Shopping for a new netbook or laptop...

I recommend you check out Computer Audiophile website. Great information on equipment and how to set it up. They prefer Apple but are flexible with a variety of configurations. Good luck.

Agree with the mac recommendation. Switched to Apple computers about 4 years ago for business and personal and have never been happier.

The entry level macbook has 2g ram with a 250g harddrive and 13" screen and is $999.

Best Buy is giving a $150 gift card with purchase of the macbook on Black Friday FYI.

I am getting one of those then, and it is a great machine very capable of what you are looking for.

Also it has a toslink digital output which will output 24/96 resolution should you decide to get an outboard dac later.

NPR reported a new research study on laptop reliability and HP has the worst rating in laptop repairs in a two year span. Macintosh was rated number one followed by Sony as being more reliable but not by a wide margin. Reason is the component parts tend to be better quality then other OEM who tend to get massive orders of lower grade parts at a very cheap price.

From Digital trends:

SquareTrade is in the business of offering independent warranties to consumers. To produce this data, SquareTrade tracked failure rates for over 30,000 new notebook computers covered by SquareTrade warranty plans. Although that sample set is self-selecting—there’s no way of knowing how representative SquareTrade customers are of everyday computer users—the data does suggest significant variations in reliability among computer manufacturers or significant variations among the way SquareTrade customers select and use different manufacturers’ products.

And industry darling Apple? SquareTrade ranked them number four behind Asus, Toshiba, and Sony, with a two-year failure rate a little over 10 percent and a projected three-year failure rate of 17.4 percent. Above average barely.

Be serious, pick the Mac, which is the choice of most people who are audio engineers. Audio software is mostly developed for the Mac. Don't even think about net's. One problem with the Mac, BluRay, which is where the future of high resolution sound lies. Lastly, don't even think about a SquareTrade warranty, unless you regularly drop your machine.