laptop purchase advice plllease ?

we’ve had this many a time 1 word mac!

I can’t name a specific model, but all I can say is you don’t need a top spec laptop for djing. Dj software doesn’t require that much performance. It only requires a somewhat decent processor. If you start to go into DAW’s you’ll need real power.

I use a 2.4GHz Core 2 duo hp EliteBook 6930p, with 4GB of RAM running 64-bit Windows 8, and it works fine. Modern Windows hardware is more than capable of running serato, for a fraction of the cost of a mac.

Two things you need for DJ and Music production software: a good CPU and a lot of RAM

Ram isn’t really all that important for DJing, but if you’ve got 4 decks cached into RAM and you’re recording at the same time, get at least 4GB. RAM also speeds up the time it takes to finalise recordings, export music tracks from whatever productioin software you use (if you do that is), and it generally helps with that kinda stuff (video editing also)

Sounds like your CPU or processor is slowing you down, you have a decent clock rate, but what actually is your processor? My father has an old Sony Vaio with a Core 2 Duo and it is SSSSSSSSSSSSLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Look at a core i-Something, the more cores the better. Cores take priority over clock rate for this kinda stuff. Kind of like having more RAM compared to faster RAM.

I am currently running an ASUS S551L 15″ Ultrabook. This has got a nVidia 740 and a i7 because I also use it for gaming. It looks sublie, though, like a Mac. Metal all over with a shiny black touchscreen, it’s sweet. Remember, everyone, including yourself, will respect your computer more if it looks shmick!

I have a Lenovo T410 that I bought used off ebay for £220. It has an i5-940m (dual core, 2.4 Ghz)and 4gb of ram. It works for me great, I don’t even have to turn the Wifi adapter etc. off to DJ with it and Traktor’s load meter stays in the 30% range consistently. I’d highly recommend looking on ebay, there are a lot of “business” laptops being sold on there for not a lot of money with the right sort of specs that you look for when DJing.

Save up and invest in a Mac IMO this is the most valuable and most important bit of kit you will purchase, you can get a MAC on finance!

I had the same reservations as you, because my old laptop had a 15.6″ screen and I was going down to a 14.1″ on the lenovo. But, I found it wasn’t that big of a deal because the lenovo resolution is quite high (1440 x 900) compared to the (1280 x 800) on my old laptop. I didn’t actually lose that much real estate on the screen when running 4 decks on the lenovo, and you’ve got the benefit of Serato remote for your tablet/phone, so i’d be tempted to look for a smaller screen in order to slim down the weight of your gear, and for it to take up less space in the booth. just my .02c.