suggest laptop for music storage


Can you please suggest a small inexpensive laptop? It must be easy to use, and easy to set up. The Mac or pc’s sole function would be for music storage; it must have remote control to control music selection and volume. I plan to go usb dac to amplifier.
I would like download music to it in the best quality format.
hemihorn
Originally, there were compelling reasons to go with MAC, but with Vista and the new music servers and USB converters with "driverless" firmware, there is no difference. In fact, there is an advantage to PC because of better upsamplers. If you use the Adobe upsampler, they are equal though.

STeve N.
Empirical Audio
I defer to Steve N., who obviously is an authority on these matters.

Steve: the OP indicated that he would be using a USB DAC. Given that, how much do the audio drivers and upsamplers really matter as b/w Windows Vista and Max OSX? If using an external USB DAC mitigates any difference in drivers and upsamplers, then I suppose it gets back to which format -- PC or Mac -- is a more stable, user friendly environment as a music server. Although I have used foobar, EAC, and others on a PC, I like itunes used on a mac as the best available option in terms of reliability and ease of use.
Jax2, I believe that iTunes is supposed to be offering lossless downloads for selected labels. Also, check out magnatune.com, which has become my favorite site for downloading music. You can download in FLAC and it sounds great.

Michael
Jax2, I believe that iTunes is supposed to be offering lossless downloads for selected labels. Also, check out magnatune.com, which has become my favorite site for downloading music. You can download in FLAC and it sounds great.

Thank you, Michael. I wasn't aware of the magnatude site - looks great (but for very limited selection), and the price is right if they really do offer WAV as they say. I couldn't find anything on the iTunes site about downloading AL files. Could you point me to a link. That's good news if the higher resolution files are indeed being offered. I wonder if they'd necessarily be of identical quality to a file you'd otherwise rip from a CD?

Marco