Laptops for music production

[tiernanbrennan]

Hi I am a music technology student using a Macbook pro I borrowed off my college at the moment but will have to give it back shortly. I plan on buying windows laptop using it for small home recordings, home mixing, home music creation and maybe a small bit of live recording I was wondering which laptop to get I have been looking at 2 the Asus Laptop X550LDV which has 8GB Ram and a intel Core i7-4500U processor or a Dell Inspiron 17 5000-Series which has 12 GB Ram and Intel Core i5-5200U Processor both are E750. Was wondering if anyone had any experience with these laptops or if you would recommend something else? Thanks.

[Afilado]

Stay with macbook, if you want less problems.
If you still like having problems, you might want to get a 15-inch ASUS rather than 17-inch Dell. I personally dislike big screen laptops, as the main characteristic of any laptop for me is portability. Looking for a big screen - hook it to a 23-inch monitor, while at home (they are getting cheaper every day). On the road, the 2 extra inches of 17'' screen won't make that much difference (especially after the 23-inch monitor), but will cost you extra weight, which, while carrying it in your backpack, you'll start feeling quite soon.

[James Perrett]

Are you using virtual instruments with sample libraries? If you need to load large sample libraries you'll end up needing more RAM and performance will be more critical. If you're just recording real instruments then pretty much anything available today will work.

Personally, I like 17" screens on laptops - I use a Dell Precision M6700 at work and don't find it too cumbersome to lug around.