About to buy this from Dell…

Screen size may be an issue?

Nah, have a 15″ MacBook … screensize is fine. I actually had a 17″ for a while and swapped it because it was just too much hardware in front of me.

There should be no real problems, although I don’t see how only USB3.0 ports would have posed a challenge on your VAIO. They are (officially) backward compatible, i.e. if you stick in a 2.0 device it will behave as a 2.0 port. But alas.

The Dell has Windows 7 which is good (don’t go for 8, it sucks, especially for our purposes).

You may however contemplate getting a 2011/2012 MacBook Pro. I have never been a big Apple fan (80% of my machines are still Windows), BUT … there are a few things that make it very suited for DJ (or Pro Audio in general) use. Contrary to popular belief it is not that it is more stable (my laptops never crash on gig, barr some hardware problems), but the aluminium casing (unibody) not only looks good but is a bit sturdier than any kind of plastic. The major advantage is the way Apple OS deals with soundcards and such. This is plug-and-play, whereas under windows more often than not you are stuck with Asio4All or proprietary Asio drivers and they don’t always quite work correctly straight out of the box.
Finally there is the matter of image. Like it or not, there is a pretty strong undercurrent in DJ land that if you are a pro, you have a Mac. Strangely enough this seems to have passed over to the crowd. Somehow seeing that lighted Apple logo on the DJ booth qualifies as some sort of certification.

Again, nice Dell laptop and you should have no problems with it. If you are using it just for DJ-ing, strip it to the bare minimum, switch of networking (both cable and wireless), don’t install virusscanners (if you need any, get a mobile version that runs of a memory stick when you want to) and other “automatic” background programs. Turn of all energy saving features (sleep screen, sleep HD, sleep PC all set to never), turn off automatic screensavers, turn off all windows sounds.
If you are going to use the laptop for other purposes too, consider making it dual-boot.

Good luck and greetinx,
C.

Adding my tuppence,

I’m using a Dell also, Latitude e5520, and it’s pretty top notch. An i5 CPU, 1080p screen and 4 usb2 slots. Better spec and half the price of a Mac. I added a ssd just because I can 🙂
Yes Windows machines need a touch of configuration magic as opposed to Macs, but they’re equally as reliable and the configuration thing is only an issue if you plan on plugging something different into it every gig. As for looks, do you want to showcase your laptop or actually play music and make ladies gyrate suggestively? 😉

Heres my advice,

Save your money and get a Mac, you will never look back!

Alex Wray, post: 39348, member: 4521 wrote: Yes, i’m sure they would appreciate my laptop…..

LOLOL