Which Laptop????

deephypnosis · Post by **deephypnosis** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:54 am

I have been wanting to use Live to do a Laptop set. I have prepared my material, got the faderfox controllers, but can't decide what laptop to go for.

Have been looking at specialist music ones made by Carillon, Digital Village, Red Submarine. However had a friend who said they were overpriced & could get similar spec for cheaper.

Has anyone got any recomendations and/or warning stories (or any stories/experiences) about preferred laptops?

The Mysterious Flying Pum · Post by **The Mysterious Flying Pum** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:44 am

Hi,
I have been using an iBook for 3 years with no problem for both live performances and studio work. This machine is increadibly robust and stable. Some people argue that performance is low which is right but it depends your usage. For instance, I am running 6 audio tracks + 2 midi tracks with AutoFilter on each + general Simple Delay, Compressor, Peak Limiter at 40-50% CPU.
Cheers

Neal · Post by **Neal** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:10 am

I too have been looking for a live laptop and have also found that the dedicated music laptops are overpriced and don't offer much more than a normal Laptop. After months of looking I've found this bargain from Laptops Direct for £890 which I'm gonna get if I don't spend all my cash in Ibiza in a couple of weeks

:

Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo A 1630 - AMD Athlon 64 3700+

In terms of processor this is pretty much the most powerful you can get in a laptop at the mo and its 64-bit so if/when Live ever goes 64-bit it'll give even better performance. It's also got a gig of RAM which even some of the music laptiops don't have. The only weak link with this Laptop as far as I can see is the hard drive which is 4200rpm but I'm gonna go for a 7200rpm, 16MB cache external for about £150 as an audio drive and use the internal for Windows and Apps.

Neal

elemental · Post by **elemental** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:04 pm

That one looks good.

I went for one from Millennium Music - very good quality, designed for audio (already tweaked out of the box) and excellent audio-geared support.

No complaints at all!
So much better than the Sony VAIO I had before.

deephypnosis · Post by **deephypnosis** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:20 pm

Hi elemental

If you are reading this- do you know what model it was from Milenium music? (links are good also!)

Cheers

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:56 pm

they are overpriced!!!

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:32 pm

I am in the UK and Nu-systems made me an Asus m6n based dothan 2.0
It cost me about a £grand about October last year.
They 'configure it for audio' and all that. It does %20 CPU peak on the AJ Live 4 CPU test.

It doubt it will be obsolete before I get my 2007 ma-tel pentibook.

I'm looking forward to that already!

cusp · Post by **cusp** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:52 am

for what its worth i bought a 2ghz Dell Inspiron 6000 and it is solid as with my M-Audio Firewire Audiophile. I have been using it for Live sets and studio work using FL Studio and its great. Have 2 use a PCMCIA firewire card but no drama - $30..

I got the WSXGA screen and it fits plenty of channels etc in Live, WUXGA would be too small i think

I payed $3605 NZD for it with a 3 year warrenty, 512mb RAM and 100GB HDD, i put an extra 512MB in it now and it flys....

enzmusic · Post by **enzmusic** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:47 am

I got an IBM T30. Beware! It only runs well with Win2000. The fan comes on often.

elemental · Post by **elemental** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:01 am

spiderprod wrote:they are overpriced!!!

They're not too bad considering you get audio related support, I have had NO problems with it at all, it runs Live really well. An off the shelf one would be cheaper though.

deephypnosis - I got a CX05 with a 60GB quiet 7200rpm drive, 1Gb RAM, 1.7Ghz Dothan.

dannyk · Post by **dannyk** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:03 pm

Angstrom wrote:I am in the UK and Nu-systems made me an Asus m6n based dothan 2.0
It cost me about a £grand about October last year.
They 'configure it for audio' and all that. It does %20 CPU peak on the AJ Live 4 CPU test.

Im using what looks like one of their DC series laptops at the moment, just borrowed for general use while i try to upgrade my old laptop to squeeze some more life out of it. Its actually an RM model but i guess they just badge them. It is extremely quiet. Also what is very nice is that it's simple to upgrade - the HD just slides out in a caddy and the memory is really accessible just under a screw-out panel underneath. Its a nice laptop, apart from the fact thAT I KEEP PRESSING CAPS LOCK BY MISTAKE, its so close to "A".

thump · Post by **thump** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:08 am

anybody use an alienware laptop? i've got an alienware desktop, and i'm very pleased with it. i'd be very interested in hearing how they measure up in the real world. they call them "mobile workstations", and that ain't no lie...

http://www.alienware.com/product_detail ... KU-DEFAULT

they're not friggin cheap, though. when i "built" mine on their site it came to $3816.

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 2:13 pm

elemental wrote:
spiderprod wrote:they are overpriced!!!
They're not too bad considering you get audio related support, I have had NO problems with it at all, it runs Live really well. An off the shelf one would be cheaper though.

deephypnosis - I got a CX05 with a 60GB quiet 7200rpm drive, 1Gb RAM, 1.7Ghz Dothan.

i bet they are working good for the price ,
i tel you what i have done for my first laptop a few years ago ,i went to all these audio computer companies & checked every single piece of motherboard,hd,specs,etc i could find on their web site ,i even went to digital village & noted every infos i could fing in the device manager . i traced everything & i found out that some of these computers were the exact same computers that tiny or time computer were selling,they were coming in the exact same case with a different sticker on it , i am talking pure crap computer here ,the cheapest you can get .the only difference was that they came with all the softs installed & for twice the price .
i know there is a good support with these companies but it's a complete rip off .you pay twice their real value .

algo rythem · Post by **algo rythem** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 4:32 pm

Buy a powerbook & save yourself all the microsoft drama.... No matter what antone says, remember that, Macs are the inductry standard Desktop Publishing systems...I live by Mac...especially when working with music production and live gigs....

P.S. I'm an A+, MCP, & (currently underway to becoming)MCSE Certified Computer Consultant...

bytheriver · Post by **bytheriver** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 7:48 pm

Biggest problem with performance and laptops is heat.

The bigger the Ghz and the quicker the Hard disk RPM the hotter it gets, P4's are by a long the worst. Put that in a hot and smokey enviroment, plus a few months fan-dust to clog them up, you can get stuttering, huge CPU use on simple tasks, and worst case just staight no warning shut downs.

I've had all of the above with a P4 2.4 sony laptop, I hate to think what a P4 3+ would be like. I've no experence with AMD, but check into it.

I'd strongly advise you get a centrino system or some type of mobile chip, i'm not to sure whats out there right now. They run a lot cooler and are darn quick.

Which Laptop????

Which Laptop????

iBook

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Dell