this forum.

Dave.

[Wonks]

There's 8GB of on-board RAM, and as its only got the one SO-DIMM memory slot, that's limited to 8GB DDR4 as well, I assume to keep the RAM symmetrical. You can certainly get much bigger SO-DIMM cards, so it's probably a motherboard limitation to both keep the price down and to stop you from upgrading too far and competing against pricier laptops in their range.

You could always try a bigger capacity card in there if you had a spare, but there's no guarantee it would work and could well be a limit set in the BIOS.

[James Perrett]

Thank you for your time Tea. Looks good. I see it is Win 11 Pro? I have always only had home versions, is there any benefit to the pro version of 11? Also it says "up to 16G ram" is that a maximum? Seems a bit miserly these days?

I followed the link and it looks like the special offer is for the one with Win 11 home and 16G of RAM (the 8G one is the same price).

However, I noticed that there's an i7 version with 16G of RAM for £449 at AO. 16G should be good enough for pretty much anything. Indeed, I was running happily with only 8G up until recently and I only upgraded to 20G when certain recent AI apps complained.

Edit to add - there's an Acer Aspire with a Ryzen 5 processor for only £399 on AO which apparently can be expanded to 32G of RAM and a second SSD added. I've been happy with my cheap Acer AMD based laptop which is now 20 years old and still going although I've no idea what the new ones are like.

[tea for two]

Thank you for your time Tea. Looks good. I see it is Win 11 Pro? I have always only had home versions, is there any benefit to the pro version of 11? Also it says "up to 16G ram" is that a maximum? Seems a bit miserly these days?

Welcome.

11pro more for businnesses, networked laptops.

It's the screen on this Asus x1505za that takes up a fair chunk of the price.

stated spec screen 100% DCI P3 Pantone validated with colour accuracy Delta E ≦2 would be an excellent spec for video edting;
600 nits peak OLED 15inch,

My Asus has nearly identical screen, it's not necessary for dabbling in video editing. I've done editing on elcheapo laptop screens been fine when transferred to my Asus.
X1505za in zon has 16GB RAM.
Without this screen, can get cheaper for same spec new : if Number1 Son Charlie Chan reference lol, is alright with a standard 1920*1080 15" screen for video editing.

I dont know whether you'd want 2nd had with warranty.
This HP ZBook Firefly G8 takes upto 64GB RAM, has Thunderbolt4 port, Nvidia Quadro T500 graphics card for CAD, Video editing.
https://www.hp.com/lamerica_nsc_carib-e ... ly-g8.html
There's one in cex i7 11th gen, 32GB RAM, 1tb ssd, 15inch screen, 450squid : soon to be 4 year laptop.
5 years warranty cex gives I suppose mitigates this.
I have same 11th gen i7 1165G7 quad core its alright although it gets smoked by i5-12500H on the Asus x1505za, I just dont dig this Asus' 5Gb/s ports should have at least 10Gb/s port.

There's Lenovo Thinkpad T15 gen1, P15s 15inch screen takes 32GB RAM under 500squid 2nd hand.
Lenovo Ajay recommended would been excellent, just that it's a trifle dear.

For my son in the new year.
I am in absolutely no hurry, just gathering data.

As you say you are not in any hurry. There probably be some new year deals on new laptops.

[alexis]

https://www.tomsguide.com/face-off/wind ... ows-11-pro

Also Pro used to mean you could defer updates much longer than home. Handy if they released one of those clunker updates - with updates deferred you can just kick back working happily on the previous version while they fix the problems on the new released update version. I haven't tracked whether that difference still exists.

Also Pro has bit locker security, which Home doesn't.

Otherwise, as per link

[ef37a]

Once again, thanks all for your help and suggestions. I have formed an idea of what I am going to get. These next speccs are I think pretty well sorted...

Screen 15.6"
Win 11 Home
min 512 SSD
Min 16G ram (if upgradable good but not a deal breaker?)
Other matters such as USB ports will not matter much since the outboard hardware he has, a HDD e.g. is not that fast anyway. The M4 is of course quite happy on USB 2.0.

Where I get "numbers blind" is the processor. I have read in SoS in the past that THE most critical computer component for low latency audio work is a fast CPU. That being the case, what do I need to look at?

i5 and i7 'crossover' in the speed tables. Plus, Sod's Law prevails e.g. I can find a laptop using an "i7 1255U" CPU but I can't FIND that *&*^! CPU in any table!

Lastly, it seems no one has said (so far) "Deffo don't buy a XXXXXX badly made junk". I am also leaning toward AO for supply? That is if I can find someone with a brain because I want to ship the laptop directly to France.

Dave.

[Wonks]

If it meets the specs but comes with say a 256GB SSD and is considerably less, then upgrading to at least 1TB SSD will cost around £50 for named brand SSDs. I think 1TB is probably the minimum you need these days with downloads getting bigger all the time.

[ef37a]

If it meets the specs but comes with say a 256GB SSD and is considerably less, then upgrading to at least 1TB SSD will cost around £50 for named brand SSDs. I think 1TB is probably the minimum you need these days with downloads getting bigger all the time.

If'n it were for I Wonks I would tend to agree but son would not be up to cloning a new drive, or at least, once he has had all his activations sorted he won't want to try.
If you mean buy a machine with an upgraded SSD then where do you stop the "mission creep"? I want to stay under £500 if I can. A nifty here, a nifty there, here a nif, there a nif....! I'll be a bag in debt 'for I know it! In any case he has a lot of external storage and is well used to dealing with a parsimonious hard drive.

Dave.