Dedicated laptop

Windows/Mac/iPad what’s best for the long haul beginner to doing regular small gigs college parties, weddings, etc.

Mac & ipad are the same company, and bob is right, stick with whatever you are familiar with working in. I use windows for just about everything, so I stick with Windows/Intel machines when I’m hunting/looking at dj laptops.

2) dedicating a device specifically to your sets nothing else but your career, less risk of viruses or other issues. Is it worth having that single device used only for music?

Can be. I did it for redundancy purposes (I go tend to be rough on my stuff and haven’t had a great track record on Laptops) and because it just made sense to me. I was also able to find a good Windows laptop for about 250$ USD that ticked both my personal boxes & Serato requirements. If you’re serious about wanting to make a career out of it, then I’d say go for it. Otherwise, start with a home computer or laptop and see if it grabs you. It’s not worth the time, effort, & money of finding a good laptop if you’re sick of or don’t want to DJ within a month. It really has to be something you’re passionate about in order for it to make sense.

As for where to buy, Ebay is a great place. It’s basically the world’s marketplace and some amazing deals can be found if you look hard & long enough. I bought my current laptop through Ebay and will snag another one assuming I can still find the one I want after paying off a friend who helped me spring for my controller. I’d also say look at your local electronic stores/chain stores and see if you can get something open box/refurbished if you’re cool with that. You can find some sweet stuff there as well.

I see value in a dedicated laptop, but I play out 2 to 4 times per week so it’s a well used machine. If you aren’t playing out very often that value would rapidly decrease as it doesn’t make sense to just have it sitting around never being used. Having the dedicated DJ rig also means my daily use laptop acts as a ready-to-go backup in a pinch (and seeing as I bought almost an identical system for daily use, it really does just plug in if I need to pull the other one out).

Mac v PC is exactly as others have said, whatever you are most comfortable with. And if you are a builder, I suspect that means you know how to tune a PC, so most of the so-called Apple advantages are wiped out.

My MBP has a separate user for DJ-ing. This seems to create a far greater separation between users than you can get in Windows. And it works well that way.

Unfortunately the discussion between Apple and Intel-based (I know, there is an Intel CPU in Apples as well) laptops often boils down to OS comparison. The choice for Apple for me had a lot more contributing factors, as a matter of fact the OSX bit was a deterrent for an old Windows hand like me. There are several other features, some of which CAN be had in the very high end PC market, that helped me make up my mind.

The way Apple handles audio (driverless) is, no discussion, better than the way Windows has it implemented. Full metal body. Backlit keys (not a new feature, been around since forever). Magnetic power connector (I have buried a total of 3 of mine own and a few of my customers laptops over the years with the power connector broken off from the mainboard). Just to name a few.

I have had my windows laptop (backup) set as DJ only machine and also as a shared DJ / Office Use machine. While I won’t go into the entire discussion with Bob, suffice to say that there are reasons beyond updates and virusses why you don’t want to DJ with your office laptop. Some of those inherent to the way Windows is built and behaves (and performance deteriorates over time). There is, however, a very simple solution. Licensing rules allow you to install your OS more than once on a single machine. So if you create a dual-boot system, you can pick whether to boot as DJ or as Office laptop. Both systems run totally independent of each other (just not simultaneously – it’s not user switching after all). You can have major virus or OS problems on your office partition and still be fine for DJ-ing. Very helpful if you happened to open that nasty email because you weren’t paying full attention and having your hard disk wiped out. Reboot, pick the DJ install and you are still good for that nights gig. And files from one install are not (easily) available for the other install.

Personally I totally strip windows down to the bare knuckle for DJ-ing purposes. Partly based on knowledge of windows from 35 years of working with computers, partly with information gathered from DJ forums and support sites about optimizing windows for DJ-ing purposes. A machine stripped down like that would not be very amicable for day to day office use. Another reason dual-booting makes sense.

Just my two (perhaps three) cents as usual.