Laptops for use with Ableton Live 8.

[MrZah]

I'm not sure if this has already been posted, but I was curious if anyone knows of a good quality, fairly low priced laptop that works well in tandem with Ableton Live. My current laptop's CPU freaks the hello out (so to speak) when running to much. I've tried very hard to get it to work properly 100% of the time, and met with not to much success. My laptop is probably about 3 or so years old, and its probably time to get a new one anyway. If anyone can make any suggestions on good processing, fairly low priced machines, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

[H20nly]

I use a Lenovo T500 and it works great. It might be a little expensive for you since you seem to be stressing low price... which would mean that Macs are out of question all together...






2

[BoxDJ]

I use a Lenovo T500 and it works great. It might be a little expensive for you since you seem to be stressing low price... which would mean that Macs are out of question all together...






2

I'm using a Lenovo T400 and the soundquality suckz with Firewire.....

[MrZah]

I looked into the machine. It's not bad, good quality, and around my price range. I think there are others out there though. The feedback is good, and thank you all for replying. Need more feedback!

[H20nly]

I use a Lenovo T500 and it works great. It might be a little expensive for you since you seem to be stressing low price... which would mean that Macs are out of question all together...






2

I'm using a Lenovo T400 and the soundquality suckz with Firewire.....

I'm not understanding how this is the laptop's fault

maybe try a different interface

the T500 works great with my TC Electronic Konnekt 6

[!STiTCH!]

I use a cheap old Toshiba Satellite. I can honestly say I have had no crash problems (got the BSOD once, but was unable to make it happen again) and it has realiably worked on several gigs using Live (still trying to move away from Traktor @ gigs). It does heat up like a S.O.B., but thats about it.

[Silwolffe]

Try searching around on NewEgg.

Some of their refurbished notebooks are pretty good for the price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834107057

I went ahead and grabbed this hp laptop from Best Buy, and it's been absolutely amazing for both my audio and visual work.

[MrZah]

Try searching around on NewEgg.

Some of their refurbished notebooks are pretty good for the price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834107057

I went ahead and grabbed this hp laptop from Best Buy, and it's been absolutely amazing for both my audio and visual work.

That's funny you should mention both of those laptops. The one on New Egg is essentially the laptop I have, the Compaq Presario CQ60. It's a nice machine, and SHOULD be able to do what I'm asking it to run. Confusing. I'm trying to work out all the technical problems now, meeting with moderate success. Also, the second laptop you mentioned was one I was looking at. It's specs are really sweet, and not too bad in price. I'm just trying to take in all the suggestions I can and pool together all of my options. Again, thanks to everyone whose responded so far, you've all been great helps!

[Silwolffe]

Try downloading this: http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

That will turn off a lot of unnecessary programs running in the background, and may free up some performance for you.

I played on my dm4 and threw it through a stress test... 25 audio tracks, 25 midi tracks... synths ranging from the live suite synths to omnisphere and komplete 6.

No crashes, heat went up pretty high though - was at 70c until I propped it up, then it went down to mid 60s. I think that's pretty average for laptops under load, though? No stutters... Worked really good for me. CPU went off but it all seemed to be fine? That was really the confusing part.

Built in 7200rpm hard-disk drive really helped.

[23kon]

Lenovo IdeaPad Z560
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/227402
£434

+

Extra 4Gig Ram (Giving 6gig total) for £90

= WIN!

[LoonyTunez]

Dell Inspirion 1750, raw nothing added....works for me!

[4.33]

Try downloading this: http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

That will turn off a lot of unnecessary programs running in the background, and may free up some performance for you.

I played on my dm4 and threw it through a stress test... 25 audio tracks, 25 midi tracks... synths ranging from the live suite synths to omnisphere and komplete 6.

No crashes, heat went up pretty high though - was at 70c until I propped it up, then it went down to mid 60s. I think that's pretty average for laptops under load, though? No stutters... Worked really good for me. CPU went off but it all seemed to be fine? That was really the confusing part.

Built in 7200rpm hard-disk drive really helped.

what do you think of the dm4 touchpad?

techradar says this:
"We found that we naturally rested our thumb on the buttons when using the touchpad, but because the buttons are sensitive to touch, this caused the cursor to go berserk and hop across the screen.
We also suffered from erratic cursor hops at times when we pressed the mouse buttons, which led to incorrect menu selections and severely increased blood pressure."

is it that useless?

[MrZah]

Lenovo IdeaPad Z560
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/227402
£434

+

Extra 4Gig Ram (Giving 6gig total) for £90

= WIN!

That is totally in my price range, and has some amazing specs for the price. Only problem I'm seeing is that its in Euros, and not dollars. Fact of the matter is is: when converted, it won't be the same amount. More info! I'm pooling together a bunch of stuff from you guys, this is all really helpful! Thanks again!

[Silwolffe]

what do you think of the dm4 touchpad?

techradar says this:
"We found that we naturally rested our thumb on the buttons when using the touchpad, but because the buttons are sensitive to touch, this caused the cursor to go berserk and hop across the screen.
We also suffered from erratic cursor hops at times when we pressed the mouse buttons, which led to incorrect menu selections and severely increased blood pressure."

is it that useless?

To be honest, I hate laptop touchpads and try to avoid using them whenever possible, and as a result my experience with them is null. When I don't need that extra usb port I have a little mini-laptop wireless mouse plugged in.

When I'm performing music, I have my audio interface plugged in one usb slot, and the apc40 in the other. So I am forced to use the touchpad.

It does have issues when clicking sometimes, but I don't really use it all that much - thanks to the APC40 and the fact I set my live setups rather thoroughly.

I mean, it's not god-awful, but I have small, girly hands so I can be rather precise with it if I really need to. It will probably be more cumbersome to someone who has man-hands.

I find myself hitting the thumb reader more annoying than the touchpad.

[gavgrant]

Lenovo IdeaPad Z560
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/227402
£434

+

Extra 4Gig Ram (Giving 6gig total) for £90

= WIN!

battery life any good????? PC Pro's reviews says all in all good but "poor" battery life