1. it might help others
2. others can reply with more advice or disagreement.
The following is what works for me. Your case might be different so be sure to do your research before buying! Also, if you've got the money - buy whatever you want. This is for people who are broke. A shiny new macbook is nice (I've got one in front of me!) but when you are on a budget it might be much better to buy a cheap PC. I was in that budget group for a long time! Performance wise I see no difference (same CPU's!). I bought my mac so that I could have both and use some mac only plugs.
From my experience there are always good sales at Best Buy, Office Depot, etc. after Christmas. I would think that this year there will esp. be due to the bad economy - they will want to sell as much extra stock as they can.You say I can get a good deal after Christmas? Is this something you suspect or is there some sale I've not heard of?
I think a dual core intel should be $400 or so. $500 tops. Someone usually has one on sale every week or two.
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How much difference does the level of gHz matter in this case? I can upgrade to 2.1, 2.2, 2.5, or 2.8, but I don't know for what price.
Depending on the price difference, I'd stick with the 2.1. Processors are getting so fast that even the slowest are now twice as fast as the fastest a few years ago.
It will of course depend on what type of music you are making but with my 2.4 core duo Intel I never really even think about CPU. Every thing just works smooth.
I think you'll find it to work just as smooth as a Mac. I have both a mac laptop and an HP laptop and there is really no difference as far as Live is concerned. Only think to consider is if there are any mac only plugins you want. In most cases, all are available on both mac and pc.And this would be just as good as a new Macbook, you think?
Some more things to consider:
1. At best buy and most other stores (check first!) - if you open the laptop and then return it, there is a 15% restocking fee. However when you are buying a cheap laptop ($400-$500) this isn't actually so bad. For a maximum loss of $75 you can take the laptop home, load it up with Live and have 2 weeks to see if it will work for you.
2. If you are broke currently but plan on having money later, you could buy the cheap PC laptop now and then get the Mac later. You'll then have an extra laptop to run any PC only plugins on.
I would stay below $500 though on the PC laptop. If you look, you can usually find a good one for that price. Check the Acer laptops, I know several people with them and they like them. Very cheap. Just check for a good processor and ram.
Also, don't pay extra for RAM at the store. crucial.com can get you ram for very cheap. I got 4 gigs of ram for my macbook for $60. It was $200 at the apple store.
Just check the best buy, office depot, circuit city flyers each week and you should come up with something good.
Also, call each store in your area to ask about stock. Sometimes the website will say they are out of stock but they actually still have a few in the store.
Good luck.
check this one:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 8022587285