Are your (1) and (2) alternatives or are you planning to get both? You don't give any sort of budget.

A "portable digital recorder" usually refers to a self-contained battery-powered item that has pre-amplifiers, converters and a storage medium such as a hard disk or flash drive. It may also have its own built-in microphones, or just have inputs for connecting external microphones. You can export the recorded data to a computer for further processing or for burning to a CD. An example of a portable digital recorder is the [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.zoom.co…"]Zoom H4N[/]="http://www.zoom.co…"]Zoom H4N[/].

The Mbox series are not portable digital recorders. They are audio interfaces, and pretty basic ones at that. Unless you are forced to use one of them, you can do better by going for a different make and model.

I'm sorry I am not in a position to give opinions on different laptop models. Apart from cost, a big factor in your choice will be personal preference, but you will also be restricted by what models PT is supported on.

I'm gonna be getting both. Neither of these which i have to pay for in full.(the benefits of Maine) I've got up to 1500 to spend on a laptop. The Portable Digital Recorder is kind of a "well that's a nice party favor" to be from the State.

And I apologize for my odd wording about the Portable Digital Recorders. I own an Mbox. worked with it since 7 came out. the reference to the Micro was more or less for the capabilities of mixing on the run with a laptop. because pro tools (last i know) needed hardware to verify the program. I've used the Zoom at the Audio Engineering school i went to in High School. I was wondering if there were any others out there that people had better/worse experiences with.

I've utilized both HP & IBM laptops with ProTools. I love my HP. My IBM is older but also works fine. I've tried a Toshiba and it blew up within the first four hours of use. Probably a fluke? But I'll never purchase another Toshiba again. And I won't use anything that has a Samsung hard drive in it either. I got burnt 15 times over on their lousy hard drives. I've utilized ASUS Motherboards in my desktop machines that I liked very much so I might consider looking into one of their laptops? Friends of mine have told me to purchase Dell. I have 3 Dell desktop machines which, seem to be quite stable but I find clunky and slow. Probably because they were designed more for an office environment than the fast-paced life of an audio/video production machine? Thankfully, I didn't have to purchase my Dell desktops. And they work adequately for my video production. When it comes to audio, I utilize my custom-built ASUS desktop machine which blows away the faster Dell's. And it actually has a slower processor than the Dells. Though I did have one blow up at a very inopportune moment on a live gig.

It's a crapshoot.
Mx. Remy Ann David

so i've done a little shopping around. I looked into this HP: [="http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+17.3%22+Pavilion+Laptop+-+8GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Dark+Umber/4700198.p?id=1218509237094&skuId=4700198"]HP - 17.3" Pavilion Laptop - 8GB Memory - 750GB Hard Drive - Dark Umber - dv7-6c80us[/]="http://www.bestbuy…"]HP - 17.3" Pavilion Laptop - 8GB Memory - 750GB Hard Drive - Dark Umber - dv7-6c80us[/]

And here are the PDR's i was looking at:[[url=http://="http://www.musician…"]TASCAM DR-07mkII Handheld Digital Recorder | Musician's Friend[/]="http://www.musician…"]TASCAM DR-07mkII Handheld Digital Recorder | Musician's Friend[/]
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.musician…"]Zoom H1 Handy Recorder | Musician's Friend[/]="http://www.musician…"]Zoom H1 Handy Recorder | Musician's Friend[/]

Opinions? Potential problems?
[="http://www.bestbuy…"]

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I personally was looking at this particular HP to replace my aging HP laptop. My previous unit was their top-of-the-line model and included 2 internal SATA hard drives. Big mistake on my part as it was Windows XP " Media Center Edition ", which was crap. The drivers were also only 5400 RPM. I replaced them with 320 GB, 7200 RPM drives and a fresh load of Windows XP Pro. While this particular unit looks quite nice and has a 750 GB hard drive, the hard drive is only 5400 RPM. If I get it, I'll replace the hard drive with a 7200 RPM drive. I'll definitely miss the second internal drive but then they still have a model similar to mine that's still around $1500 US that I'm kind of waiting for. My current machine is over six years old but I still find it rather quick and responsive considering it only had a 1.7 GHz "Duo Core", 32-bit processor. I still use it almost daily but it's crapping out. It's gotten hard use and yet still survives even though most of the USB jacks have died. So I utilize a 4X USB card which doesn't respond quite the same way as the onboard USB jacks once did. Though it also has a 4 pin FireWire jack and a phone modem I've never used. Mine was also restricted to a total of 2 GB of RAM. Oh well...

Go for it!
Mx. Remy Ann David

So you would be swapping out the Hard Drive with something like this? [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.bestbuy…"]Seagate - Momentus XT 750GB Internal Serial ATA Solid State Hybrid Drive for Laptops - STBD750100[/]="http://www.bestbuy…"]Seagate - Momentus XT 750GB Internal Serial ATA Solid State Hybrid Drive for Laptops - STBD750100[/]

I actually haven't played with any of these SSD's yet. I've been reading about them. I've got my eyes open. They don't quite yet have the read/write capabilities of current hard drives. Faster, yup. Longer-lasting? Not yet. Probably fine for an average user? Not so sure about doing audio and video with those things yet? Too many read/write functions, too much of a large demand for it. Though I might be wrong? I'm just not wasting my money yet to find out firsthand. I'll go with established well-known technologies before I jump into the pool. I waited a few years before I jumped onto Windows XP from 2000 and I'm glad I did. Part of that was a driver issue that other manufacturers had to catch up to. Part of it was the bugs of the new release. I had already been burnt in 1993 by TASCAM. Their build quality for their reel to reel machines was quite robust. When they came out with their " Professional " DA 88's, it was a $15,000 investment for me that failed within the first 150 hours. Then they couldn't fix them. So they replaced them. Then the same thing happened again. Then they couldn't fix them again. Then they replaced them again. Then they lasted 800 hours which is still way less than any reel to reel recorder they ever made. And in my book, that ain't professional. Crappy build quality and all that. I never trusted them again and because of that, I never will.

Try it you might like it?
Mx. Remy Ann David