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Thread: New laptop time.

  1. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by AndyMD View Post
    Tips!

    If you can wait until January, it's always the best month for genuine computer bargains as stores want to get rid of access Christmas stock before the next round of new technology is launched it February.

    Hybrid hard drives are getting to be standard. They have a sort of SSD drive that contains the operating system (windows) and the rest a normal HDD.

    Look in PC world by all means, but sometimes direct from ASUS or HP might save you a few extra ££'s or let you get a better spec PC, easier to deal with than the students

    By an external Hard drive that contains at least enough music to get you by PLUS a full copy of your DJ software, so if you laptop goes down, you just need to borrow one and install your software on it and you are back in business!

    Hope this helps
    I go where the best deal is. I don't like dealing with PC World/Currys droids, so I always buy online.

    £300 or so will buy a laptop more than capable of handing audio DJing duties, no question. Heck, there's something incredibly wrong with DJing software if you need any more than an i3 for video playback, even.

    Edit: Oh and the big thing.. the single most important thing.. how many USB ports do the ultra-thin, ultra light modern laptops have? Two or less. No use for us. BSR, God bless him, rolls with a monster 'desktop replacement' laptop. Less of a laptop, more a luggable computer. Compared to what most of us used to cart around, still a darn sight more convenient though

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marc J View Post
    To say SSD drives can't crash is just wrong. And when they do crash (just as often as HDDs), data recovery from them (if you need it) is much harder and more expensive.

    http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/data-recovered-failed-ssd/
    I was thinking that.

    Quote Originally Posted by juski View Post
    Not sure about AMD processors these days Peter (I avoid them like the plague), but with Intel the pecking order goes as follows:

    Celeron,
    then i3,
    then i5,
    then i7

    Celeron having the least grunt & i7 having the most in terms of processing power.

    Within each class there are 'clock speeds' which basically tell you how fast the processor runs. e.g. a Celeron at 2Ghz will be faster than a Celeron at 1.5Ghz. Ah, but what about differences between classes, like a Celeron at 2Ghz ... will it be faster than say an i3 running at 1.8Ghz ? A good rule of thumb is that clock speed for speed, a latter class processor will do better. Whether or not you'll notice any benefit with Djing software ... probably not. My current laptop was a refurb deal from PC World, an HP G6 with Core i3, 8GB RAM.. and was a shade over £300 - and when I'm not DJing (on Linux) with it, I edit video under Windows with it. It's no slouch but not as fast as I'd like (nothing ever is!).
    I think for future proofing an i5 would be a good bet, especially with an SSD & 8 gig ram.

    Have you thought of second hand?
    I got an i7 macbook 500gig with 4 gig ram for £400, which was a very good price.
    I added a 500 gig SSD & 2 TB HD (in the optical drive) & 10 gig ram for circa £500 total costs and its quite a powerhouse.
    I could go up to 16 gig ram but don't really need it so I shared the other 8 gig with my wires i5 pro.
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  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by DJColsie View Post
    The best upgrade I made to mine was to have SDD (Solid Disk Drive I think) instaed of a Hard Disk Drive. Much much faster and no mechanicals like a HDD so can't crash loosing all your data.

    I would have thought i3 would have been fine. I guess the faster the better.

    4GB of RAM would be OK, 8GB faster and better.

    I am sure techy people with far more knowledge and valued opinions will be along soon.
    Quote Originally Posted by Marc J View Post
    To say SSD drives can't crash is just wrong. And when they do crash (just as often as HDDs), data recovery from them (if you need it) is much harder and more expensive.

    http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/data-recovered-failed-ssd/
    I read an article on SSDs which put me off getting one. Apparently, their storage capabilities deteriorates much faster than on a traditional HDD. The article quoted an SSD manufacturer that said, whilst this was true, SSDs were a new storage platform and that, over time, they will get better and expected lifespans were much better than they were a couple of years previously. However, I wanted the most secure now not in the future so I was happy to forego the speed benefits in favour of longer lifespan and increased reliability.
    Last edited by DazzyD; 30-12-2015 at 02:22 PM.
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  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by yourdj View Post
    I was thinking that.



    I think for future proofing an i5 would be a good bet, especially with an SSD & 8 gig ram.

    Have you thought of second hand?
    I got an i7 macbook 500gig with 4 gig ram for £400, which was a very good price.
    I added a 500 gig SSD & 2 TB HD (in the optical drive) & 10 gig ram for circa £500 total costs and its quite a powerhouse.
    I could go up to 16 gig ram but don't really need it so I shared the other 8 gig with my wires i5 pro.
    Damn right £400 was a good price. I look from time to time, but the only ones I can find around that kind of cost are 13" screen versions

  5. #15
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    Can I jump in as a fellow Techie like Justin? (although when Intel went for the i3/5/7 I lost the plot as an i5 can be potentially better than an i7....)

    As someone else has said....wait until January if you can - there's real deals to be had (that's when I'm buying my next one)

    Acer..can't fault them. I've run them for years as a software engineer and NEVER had one break on me (I wish I hadn't have said that). My main playout at the moment is an Aspire V5-573. OK - it lacks a CD Drive and hasn't got enough USB ports for my liking (hence the upgrade come Jan). That said, it's an i3, 1.7 gigglehertz machine with 3 gigglebytes of RAM and it's never let me down...the CPU monitor in VDJ never goes over 2 bars.

    As for SSD...I'm not up to date with those having ditched the idea when they first came out....don't they have a limited number of reads/writes like a USB stick or has the technology moved on since then?

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by juski View Post
    Damn right £400 was a good price. I look from time to time, but the only ones I can find around that kind of cost are 13" screen versions
    Having a laptop that can boot in 10-15 seconds is a nice thing, especially in an emergency.
    My old 2.5gig dual core took 70 seconds with a hybrid drive and 8 gig ram.
    Your DJ - Mobile DJ The New Forest, Southampton & Hampshire. Toby
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  7. #17

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    Similar to Peter, I'm also currently looking for a replacement laptop for my aging Dell Insperon, I came across THIS offering from Morgan computers, at £450 for a used (but professionally A1 refurbished) computer seems a bit on the high side, but it does seem to have a tremendous spec including military grade build quality, and was initially sold for many times this price. Do any of the techies have any favourable comment on if, or isn't the bargain it appears to be. I've managed to murder two laptops in the early hours with JD and coke, so the waterproof keyboard is a big plus point for me. The modest HDD capacity doesn't worry me too much since it has USB3 connectivity, and cheap external drives are readily available. Over to you, good buy or one to be avoided?
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  8. #18
    Web Guru Marc J's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Imagine View Post
    As for SSD...I'm not up to date with those having ditched the idea when they first came out....don't they have a limited number of reads/writes like a USB stick or has the technology moved on since then?
    That's still the case. The article I linked to earlier says "A typical solid state drive will be able to last for over a decade even if you write 100 gigabytes of data per day."

    I've just had a look at the stats on my Samsung 840 Pro SSD in my main PC and in 2.5 years I've written a total of 5.45Tb to it. There's no user data on it, just Windows & applications, but if you've got an SSD then you more than likely have at least another 1 hard drive for your data. Apparently I can expect problems after writing around 250Tb, so 114 years to go...
    Last edited by Marc J; 09-12-2015 at 09:08 AM.

  9. #19
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    Andy and Wayne, all good tips, thank you. The idea of the January sales is sound, but I'm an impatient kinda bloke, and " the thought is father to the deed ". I know PCW aren't the ideal place to deal with, but that's who the lease company are tied to. So be it.

    Toby, secondhand isn't going to be a viable option, for the reasons detailed above.

    Justin, ah USB ports, my pet subject. I know that the top end machines like young Twinspin has often have four ports. Almost all the ones in my price bracket have three. Now here's the thing. As I said earlier, my trusty Acer has four, which is why fitting it with a new engine, flared arches and go faster stripes has crossed my mind more than once. Question is, how far can I upgrade it? New HD is easy, but can I stick at least 8 gig of ram in, and how fast a processor will it take? I don't want to spend money on that, and then find it's slower than an off the shelf one.

    With a terrabyte hd in a new one, I'd be able to lose the external drive anyway, so effectively four ports anyway. I've also had success with using an unpowered hub to accept mouse receiver and USB sticks with music transferred from the download tablet.

    Keep going lads, we'll get there in the end. Thanks to all so far.
    Excalibur. Older than the average DJ.

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  10. #20

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    I've always found this to be a godsend when trying to compare laptops and processors as it gives you relative performance for pretty much every CPU on the market...

    https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

    Note that if you're buying second hand things get more complicated in that i3, i5, i7 pecking order. Newer i3 processors outperform older i5's and likewise for i5's and i7's. Newer processors are also less power hungry and therefore run cooler. Celeron's are always just slow and should be avoided....

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