Laptop recommendations

[losinj]

Was thinking of getting a (cheapish, c. 400 GBP, UK model) laptop for ripping my CD collection with some convenience, so that I won't be tied to a desk for hours. Anyone else using a cheap laptop with good results?

What type of CPU do people recommend as a minimum (bearing in mind it would also be running Vista)? Will a Celeron or AMD handle things, or should I look for Core 2 Duo - if so, which flavour?

Any other features apart from wireless I should check for? I was intending to rip directly to a NAS over wireless.

Will I need to purchase a separate dMC licence for the laptop?

Thanks for any help.

[LtData]

Re: Laptop recommendations

Get dual-core and 2GB of RAM. Also, use the [Encode Local] utility codec here: http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=14731.

As for the licence aspect: While you can install your registered version on your desktop and laptop, you can only use one copy at a time and you will need a separate PerfectMeta license for the laptop.

[bhoar]

Re: Laptop recommendations

One other thing: most laptop drives aren't very great at ripping.

If you can find one that uses a similar Teac mechanism to the Teac drive used by the RipNAS, or that uses a standard mounting arrangement so that the drive can be swapped out for that kind of drive, you might have better results.

Note that the Teac drive for the RipNAS is the slot-loading variant. I cannot say for sure, but I strongly suspect that the tray-loading variant (IIRC, only the last letter of the model number is different) which is much easier to find, should operate just as well.

-brendan

[losinj]

Re: Laptop recommendations

Thanks for the tip, LtData.

One other thing: most laptop drives aren't very great at ripping.

If you can find one that uses a similar Teac mechanism to the Teac drive used by the RipNAS, or that uses a standard mounting arrangement so that the drive can be swapped out for that kind of drive, you might have better results.

Note that the Teac drive for the RipNAS is the slot-loading variant. I cannot say for sure, but I strongly suspect that the tray-loading variant (IIRC, only the last letter of the model number is different) which is much easier to find, should operate just as well.

-brendan

What kind of problems could I get? I've been considering a Dell Vostro 1510, which happens to have a slot-loading drive, but no idea of the drive make. (NAS = QNAP TS-109/II. Plus SqueezeBox 3 and FLAC.)

[bhoar]

Re: Laptop recommendations

Thanks for the tip, LtData.

What kind of problems could I get? I've been considering a Dell Vostro 1510, which happens to have a slot-loading drive, but no idea of the drive make. (NAS = QNAP TS-109/II. Plus SqueezeBox 3 and FLAC.)

In general, they are slower to rip, are built with lightweight parts and may operate in a hotter environment than 5.25" drives. This means that they end up wearing out significantly faster when used for intensive activities (100s of rips or burns) or at least, that's the conventional wisdom.

In addition, they are, on average, much more expensive to replace when they fail.

-brendan

[losinj]

Re: Laptop recommendations

Your "conventional wisdom" makes good sense, and perhaps I'm searching too hard for an excuse to buy a laptop (when I don't really need one )