^^
Somewhat OT:
Continuing the Laptop vs. PC discussion, I'm personally a non-believer in laptops, except where portability is so essential that I am willing to give up on a lot of things.
I find laptops to be too restrictive in terms of usability, repairability and upgradability. They are also too expensive for the kind of limited (to me) usability they provide.
It is very difficult to find and keep an ergonomic working posture while working on a laptop. Short sessions of maybe an hour at a time maybe fine, but working on a laptop for an entire day's work is asking for (nay, begging for) various postural and other problems in the long term. I'm on my computer for about 8-9 hours a day during my working time (and I'm quite concerned about my health/fitness) so this is a
very important consideration for me.
I stopped using laptops for daily work after my first laptop that I bought in 2002. It still works, BTW -- the screen is bust and the CD-Rom does not work. It is a lot like my 19 year old cat: moody, needy, quirky and barely functional. But it works. I've gone through 2 laptops since then, and I currently use a tweener -- not quite netbook, not quite laptop. I've not been happy with any of them, but my current one fits the bill, for the kind of usage profile I've bought it for.
I use a HP dm1 that I set up with an SSD when I need to travel, and
absolutely need to work on something that needs Windows. It is rarely used otherwise. It came quite cheap and it is very light. And it is just powerful enough to run most programs without too much fuss (11.6"/AMD-E350/4GB RAM/64GB SSD). For my everyday browsing at home, and for short trips, I use a 7" tablet, which is far far more convenient for the job.
Laptops are too expensive to repair (as compared to desktops), and except for RAM and HDD swaps, need a qualified tech. Any computer that I can't open up and fix myself is a no-no in my book.
In our Music PC context, I
think all laptops are designed to work efficiently on batteries for as long as possible. This could be an overriding consideration in determining their performance, and the amount of power supplied to individual components. I think most laptops have a "full power" software setting, but even this could be a somewhat "optimised" setting, designed to eke out the most from the battery at this setting.
Sorry for the long anti-laptop rant
If you would like to setup a Music PC, I'd suggest you look for the following:
Motherboard: Any dual core Intel Atom board or an AMD E350 "Fusion" board. The Asus E350M1-M series is fanless and is very good for Music PC use. I use one of these. I got mine more than 2 years ago, so I'm not sure if these are still available. Approx Cost: 5-6K.
HDD: To taste. At least a 500GB WD Green HDD. About 3.5K.
RAM: 2GB will do. Corsair recommended. About 2K.
PSU: A decent Corsair 450w SMPS will run to 2.5K. A PICO PSU would be great, but it might run to 5K with the power brick. Worth it, IMHO, for the extra silence.
Cabinet: If you don't want to put in a soundcard any Mini ITX Cabinet would do (depending on whether you get a Mini ITX board or a Micro ATX Board). About 3K.
Like Thad, I look into the computer components market only when I need to build a PC, so I could be a bit off on the prices.
I did not know anything about building a PC from scratch at the time I bought parts for my Music PC (3 years back). I had been swapping out HDDs and RAM in my office PCs for a few years before that, so could manage my way around a PC's innards. I did some homework and bought the parts online, and had a local mech assemble it. I watched him while he did it. 5 months later my motherboard went bust. I was able to take the entire PC apart (my cabinet is a PITA to work in, the price I paid for it's looks), and swapped out the motherboard myself. Since then, I've built 3 PCs, I think, and made numerous upgrades to various PCs. It is not difficult to do.
