Lifelong PC builder switching to laptop...a few questions!

Hello,

I'm a lifelong PC user. I used to play a lot of PC games but don't so much any more, only a handful of old (pre 2000) ones I revisit now and then. I mainly use my PC for making music with Cubase software and VST plugins.

I've had my current build for around 4 years and it's starting to age. It's also incredibly noisy. I'm also moving into a smaller place and need to do away with the desk altogether, so I'm going to buy a laptop.

I have a budet of about £400. My question is, do laptops around this price range cope well with sequencing software like Cubase? Does anyone have any experience here, particularly with Windows 8?

I was looking at something like this
http://www.ebuyer.com/411102-asus-x55c-laptop-x55c-sx028h?utm_source=b2c_weekend&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=b2c_weekend

or this
http://www.ebuyer.com/419456-acer-aspire-v5-thin-and-light-nx-m18ek-003

Any ideas how well these cope with music software? Other than that I tend only to use it for watching youtube, internet, the usual stuff really.

If it's relevant, I use an EDIROL UA-1EX USB audio interface and an outboard mixer going into that.

I do not have experience with programs like that, but it sounds like they are easy to run from looking around. The first Asus laptop is fine. However, if you still want to use your desktop, put some silent fans in it, a quiet HSF, and/or maybe a new quiet GPU if that is the source of the noise.

I personally use my laptop almost exclusively anymore, occationally using my desktop for gaming or rendering. I know many laptops today are quite stout and could probably handle anything your previous machine could (though specs would be nice )...and that's mostly referring to CPU performance; gaming might be lower without a dedicated GPU.

As for the listed laptops, forget the Acer. I love that design (basically a revised Timelinex like I have here) but the CPU is quite low-end (only 1.5GHz). You'd probably be OK with some of the Pentiums as long as they aren't the ULV/low clock speed versions.

So, sorry I don't have specific knoledge of the software, but I believe you'll be OK if the old PC could coupe.

You could probably get laptop with i5 with £400...

Thanks for the tips folks.
My current PC is a dual core AMD, I think it's the 5600, about 1.8ghz. Fairly low end Radeon GPU and only 2gb of RAM. Handles most things very well, I have played blu rays, edited photos, produced music with cubase etc. Will there be much difference between something with an i3 and an i5? And are there any particular brands who make relatively good low end laptops?

Thanks!