# Cheapest laptop for REW



## drpete (Mar 26, 2013)

Hi guys,

I need a laptop that will only be used for REW. I plan on using a USB mic and hdmi out to receiver. What is the best and cheapest that you could recommend. 

Thanks

Peter


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

REW doesn’t require much computer power, so virtually anything will work. That said, the “cheapest” option is going to be something old and used, and those don’t typically come equipped with HDMI.

Regards, 
Wayne A. Pflughaupt


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## drpete (Mar 26, 2013)

What I should have asked is what is the lowest cost (new) laptop that people,have run that has an hdmi out. Could I use. Netbook that has hdmi out or will these have negative effects on rew measurements ie maybe poor quality built in sound card that will not produce quality signals etc.

Not that the cost is a huge issue but I don't want to buy a 700 dollar laptop just to run rew and find out that a 300 dollar one will be the same. I also don't want to find out that I didn't spend enough and have rew installation problems or poor measurement for whatever reason.

New to rew and trying to avoid making equipment mistakes.

As usual. Thanks for any help


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

Can't help with costs, don't really follow the state of laptops, but screen resolution can be a nuisance if it is too low. 1366x768 provides decent graph area, 1440x900 or 1600x1050 or higher would be even better. There will be a price trade-off there though, cheaper laptops tend to have low resolution screens.


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

I think HDMI has been on laptops for at least a couple of years now, so it shouldn’t be a problem finding a used one at $300 or less.

Regards,
Wayne


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## B- one (Jan 13, 2013)

drpete said:


> What I should have asked is what is the lowest cost (new) laptop that people,have run that has an hdmi out. Could I use. Netbook that has hdmi out or will these have negative effects on rew measurements ie maybe poor quality built in sound card that will not produce quality signals etc. Not that the cost is a huge issue but I don't want to buy a 700 dollar laptop just to run rew and find out that a 300 dollar one will be the same. I also don't want to find out that I didn't spend enough and have rew installation problems or poor measurement for whatever reason. New to rew and trying to avoid making equipment mistakes. As usual. Thanks for any help


Maybe someone can post minimum system requirements to effectively run REW software in this thread. It maybe some where already if you search it. But then you could shop with that in mind maybe even get a used laptop that will serve your needs. I would like to do the same one day not sure my computer skills (none) will allow me to do it.


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## B- one (Jan 13, 2013)

See I even messed that up.


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## Blacklightning (Nov 22, 2011)

What about a tablet? They have HDMI and a USB port.


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## andy_c (Aug 8, 2006)

drpete said:


> What I should have asked is what is the lowest cost (new) laptop that people,have run that has an hdmi out. Could I use. Netbook that has hdmi out or will these have negative effects on rew measurements ie maybe poor quality built in sound card that will not produce quality signals etc.
> 
> Not that the cost is a huge issue but I don't want to buy a 700 dollar laptop just to run rew and find out that a 300 dollar one will be the same. I also don't want to find out that I didn't spend enough and have rew installation problems or poor measurement for whatever reason.
> 
> New to rew and trying to avoid making equipment mistakes.


I've run REW on an ASUS laptop that cost me $330 new. I used the HDMI output, following the directions in *AustinJerry's guide*. It worked fine. This laptop has a pretty wimpy AMD E-450 Zacate CPU. It's no longer made, though. I recently looked at newegg.com for laptops. I sorted them by user rating and found quite a few between $300 and $400 that were highly rated. If you use HDMI out and a USB mic, then no built-in analog "sound card" of the laptop will be used.

Edit: My link to AustinJerry's guide is bold: all other links were put there without my consent by the software of the forum.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

Blacklightning said:


> What about a tablet? They have HDMI and a USB port.


REW won't run on the 2 most popular OS(es),* currently running tablets*, ie; Android & Mac's various versions of iOS .

I'm curious ; would you ( or any-one else ) ante up & pay a fee for REW ( say $150.00 ) for a version that has been compiled to run on Android ?


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## Orange55 (Jul 20, 2009)

EarlK said:


> REW won't run on the 2 most popular OS(es),* currently running tablets*, ie; Android & Mac's various versions of iOS .
> 
> I'm curious ; would you ( or any-one else ) ante up & pay a fee for REW ( say $150.00 ) for a version that has been compiled to run on Android ?


Cost aside, I find the controls on touch screens to coarse for such applications as REW and office applications for that matter. Plus having a big screen helps with the graphs etc:

Call me old fashioned.


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## AudiocRaver (Jun 6, 2012)

As far as I can tell, if a computer or laptop has the power to run Windows, it will run REW fine. It is one of the least resource-intensive apps I have run across.


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## Picture_Shooter (Dec 23, 2007)

*Oh cool.


So REW will work with laptop using HDMI and rat-shack mic hook to the laptop then?*


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

Yes.


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## mdanderson (Oct 3, 2009)

JohnM said:


> Can't help with costs, don't really follow the state of laptops, but screen resolution can be a nuisance if it is too low, probably best to aim for at least 900 pixels vertically (horizontal resolution will depend on screen aspect ratio). I wouldn't recommend 1366x768 as the graph display area would be quite small, 1440x900 or 1600x1050 or higher would be better. There will be a price trade-off there though, cheaper laptops tend to have low resolution screens.


John, I have been looking at laptops in the stores but most of them have a max screen resolution of 1366x768. The only ones with a higher res were the high end models costing 850.00 and up. Are you saying that the rew graphs wont work with the 1366x768 models? Thanks for any input.

Matt


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

I think I've got too used to using a big monitor - I just tried sizing the REW window to suit a 1366x768 screen and it was fine, plenty of graph area. I'll amend the earlier post.


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

Why do you need HDMI for running REW, won't you just be looking at the laptop screen?


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

ellisr63 said:


> Why do you need HDMI for running REW


You don't, but using an HDMI connection to a receiver for the audio output allows the test signal to be directed to individual channels by selecting them as the output if the driver supports that.


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## mdanderson (Oct 3, 2009)

JohnM said:


> I think I've got too used to using a big monitor - I just tried sizing the REW window to suit a 1366x768 screen and it was fine, plenty of graph area. I'll amend the earlier post.


Thanks John for the input. I appreciate it.


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

JohnM said:


> You don't, but using an HDMI connection to a receiver for the audio output allows the test signal to be directed to individual channels by selecting them as the output if the driver supports that.


Selecting individual channels? What driver will support this? We have been have to use a switch for left and right speakers. We use a Y adapter and both aux inputs on the receiver/processor front panel (with Pro Logic II) to get the center channel only. Then we can unplug one or the other channel to get left or right.

HDMI would be easier if we could choose the signal channel from the laptop. Have we been missing something? It's Wayne's fault (I wanted to go ahead and get that out of the way).


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

Sometimes the windows driver has the various HDMI channels available as stereo pairs, otherwise using an ASIO driver or ASIO4All allows them to be accessed - the MiniDSP guide has a good explanation.


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

That is a really good guide... I went ahead and created a new thread and stickied it. This really does make is super easy to get hooked up.


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