it is new (yes old stock) and is actually the same thing i bought (which i am typing on now). it's windows 7. the battery lasts close to 4 hours which is aight. and again, we're talking $200 laptops here..

i seriously doubt that laptop is new, unless you count new old stock and are willing to accept the battery may be DOA.. it has fucking vista business on it
also a processor line thats been dead since maybe 2009 or so (though a decent one)
that is to say: if youll have it plugged in all the time, this is actually a good deal, though possibly a used/refurb... it has firewire, fuck yeah (though no usb 2.0, wtf)

not true.. get something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-LENOVO-THIN … 257d30a3b6
and you'll be fine

i had this exact lappy for a few years and it was ok-
however i just spent $200 on a windows 7 thinkpad and have never been happier.. i took 1g of ram outta my old lappy and put it in the thinkpad, but it was running great even before. anyways i recommend thinkpads.

Oh Damn, you're in Garden Grove, I'm in Lake Forest.  I'll pm you...

EDIT: pm'd!  In fact, I have run FL10 on the very machine I mentioned!  It can run about 24-32 tracks with several plugins a piece.

My last laptop was an HP Pavilion g4, 14", 4G RAM, for $350.  It ran about 24 tracks of your typical DAW with plug-ins.  They might be closer to the range you're looking for for a used machine.  A couple hundred is really pushing it, but you also can't go wrong with a 4/5 year old Dell, my inspiron still runs Reason 5 nicely after 8 years. Good Luck!

For 200 you're probably going to find a NetBook which means simplifying your approach to performing from it in some way- instead of playing from FL you could DJ from prepared renders with less issue. If you have songs that are CPU light, you can load them in just for certain bits and make sure they're special to your audience, but in truth it depends on what you want to do.

If you are planning to press space and let your songs play, an mp3 player can do that.

http://slickdeals.net/share/android_app/fp/93658
Great specs, great price.

+1 for acer recommendations
though im not big on asus stuff, have a desktop which fried out after about  a year and a few friends have had eee pcs fall apart... my acer netbook is still going after nearly 4 years of abuse

I recommend against dell. I have been very pleased with acer and asus comps in the <500 range. Alienware WAS cool until bought out by dell, now it's over priced crap. dell boards die very easy, you will get a longer lifespan out of just about any other major brand.

yeah definitely!
actually the first thing i did when i got my new laptop was a fresh install of win7, and then i opened up msconfig and stop everything except the audio and graphics managers from booting on startup. if you go to a store and buy a new computer it's guaranteed to come with shittons of bloatware.

My sis bought this HP 2000 Notebook with 4GIG of RAM, AMD E-300 APU with Radeon graphics, dual core, for about $350. It's running Windows 8 which actually isn't all that horrible once you get used to it. Personally, I still miss the XP days but you know...

I haven't tried running FL on this thing but it ran some basic games pretty well. My shit old HP Pavilion from '06 with 1GIG of RAM couldn't even handle running Proteus (an incredibly serene but very low demand game). This comp ran it fine as well as some other simple 3d games.

You definitely DEFINITELY do not need one of those "high end" consumer knee-jerk PCs. Get something between $350 and $500 and you will be fine, trust me. All you need to do beyond that is TAKE CARE of your little computer. Some people treat their computers like trash and it makes a huge difference. Only install the bare necessities (~the simple bear necessities~) and don't let it burn itself up.

you dont need to drop shitloads on a mac or an alienware - you just need to spend a bit more than 200 bucks which is bascially nothing. im sure for 500 quid or so you can get a perfectly powerful - enough laptop

I got this Toshiba on sale for $300 a few weeks ago.  Seems legit so far but I've always had extremely low end computers so I impress easily. 

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/2 … -Computer/

No gaming laptops and no Eee PCs (I have one, can't do much with it so I assume this isn't what you want). Buy one for the average user and go from there. Can't recommend any really, I just know that the two options I (and many others before me) mentioned are worthless. So unless your keen for a new paperweight you choose something else.