Unless you have a Professional recording clientel, my vote is for a laptop[Sound Forge and/or Acid Pro...not Sonar]..Even on a Pro level there is merit in software..Flexability the biggie..If you are hard disk recording, most of your edits and fine tunning are resolved on a PC..The lone exception, a Top of the line Roland 24XX...For the average performer the laptop records well even with a slower disk drive than a desktop..I have been recording on my new laptop with great results, even compared to my hard disk recorder[Boss]..Even my old CTX laptop with the Digigram VX Pocket card records well enough to make the backing tracks for our band...It is just as fast as the Hard Disk recording , maybe faster if you need edits...The problem most of you run into is you are using the wrong software,get away from Cakewalk..As usual this is my descenting vote and opinion..