Here's a quite a deal. I may get one next week, since getting anything used worth getting I'm sure would run about $350 anyway.

Now I suppose I'll have to start reading up on the best way to use and program one of these suckers.
http://officedepot.crossmediaservices.co...08&L2CatID=5209

Best

Scott Langholff
http://www.ScottLMusic.com

Did a search on Froogle etc. This appears to be the best deal out there right now for my purposes.

Scott,
Looks nice, but I have no experience with the Celeron processor for music or multitasking. Better check it out first!

My daughter has owned one for four months, two of which were at the factory for a power plug problem. Operation-wise, it's a decent machine.

I would not recommend Celeron, but suggest
paying a little more and get a P4.

Scott,I absolutely agree with getting a Pentium 4, it's worth the extra dollars. My full time job is supporting computer users in 3 offices. Based on passed experience I would never order a computer for any of my users with a Celeron processor.

Scott,

What are you going to do with the computer? Are you going to use it for your performances, or are you going to record midi and WAV files? My backup desktop computer uses a 1.3 Ghz Celron processor and it has never given me a problem. I'm told, however, that the Celrons are not the greatest for complex graphics work or very high level recording purposes. But, for the kind of things most of us use the laptops for, lyrics, MP3s and midi files, the Celron will likely be just fine.

Good luck,

Gary

my 2 cents? avoid the celeron for anything but a spreadsheet and a word processor, it would probably be okay (just) for midifile processing, but not audio.

peace, out

Hello

Primarily I want to use it for lead sheets. I suppose the possibility of using it for mp3's is there, but I am not that keen on doing that right now. I have not considered using it to record midi files, I would rather doubt it, but who knows?

I think mainly lead sheets and recording live on Sound Forge at 16 bits is probably my main interest.

The other thing is if I were to travel I could operate my ebay store from it.

I'm open to all suggestions.

I'm sure I have something like 14-30 days to return it. I suppose it would be a lot of guesswork otherwise??

Best
Scott

I've done a bit of this stuff ( computer based recording and instrumentataion ) along with researching it and have used a Celeron, P3, P43 and AMD in the past ( and an Atari in the "way" past.

I absolutely agree with Gary. If you're going to use it as a machine to play / record midifiles or even for playback of audio files, it should be fine.

I would not recommend a Celeron if you are planning to use Vsti's or do some intricate work in a more complex DAW like Cubase or Sonar.

Most pro audio sites will echo what we've said here btw.

AJ

Don't forget that you pay sales tax at the pre-rebate price.
Pricewatch.com has the best deals on the internet. An Athlon 2800 goes for $700. Pentium 4's start at $740.

Beakybird

Thanx for the replies.

I think I am going to hold on this one.

Beakybird: Thanx, I did a search on Froogle which seems to have the lowest prices. I think Pricewatch.com will sometimes be listed in their search.

I found out Athlon 2800's start at $629:
http://www.ubid.com/actn/opn/getpage.asp?AuctionId=10400720&s=uwb70000

Pentium 4's start at $479:
http://store.yahoo.com/surpluscomputers/tote81pi85no.html

Here are a bunch listed quite cheaply for the Pentium 4:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=Pentium+4+laptop&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-17,GGLD:en&tab=wf&scoring=p&sa=N&start=50

I think these may be refurbs, but then so what? We bought our Nokia cell phones for $25 apiece. The warranty refurbs.

I suppose I will check out the refurbs and ebay.

Judging by what I want to do would you computer techies give me a list of what specs I should go after?

Scott