Karaoke Forums

I have seen a lot of very small computers (notebooks) for sale around 300-350 range and I was thinking that they might be a good item to have as a backup computer. My concern is that the sound card might be substandard, this was the concern with many laptops 5 or so years ago. Any ideas/comments.

I will continue using my main laptop for my regular show, but a backup would be nice and the prices are getting amazing. A super-small computer would be nice for traveling.

Are you talking about the netbooks? If so, they're most likely not sufficient to run a Karaoke show with it. Reason why starts with the Graphic Card, over to the Resolution all the way to Sound Card and Processor.

Those are mostly designed to have mobile Internet Access and other small thingies.

What about using something like a ESI Gigaport or another USB based external soundcard?


This obviously won't help with the video but will do wonders for the audio.

Here in L. A., laptops can be had for great prices.. <$200 normally..

So I have spares..

Aside from supporting multiple displays, karaoke is probably the least demanding use of a graphics card you can find. The graphics in an MP3+G are seriously low resolution (remember they were designed to be displayed easily on TV's with a resolution of 640x480) so I can't fathom a reason you'd point to the graphics card as a potential issue. All the sub $400 laptops I've seen support multiple displays.

Soundcard, if this is a backup laptop, as long as it's a 16 bit sound card you'd be fine. Do you folks understand that CD quality is only 16 bit? So I'm struggling to understand this comment as well.

Processor? What kind of software are we running here? I run WinAmp with the AutoKDJ plugin and SamPartyDJ (which requires MySQL as well) along with anti-virus, all the standard windows stuff (Firewall, defender, etc) on my backup laptop which only has a 1GHz celeron processor in it and it performs without issue, it used to be my primary laptop before I bought a new one so I could have a backup.

To say I'm dumbfounded by your response would be an understatement. If we were talking about the little 10" netbooks, then I might be more inclined to agree with you. But that is not (as I understand it) the topic at hand here. To the OP I see no reason why you couldn't use one of those laptops as your primary or backup laptop.

_________________
DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

The problem with the netbooks are they are seriously under powered. As for the graphics, it may or may not work but typically they use built in graphics with shared memory. Having less than 1GB of main memory most of the time, and often using FLASH memory as main memory rather than DRAM, it is fairly slow. Mix that with Atom processor or even less, it's not necessarily the applications that will tax the processor, but it will be the Operating System. Also, many of the lower priced netbooks will come with LINUX OS, not windows. You will often have to add about $50-$100 if you want Windows XP.

Overall, the only thing that you may not have an issue is the audio. The computer will seriously bog down with the demand of Karaoke.

_________________

Seize the day and SING!!!

OK, just re-read the Original Post and I see now that while he stated NOTEBOOK, he does appear to be talking about a NETBOOK (subtle but very important difference). As I said at the end of my original response, if we're talking about NETBOOKS then I'd agree, not going to be sufficient to drive the necessary applications.

Apparently you caught me while I was still editing my first response!! DOH!!

_________________
DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Compuhost 1.80 and higher works fine with netbooks. Earlier versions didn't because they wouldn't handle 1024x600, but that is fixed in 1.8003.

I don't think I would use it for a show unless I had to, as the screen is awful small. But extended desktop works fine and it would definitely be usable for a backup.

EDIT: I am talking about the capable netbook like an Acer Aspire. I have the Aspire with the Celeron, 1G ram, 160G hard drive, Window XP. Runs Compuhost just fine. It would probably be even more usable with a "player" that doesn't try to do the type of history control Compuhost or Hoster do.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I will just leave it like that...