External Hard Drive

[DJWilson]

Eyeing up the following: http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/s_actio...-10164851.html

Budget is £400 and needs to meet the recommended specs for Virtual DJ (only used for music. No videos, lighting etc).

Any thoughts on the 4 above? Any better options you know of?

Thanks!

[ukpartydj]

If I had to buy from PC World (which I would never again), I would choose the Dell Inspiron.

I had an Inspiron a few years ago and it was okay, which was very dissapointing as I paid £700 for it and wasn't all that impressive. Also the screen could bend a bit which was odd haha!
I would advise a high clock speed as whilst I'm sure things have moved on I'm yet to be convinced that DJ software utilises multicores very well, even with multicore support turned on with Traktor a 5-year-old dual core 2.5GHz outperformed an i7 1.8GHz.

You can get a decent i7 business grade laptop (HP Elitebook, Dell Lattitude etc) rather than the flimsy consumer ones on ebay second hand for £200-250 with backlit keyboard, high clock speed and will survive being bashed around a bit.

If you do buy from PC world, I'd advise you buy another laptop as a backup because even with paying for their stupid knowhow insurance they take forever to repair simple errors and occasionally lose your laptop.

[DJ Jules]

If I had to buy from PC World (which I would never again), I would choose the Dell Inspiron.

If you do buy from PC world, I'd advise you buy another laptop as a backup because even with paying for their stupid knowhow insurance they take forever to repair simple errors and occasionally lose your laptop.

What he said. Something like this for £139 will do you for non-video. If you want a kick-ass machine that'll do you for the future expect to pay around the £600-£700 mark second hand, but there are some very capable bargains to be had with older generation top end machines with a few cosmetic scratches if you know what you're looking at (this one for £279 for example).

[DJWilson]

If you do buy from PC world, I'd advise you buy another laptop as a backup because even with paying for their stupid knowhow insurance they take forever to repair simple errors and occasionally lose your laptop.

Currently set up for laptop and CD but am looking at getting a second stand by laptop and remove the CD element from the set-up within the next few months.

Earn some money back and then go fully digital.

Thanks for your advise, I'll have a dig about!

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Definitely worth having a back up laptop if you go fully digital. It was one of the first things I did. I bought a refurbished one from a company that specialise in them and I've yet to use it in 3 years. The only time I have turned it on (twice) was to install the VDJ software and check that everything was working as it should.

I'm not much of a tech head when it comes to knowing the in's and out's of a laptop but there is a very good thread on here somewhere that goes into detail about how you strip the machine down of all the stuff you don't need so that it runs as best it can.
Sorry, I don't have a clue where it is now but someone will no doubt find it and add a link for you.

[little al]

Definitely worth having a back up laptop if you go fully digital. It was one of the first things I did. I bought a refurbished one from a company that specialise in them and I've yet to use it in 3 years. The only time I have turned it on (twice) was to install the VDJ software and check that everything was working as it should.

I'm not much of a tech head when it comes to knowing the in's and out's of a laptop but there is a very good thread on here somewhere that goes into detail about how you strip the machine down of all the stuff you don't need so that it runs as best it can.
Sorry, I don't have a clue where it is now but someone will no doubt find it and add a link for you.

You should turn it on more often, it will be horrible if you need to use it in a hurry and it has to do an update before getting started, it could take half an hour or more.

[DJWilson]

You should turn it on more often, it will be horrible if you need to use it in a hurry and it has to do an update before getting started, it could take half an hour or more.

The best way of keeping it running fast and clean would be to never to connect to the internet. Avoids any updates before booting up and clogging the machine.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not much of a tech head when it comes to knowing the in's and out's of a laptop but there is a very good thread on here somewhere that goes into detail about how you strip the machine down of all the stuff you don't need so that it runs as best it can.
Sorry, I don't have a clue where it is now but someone will no doubt find it and add a link for you.

Thanks - I'll have a search and see if it makes an appearance.

[ukpartydj]

What he said. Something like this for £139 will do you for non-video. If you want a kick-ass machine that'll do you for the future expect to pay around the £600-£700 mark second hand, but there are some very capable bargains to be had with older generation top end machines with a few cosmetic scratches if you know what you're looking at (this one for £279 for example).

Not a bad laptop, especially for the price. The business style laptops are for some reason superp value for money 2nd hand, don't be fooled by the cheap price I bought a 4 year old Elitebook dual core, used it for 3 years and gave it to my mum 4 years ago and whilst it's now it's not a quick laptop it can still keep up with her facebook games etc and she declined my upgrade suggestion recently. I think I bought it for £150 and that was 7 years ago.

My current DJ laptop cost me £240 maybe 2-3 years ago (although they are about £350 on eBay currently) and has an i7-3720QM processor 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD, backlit keyboard and 1440x900 14" display.

That processor is massive overkill for just DJing. If you were to pick up one of these - https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-ma...ok-pro/15-inch for over £2000 you'd likely have a processor which ranks around 2% better in benchmark tests. I believe Apple use I7-7700HQ processors in their latest i7 2.8GHz models. So you don't need to follow my lead with that one, I just couldn't believe how cheap they were so had to buy one! I'd already bought the same laptop with a good i5 in it when I noticed the i7 pop up so now I have the i5 as backup/DMX.

[DJ Jules]

Not a bad laptop, especially for the price. The business style laptops are for some reason superp value for money 2nd hand, don't be fooled by the cheap price I bought a 4 year old Elitebook dual core, used it for 3 years and gave it to my mum 4 years ago and whilst it's now it's not a quick laptop it can still keep up with her facebook games etc and she declined my upgrade suggestion recently. I think I bought it for £150 and that was 7 years ago.

I'm in the same boat - I'm using an Elitebook now that I bought 5 or 6 years ago. The price is purely because corporates buy them in huge quantities and refresh them every 3 to 5 years so recyclers have huge volumes of them to shift and corporates sometimes actually PAY the recyclers to get rid of them securely! The other benefit of buying them is that parts are readily available and they're usually dirt cheap.

Julian

[DazzyD]

*cough* Asus i7 with 8Gb, dedicated Nvidia graphics, hybrid 1TB drive. £480.

Manufacturer recon on eBay. If you know a little bit about computers there aren't many reasons to buy new...

Julian

I know an awful lot about computers! Self-taught from the age of 6/7 in 1982 with a Sinclair ZX81. Taught myself programming as, in 1982, there weren't many alternatives around if you wanted to actually do anything with your machine! Went through several 8bit and 16bit machines for the next 9 years before buying my first PC - a Compaq Presario tower system. Learned all the ins and outs of that including the component-based mix-and-match nature of PCs. Obtained a BTEC First Diploma (Distinction), BTEC National Certificate (Merit) and HNC in IT and Applications whilst working a placement with Phillips Components in Durham before graduating and moving on to becoming an in-house programmer ("developer" these days!) for an Apple Macintosh subsiduary where I worked on System 7 programming in C/C++ and PASCAL and working on the launch of the "before it's time" Apple Macintosh PowerPC (an Apple Mac / IBM PC hybrid that could run Windows natively). It didn't catch on but had the potential to be great. But, given all of this, my computer experience is largely on the software side and, although I can hold my own with hardware, I'd still prefer to buy new. I've had bad luck buying second hand, including a powered mixer I once bought, looked great condition in the shop and tested well there, but, on it's first outing, caught fire! So I stick with new kit.

If I had to buy from PC World (which I would never again), I would choose the Dell Inspiron.

I had an Inspiron a few years ago and it was okay, which was very dissapointing as I paid £700 for it and wasn't all that impressive. Also the screen could bend a bit which was odd haha!
I would advise a high clock speed as whilst I'm sure things have moved on I'm yet to be convinced that DJ software utilises multicores very well, even with multicore support turned on with Traktor a 5-year-old dual core 2.5GHz outperformed an i7 1.8GHz.

You can get a decent i7 business grade laptop (HP Elitebook, Dell Lattitude etc) rather than the flimsy consumer ones on ebay second hand for £200-250 with backlit keyboard, high clock speed and will survive being bashed around a bit.

If you do buy from PC world, I'd advise you buy another laptop as a backup because even with paying for their stupid knowhow insurance they take forever to repair simple errors and occasionally lose your laptop.

You've lost me off, there. You would choose the Dell Inspiron even though your last one was very disappointing?

My first laptop in the 1990's was a Dell Inspiron. It was a really good machine bought through work on a Computing At Home scheme. The whole package which included the laptop, absolutely brilliant Dell laptop bag, printer and software was over £2,000. It was a really good machine at the time. The only issue I ever had, which made my mind up about never using Dell again, was Dell's customer service. They were foreign-based and all I was trying to do was get a price for a replacement charger yet they insisted on taking my credit card details before giving me a price. I asked to speak to someone else who might understand what I was asking for but to no avail. I did eventually get a price - £140+vat - which was way above the price I knew I should have been paying (which, for the official, original charger was just £60 at the time) so I wasn't even sure they'd quoted me for what I was asking for. I'd rather use HP these days as their customer service is spot on.