About to buy a laptop - some questions

It seems these laptop threads pop up really often, all of which I've read and found useful. I'd like to run what I'm considering purchasing by you guys who might know more about this stuff than I do just in case. I have a few questions too. I'm a college student and I'm spending about 1/3 of my yearly pay on this, so I'm trying to maximize the value. I gotta save the rest of my money for gas, girls, booze, books, vidoo games, and delivery food, ya know? :D

I'd like to be able to run P5 v2, Reason 3, and Acid pro 5 well . I'm planning on buying an Echo Indigo IO laptop audio card also. Live performance with P5 and Reason is a possibility in the future. Most of my work is soft synths; I rarely do any audio recording, and if I do, it won't be more than one track at a time. I'm also justifying this purchase because I plan to use this laptop for taking to class (I take some digital art courses and having my own laptop to bring would be nice...instead of using G3 Powermacs..). I"ll probably try and set up a dual boot..one for audio, one for everything else.

Inspiron 6000 Qty 1
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 750 (1.86 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB), Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Unit Price $1,935.00
Dell Home Customers
LIMITED TIME OFFER! View Details Remove Coupon
- $750.00
Catalog Number: 29
Module Description Show Details
Inspiron 6000D Intel® Pentium® M Processor 750 (1.86 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home
Display 15.4 inch UltraSharp WSXGA+ LCD Panel
Memory 512MB DDR2 SDRAM 1 Dimm
Video Card 64MB DDR ATI's MOBILITYâ„¢ RADEON X300 PCI Express x16 Graphics
Hard Drive 80GB Hard Drive
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
Combo/DVD+RW Drives 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
Wireless Networking Card Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915 Internal Wireless (802.11 a/b/g, 54Mbps)

$1,219.00

You might have noticed I'm only getting 512 ram. I'm planning on ordering another stick of 512 elsewhere and installing it myself. I can save around $90 that way. I also didn't opt for the 7200 rpm drive for extra money.


I have a few specific questions:
1) How important is hard drive speed if I'm not going to do heavy recording and multitrack audio? Can I get by the 5200 drive (actually it might be 4800...speed isn't listed....I just know its not 7200). I might buy a USB2/Firewire external drive sometime though, which I understand work better than laptop internal drives.

2) With the Indigo card, roughly how will this laptop compare to my 3.0 ghz P4 with 1 gb Ram, 7200 drives, and an Echo Mia MIDI (I haven't bought this card yet...I was planning to until I realized that the laptop might actually be better for audio than my desktop). If the desktop is faster, I'll keep it strictly as a DAW and the laptop will be for everything else on one boot, and live performance and on the go music tinkering on the other.

3) I was first considering the larger Dell 9300, but I would like something slightly more portable, so I went for the 6000 (which I think was around $100 less for a similar configuration, also). Am I losing anything performance wise by doing this? Other than display size.


If anyone can offer any insight, that would be super awesome. Thanks a lot!

Awesome. Thanks for the info. Seems like I'm heading in the right direction then.

You might want to double-check the RAM on the Inspiron 6000 because I think the 512mb comes as 2x256mb sticks which (I believe) leaves no slots open for more RAM. You actually have to pay more money to have them install the 512mb as one stick.

My partner just got this machine, but doesn't use it for music so unfortunately I can't offer comment on suitability - but it is really beautiful and the performance seems snappy enough!

KEv

I still have and love my 5100 and it's still running really well. It's a terrific laptop and I have Zarro plans to part with it any time soon.. P5V2 stresses it a bit, and I have a smallish screen. That said, I have plenty of softsynths on that bad boy, and after all , MIDI is MIDI and sound is sound.

I envision a day in my late 40s, when I'm running 20 or so laptops simultaneously ....

I just ordered it. The coupon I had expired tonight I think, so I got it done. :). I need a usb midi interface now....any suggestions? I just need one input. Will any do?

because when i got into this I thought I'd be using my hardware synths, I picked up a MidiSport 2x2. Once I installed the driver from the web site and uninstalled the driver from the CD that came with the hardware I haven't had any problems with it at all

a lot of current midi controllers go right to the usb port and you can always run a usb hub, but I'm so proud of having figured out midi In/Out and Thru so long ago that I use midi cables to the midi sport box (and they come in colors too - orange and green for me, BUT some usb cables have built-in LEDS (in many colors) now so aesthetically they may have an edge and for onstage performance that may actually be helpful as a night light orientation device)

oh one time i did have some trouble when we were babysitting and the kid pushed the Thru button on the box -- took me all night to figure out why nothing was working

for audio input, I don't think you can do better than the Echo Indigo I/O. Now CW didn't let me in on their plans that P5 would record audio so I just have the Echo Indigo no I/O card, but it's very nice sound.
I assume the 6000 has built-in wirelsss so you won;t need to swap PCMCIA cards from wirelss to sound card so you should be set.

That should work great or there is also this one
http://www.midiman.com/products/en_us/Uno-main.html