Hey guys, I'm looking into getting a laptop to do some basic recording of gigs, rehearsals, rough vocals, etc. I'll be using Sonar, so I asked on their forums for advice, and they basically just suggested getting an eSata external drive for speed and ensuring I had enough memory to load all the samples I might need. Does anybody else have any specific recommendations regarding laptop hardware, eg. I/O ports I might need or things to avoid? Also, I will need an external sound interface with at least one mic input (with 48V phantom power if possible) and maybe more mic/line ins if available at the price. Anybody have any recommendations (or again, ones to avoid) in the £100/$150 price range?

Nobody? :(

I did. They weren't much help either. :) Audio people are notorious for being tribal and recommending what they like or what seemed to work for them rather than what is necessarily best. I suppose that is understandable considering few people can afford to try more than 1 or 2 types of any product type.

In the end I just got the following (the interface arriving literally seconds after you posted):
- Hewlett Packard Pavilion DV6-1211sa (bit slow in the CPU and hard disk, but has 4GB of RAM and an eSata port. And decent graphics for games. :) )
- Lexicon Lambda USB 2.0 interface. (USB powered, 2x XLR inputs w/phantom power, 2x TRS line-in, 1x HiZ instrument in)
- External 1TB eSATA drive for better recording speeds and ease of sharing data with desktop PC

Now, to figure out how to most effectively share all my sequencer settings, VST plugins, and samples, across the laptop and desktop...