1) You'll be fine with either a PC or Apple notebook.
Both are used fine in music editing.

2) Don't worry. Both have high-end PCMCIA and external music
cards/input devices that'll work fine on either.

3) Some of the latest programs come out on PCs only. Eg. Cubase is at
4.0 for PCs, only 2.0 for Macs. Some programs are on PCs only - eg. the
awesome Sonic Foundry Acid Pro 4.0.

4) When you look at 90% of the world users of computers, they're on PCs,
not Macs. If you want compatibility with other users, PCs are the way
to go.

5) Compaq X1000 is a very nice choice. Wide-screen 15.4" wide-screen
notebook coupled with the higher-resolution options like the 1600x1050
or 1920x1280 or so screens allow you to lay out very complex,
multi-track compositions without having to scroll much at all. On the
1920 screens, you're talking about 4 times more screen space than the
normal 800x600 display!

There are no Macs on the planet that has screen resolutions that'll
even go beyond the cheapest resolution selection of the Compaq X1000 -
1280x800 - and match the second or first highest selections.

6) Keep in mind that MIDI has been around for decades! Musicians have
been able to run multitrack setups from the very old days of PCs way
back then when they only had snail slow processors and setups. Ignore
the fact that some people can't seem to get MIDI running on perfectly
fine notebooks like Toshibas, Fujitus, etc -- they're just lame, because
the hardware is more than capable of handling MIDI with the right MIDI
cards and setup. Maybe they need to take their laptops into a
professional music store and have it setup right?

7)