I’m looking at this budget laptop to serve exclusively as my Roon core. The storage is ample and the memory appears sufficient. A review I read said it’s a quality option unless you’re “looking to play games or run high-end applications.” I’m not a gamer, but I’d say Roon is pretty “high-end.”
Should I go for it? My budget is limited and it’s under $300, so I’m giving it a long look…
Does it meet the minimum specifications listed by Roon? If not, then no. Also, Windows 10 is not the best alternative for Roon core IMHO.
Why a laptop at all? A Roon Core doesn’t need a display, keyboard or touchpad.
A quality option for the task it’s designed for – where it usually has nothing other to do than waiting for an occasional user input.
Depending on your library size and what you intend to do with your Roon Core (upsampling, EQ, room correction, multi zone streaming, …), the system disk (128GB?) might quickly become to small, the RAM (4GB?) might be insufficient, the CPU (Pentium Silver N5000?) might lack some horsepower and the constant (medium/high?) load during prolonged periods of time might lead to (very) loud fan noise and also premature failure of the cooling system / fan (remark: this laptop is not designed for such workloads).
Can you install Roon on it? Yes.
Will you be happy with it? That depends on information you haven’t shared, but probably no.