Thinking of getting a laptop

[Neil B]

Sometimes when I'm on holiday & the weather is a bit rough, or in the mornings before "the boss" wakes up, I wish I had something to do besides reading my software/hardware manuals for Scope/RMX/Wavelab/Cubase or whatever.

What I'd like to do is get a laptop (Windows 7 I suppose) so I can do the following:

Convert some wav files to REX loops using Recycle 2.1
Learn more about Wavelab (4.1) by messing about with files
Watch tutorial videos such as the Spectrasonics ones.

So,
Does anyone use Wavelab 4.1 with Windows 7 - does it work okay?
I know that Recycle will work with Windows 7 so that's okay
Can anyone give me any tips on what sort of spec I need?
I don't want to spend too much and the quality of the soundcard doesn't have to be brilliant, but I would like to be able to disable the speaker and use headphones (more than my life is worth if I wake the missus up and anyway, she needs her beauty sleep!)

I know it's quite a broad question but I don't want to spend too much money for something to keep me good for a few weeks per year
Neil B

[petal]

I guess any laptop that can run windows 7 can do what you need there.

[valis]

Wavelab 5 required I manually set it to auto-elevate priveledges ('run as administrator' by default under compatibility) and I can't drag & drop or etc but file open works fine and all operations worked fine. I've since upgraded to v6 which is largely the same except it auto elevates itself on start now. I think they 'finally' have that resolved in v7 but I'm not upgrading anytime soon....not sure how 4.1 is under Win7 but it's worth noting I use v5 on my Xp/Scope box as much if not more than the V6 on my Win7 box.

I think the 'best' laptops are hard to define, as it depends if you're interested in support contracts (business, lenovo & dell), consumer support (custom builds like ADK Audio, Rain Recording & UK/De etc brands) or price:performance ratio (Asus etc.)

[Neil B]

Okay theanks for the replies.
I'm not really after anything too serious as I mentioned, so it shouldn't cost too much.
I think I've got a neighbour with a Win 7 laptop - I'll probably nip across to her with my Wavelab & Recycle software and test it out.

Something I've never looked into (and probably a very stupid, embarrasing question) but are laptop soundcards fitted with a headphone socket or would I need to look into a more up-market soundcard?

[garyb]

yes, laptops have headpone out's.

[valis]

for which you'll almost assuredly need Asio4All

[Neil B]

for which you'll almost assuredly need Asio4All

???????

can you explain that please?

[valis]

http://www.asio4all.com/