Serato DJ Pro General Discussion

Talk about Serato DJ Pro, expansion packs and supported hardware

Laptop Bloatware Worst Offenders

DJChad72 6:50 AM - 23 May, 2010
I thought this is a topic those buying new laptops for their DJ rig should explore. I know I went through a period of shopping for a couple laptops last year. I went from a lower end HP (worked just fine, but got stressed easily) and then upgraded to a Sony VAIO higher end processor. HP was $600 and Sony was $800. Sony gave me all sorts of fits with Virtual DJ by locking up repeatedly. It was then brought to my attention that Sony is among the worst when it comes to putting bloatware on their machines, and trust me... I found PLENTY. Before the Sony VAIO, I did have an ASUS laptop that I returned because the keyboard was wobbly and the laptop uneven however the thing ran like a dream! I did two 8 hour tests WITHOUT disabling or tweaking a thing, and NEVER once did my latency checker go into the Yellow, let alone the Red! Asus is among the BEST for NOT including a ton of useless bloatware. So in hind site, I should have stuck with the Asus for performance but the build seemed too flimsy and would not hold up to being packed around from gig to gig.

Just google "worst bloatware laptops" and you will see many articles with the same conclusions, like these:

www.uberreview.com
apcmag.com
hothardware.com

This very reason is why I ended up with a MAC. If I am going to have to buy a high end laptop, just to turn around and buy a $200 full retail version of the OS because the OS that comes with it is bloated... I am pretty much in the price range of a MAC.

However, that being said, I do know that Best Buy offered a package to give you a clean OS installed version for another $150 with all the right OEM drivers pre-installed and such. Uninstalling may seen as easy as going into "uninstall a program" but I can assure you on the Sony it was bloated so bad I dont even know how I could close the laptop lid.

Not trying to start a "mac vs pc" thread. Just saying that was my personal choice and conclusion due to this issue. There are cheaper solutions and alternatives if you want to get creative, but if you buy a new laptop and then have issues... you may want to be prepared to strip it down to just the OS (either by buying a full retail version) OR have it professionally stripped. Another cheap option if you already have Windows XP Full Retail, you could install that and then just buy the W7 upgrade and save yourself the $100 diff between W7 upgrade and full version.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to those starting out or evolving your Laptop DJ solutions.