Suggested PC laptop models for computer audio

Since your current laptop is only one year old, and you like the results, what's wrong with simply keeping your current setup?

I agree with Lewinskih01 in that you don't need much horsepower for your purposes. Even the most inexpensive laptop nowadays will be very lightly loaded with this task.

So the question is, which one to pick? For something decent at a low price, I would consider one of the Lenovo offerings.

For a better solution, although I think you'll have a bias against this idea, I feel that currently the best laptop for the price is a Macbook Air. If you're dead-set on Windows, it can run Windows just fine. The Air is a very compact, well-built laptop that will easily fit your needs perfectly. At the moment, I don't think there's anything out there that can touch it for the price. Although you can get lower-end laptops by the major vendors (HP, Lenovo, Dell) for less money (the Macbook Air starts at $900 I think), in my opinion they won't represent as good of a value. And besides, the Air makes a GREAT travel laptop, so you will be able to repurpose it outside of work.

You have a lot of great choices here, including the choice to stay with what you have now at zero extra cost.

Michael

Steakster, thanks for the info on Empirical Audio's suggestions. They do look a little dated, though, referring to XP and Vista and recommending computers with at least 4GB RAM (that's virtually EVERY laptop available now).

If USB has problems with both streaming audio and external hard drive connections simultaneously, that makes my suggestion of a Macbook Air even more appropriate, as you could use the Thunderbolt connector for the hard drive and one of the USB 3.0 ports for the DAC.

Michael