Looking for a cheap laptop for making music

#1

After a year of fighting it and two repairs, my laptop is truly dead.

It serves as my entertainment center, I don’t own cable nor do I do apps and streaming and all that stuff.

I spent a lot of money on this thing back in the day, but that was because it was a gaming rig, but I no longer care about that.

This never had much of an audio card, but I managed to make it work. Honestly, nothing I’ve ever used had much power in the music department.

I’d like to mail order something and not shop at Walmart, which is the only place here that I can get something, I helped my sister out last Christmas getting a laptop, but the storage space was crap. If anybody can help out, that would be amazing. Again, no need for anything fancy. No touchscreen, and no desktop setup. Haven’t used a desktop for about fifteen years.

I use Ableton. All of my music files remain intact. Times are rough. :stuck_out_tongue:

Pandemic social distancing diary thread
#2

Any preference as to budget or screen size? The new AMD Zen-based laptops are supposed to be really good, would smear most of our machines up the wall in terms of their music ability, but I have no idea what kind of price those come in at. And I have long fingerhands, so I really can’t stand anything less than a 15-inch model, but you can save a few hundred if you don’t mind a 13-inch model.

#3

I have a pretty great MSI steelseries gaming/hybrid laptop. Its 17" I think.

About a year ago the dog I was living with stepped on it while it was closed and cracked the screen barely. the display is whacked, so, It needs a monitor or TV to use, but otherwise works perfect. Kind of renders it into a desktop though in that sense.

The screen replacement I think was quoted at $150-200. It cost me 2k retail though, in 2016.

If you’re interested @Vlantis DM me, I’d ship it to ya for free. I could snap some pics too, I just need to retrieve it from my storage unit. (just moved :P)

(that being said it sounds like you’re out of the repair game, don’t blame you. Laptops are bitchy, haha.)

#4

Thanks for the quick responses. I don’t mind smaller sizes. I mean…every piece of music I’ve ever made was done on a touchpad…:stuck_out_tongue: My price point is…600 at most? I’m broke as fuck. I’m pretty sure over half of the price of this laptop went into its graphics card.

@nose, that would be awesome, but yeah, I can’t have something hooked up to my TV unless I’m doing YouTube Karaoke or watching something I’ve pirated (GASP!). I’ve tried hooking my old one up when doing music stuff, but the results are not cool. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m basically looking for something that has 1 terabyte of storage. I started making music on a shitty dell way back in the day, and nothing about my approach has changed since then. I still stand by my old shitty headphones and car stereo adjustments and all that stuff.

#5

Actually, @nose, I might take you up on that offer. I’m sure I can pick up a cheap moniter…maybe. That’s very kind of you to offer it. I still use IG88’'s cheapass audio interface that I traded for a firewire interface back in the day.

There’s just…nothing here when it comes to anything, and since lockdown, it’s gotten much worse. I’m still scraping by, but that’s how it’s been for years.

I’ll wait and see if another recommendation comes along. I try to live with the least amount of “stuff” as possible, but yeah, my laptop is dead…my heart and soul along with it. :stuck_out_tongue:

#6

Hey man my pleasure, Not a problem. I just need to fish it out and its good to go. Sadly I had it less than 5 months before it broke, otherwise its really loaded and ready to go. Capable little lappy, I bought it for 3D modeling/rendering so its RAM heavy (good for DAW work).

Let me know what comes your way and I’ll get this out of storage soon and format it and hit you up! :slight_smile:

#7

Alternatively, I’ve certainly got a spare desktop that would make a decent music computer. Any of them would need a few things but if we could work out shipping I don’t mind giving one away.

#8

have a comb through ebay and look for refurbed ones. you can get some pretty good specs for a reasonable price these days.
i was helping my parents find a new laptop recently and saw some great refurbed laptops for a very low price. i was searching UK though, but i assume your local results would have something similar

#9

I think I got my computer stuff sorted! Glad I made this thread. :+1:

#10

Now that you have a PC, I think it’s time you consider installing linux :+1: