In that case I would put together a desktop which for the same price as the laptop or less, could probably include more components or higher-performing ones. For example my first daw setup was using my laptop with mostly external stuff, drive for audio and sound card/interface. After going fully desktop with internal drives and an internal card, the stability and performance improvements I've seen, I wouldn't want to go back. Even though that was a few years ago, and now laptop components have come a long way, but unless I was going mobile recording, or for any other compelling reason, I would get a full blown desktop system...But that's just my opinion. If you were to go with a laptop, I'd recommend nothing less than a dual core, 2 gb of ram, and 7200 rpm hard drive. Becarefull on that 1, though a drive may say it's 7200 for power saving features/reasons, they actually do not run at that speed; which is something else to keep in mind...I also hear that NVidia cards are better for jaws performance, though lucky for me, I use both NVidia and ATI on various systems and haven't noticed a difference. NVidia is generally better overall anyways, something to keep in mind. But if you do get the laptop then you'd have to also get an external firewire drive and sound card (doesn't have to be firewire but that is recommended) so you'd have to make sure the laptop comes with some or at least 1 firewire port, or get a PCMCIA card with a texas instruments firewire chipset, as these are the least troublesome ones. Seeing as how the site you are getting these from is an audio site, they might already have preconfigured components that'll do the job, but nothing better than knowing what to look out for... Of course, these are all my opinions based on research and experiences of mine, so it's not something that is set on stone lol...But I've been configuring and building systems from scratch since middle school, so it's a walk in the park for me... if you need any help/assistance, don't be afraid to ask... HTH, D!J!!X! _____ From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark Brierley Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 3:52 AM To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Re: [ddots-l] It would mainly be in the studio. Very rarely would I need to take the system out. _____ From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of D!J!X! Sent: 14 January 2009 00:47 To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Re: [ddots-l] Will you be doing mobile recordings or mainly in the studio work? D!J!X! _____ From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark Brierley Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 6:51 AM To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Hi list I'm buying a new computer system, and have been looking on www.music-pc.com <http://www.music-pc.com/> . They have a laptop system which I have configured myself: Core 2 duo t9300 2.5GHZ 800FSB 6MB 2GB DDR2 800 so dimm laptop memory x 2 (4GB) 320GB laptop SATA 7200RPM 16MB Express card combo firewire and USB 2.0 Windows XP Home Will that be a good system or would you get a desktop everytime? What you reckon people? Thanks in advance Mark