Karaoke Forums

I'm loving the information provided here. I still haven't bought a laptop to use and was wondering what you folks have found to be the best, most endurable products?

Depends on a lot of factors. Budget is a big factor. Most off the shelf laptops today are more than capable of running the karaoke software out there.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Forget all the consumer brands. Laptops are cheap.

Get yourself the ITRONIX GD8000 1.86GHZ TOUGHBOOK LAPTOP

I've had mine more than 6 years and works like new.
I've only upgraded the internal hard drive to a 2TB.



Thank me later.

Toshiba, Dell and HP. More important is the software. I suggest Just Karaoke by TriceraSoft.

WOW!!! 2Terabytes of karaoke is a lot of songs.

I can endure most laptops, most of the time, as long as they aren't acting up.

Seriously, though, you don't really need a "ruggedized" computer either if you want to save a few bucks. Any modern computer that meets your karaoke program's minimum requirements will do. I'd just recommend having AT LEAST 4MB RAM, as the video portion of karaoke can be a bit of a resource hog.

My last karaoke laptop was a $180.00 business lease refurb from a reputable refurber. You'll likely want to make sure there is a HDMI output unless the TV you are hooking in to is ancient.

That $180.00 laptop lasted 6 years, and I actually still use it as a backup, it just hooked up through S-Video, and the bar where I work upgraded their TVs. I now use a small form factor ASUS desktop that I keep on a rack shelf in my rack. I paid $160 new for that guy with great processing power. I chose to go desktop because it is easily upgradable or I can swap out individual parts if something breaks, which is much more difficult with a laptop.

Good luck!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Ruggedized isn't necessary, however, I would highly recommend going with a solid state drive. They aren't subject to the same woes that spindle based drives have.

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-Chris

+1 on the solid state drive. I have one on my private party DJ setup Macbook, and the thing is FASTTTT!

Do note that you don't particularly need a big, expensive solid state drive, but it's definitely a nice to have if $$$ isn't a problem. I only have my operating system and main performance programs on a small solid state drive, then have my karaoke and DJ music on a separate drive. This still helps immensely with performance.

They also make hybrid drives where a section of the drive is solid state and the rest is a traditional drive. Same idea, main operating system and programs on the solid state portion, everything else on the traditional drive portion, and these are 1/3 of the price of a big solid state.

All that said, it's not like there's anything wrong with a traditional drive. My karaoke desktop has a 250MB 5400 RPM drive with all of my programs on it (the drive that came with the computer), then a 1TB 7200 RPM drive with all of my karaoke and DJ music. That works just fine, and is obviously the cheapest option!

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C Mc
KJ, FL