best laptop for production and performance

noratronika · Post by **noratronika** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:10 am

very similar to my XPS. Looks like they are in direct competition with Dell.

glu · Post by **glu** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:37 pm

from macrumors/rescuecom

A new report out by computer repair and support company RESCUECOM suggests that Apple is maintaining its overall high reliability scores. In the report's rating system (where a larger number is better) Apple scored a 201, second only to IBM/Lenovo which scored 243. The next-best was HP/Compaq with a score of 12, and market leader Dell only had a score of 4. Negative scores were possible, as Gateway (-12) and other manufacturers (-16) demonstrated.

I think I will be going HP...

brightonalex · Post by **brightonalex** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 6:24 pm

I bought What Laptop today and it reckons the Toshiba 2 Duo notebooks are best.

joesapo · Post by **joesapo** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 6:40 pm

I've been using one of these for Live. I think I may need to upgrade soon.

glu · Post by **glu** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:28 pm

Ableton DOS edition?

glu · Post by **glu** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 8:37 am

brightonalex wrote:I bought What Laptop today and it reckons the Toshiba 2 Duo notebooks are best.

Any other Toshiba users? I am still doing research and sitting still for the holiday shopping deals and I would like to hear about other experiences with the new Toshiba satellites or other models with multi-core.

brightonalex · Post by **brightonalex** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:32 am

I've been going round and round in circles about this. Every time I decide something looks good someone recommends something else.

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:57 am

glu wrote:
brightonalex wrote:I bought What Laptop today and it reckons the Toshiba 2 Duo notebooks are best.
Any other Toshiba users? I am still doing research and sitting still for the holiday shopping deals and I would like to hear about other experiences with the new Toshiba satellites or other models with multi-core.

i never used one of those myself, but dozens of my friends who using lappies swear by toshiba and ibm maschines in terms of reliability and built quality, ibm being the one people say you can literally play footbqall with them and they still will work... i am not a PC guy at all... but that is what PC laptop users around me say, and all of them agree on hands off HP and especially Acer... i don't know a single Acer user who did not had hardware trouble... broken screens, keys falling off... you name it.

that again is not my own experience, just what i know from PC users i know.

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:11 pm

If you are asking about the BEST specs for a laptop, then that computer is lacking 1 major feature which improves performance dramatically.

Dual hard drives, in RAID 0 config.

RAID 0 takes 2 hard drives, and makes them operate as one. This doubles the response speed of your hard drives, since data is written to both simultaneously.

The drawback is that with 2 drives, your failure chances are doubled. But if you are properly backed up, as any computer musician should be.... this isn't a huge concern.

As for brands.... RockDirect, M-Tech, and many other generic computer companies are basically all the same. Believe it or not, but all laptops in this world are basically made by 1 of 4 companies in Taiwan. RockDirect and M-Tech use cases from a company called Clevo. I'm sure that if you start doing research on varous laptops, you'll see the similarities.

Other companies who use Clevo cases include: Pro-Star, VooDoo, Widow PC, Alienware, M-Tech, etc...

I am currently using an M-Tech D900T. It is over a year old, so it is a Pentium 4 processor. It is very powerful, because I have RAID 0 hard drives. Tracks load so fast, it makes my friend with an iMac turn green with envy.

That said, the technology of the Core 2 Duo is far beyond what my laptop has with a Pentium 4. So you ABSOLUTELY should get a Core 2 Duo. Do you need RAID hard drives? Certainly not. But you were asking about best specs, so I just wanted to point that out.

Vinc T · Post by **Vinc T** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:25 pm

got my apple III working with Ableton 6!

not really a laptop, but portable

brightonalex · Post by **brightonalex** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:42 pm

What about this one?

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/ ... _ID=114395

GG · Post by GG » Fri Nov 10, 2006 5:25 pm

tokyojoe69 wrote:Those loook really cool, just that I dont like the 17" screen, too big. Check out alienware, they got smaller size lappies configurable with the same specs, althouth I have heard some people moaning about their tech support not being the best. That HP glu is talking about also looks pretty good. The only thing pulling me toward apple is the fact that you can't find a proper firewire plug on any pc's, they're all those small little holes. It would be so nice to be able to use bus power on my audio interface and do away with the extra cable. These things matter when you consider portability. Other than that I think pc and mac are pretty much on par with each other since dual core.

Is this true I was going to buy a 410 to go with my laptop what do you mean there`s no proper plug

glu · Post by **glu** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:54 pm

SubterFUSE, I noticed awhile back your dual drive HD. Nice. That would be the most ideal setup for hard drives, unfortunately, I think that would shoot my price up quite a bit. I am aiming at 7200 RPM at least, and not many companies offer it.

I am looking at these two mainly

Toshiba Satellite 100
HP dv6000t

~$1500

those are my main two right now, other than flirting w/ the macbook.

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 9:45 pm

Well.... when I purchased my laptop over a year ago, it was the first laptop with RAID harddrives... and also the first with SATA. As you probably know, SATA is much faster than ATA-100. Therefore a slower spin speed can still yield high transfer rates, since the throughput is higher on SATA. (150 vs. 100 mbps)

When I first started checking this forum, everyone would say to not even THINK about getting a laptop with less than 7200 rpm drive. But now, a 5400 rpm SATA can be just fine.

Dual hard drives are not necessary.... but you can get serious performance if you go with them. But, Apple doesn't offer any dual hard drives in their laptops. So if you want Apple, this is a moot point.

bradelectro · Post by **bradelectro** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 12:05 am

Any other Toshiba users? I am still doing research and sitting still for the holiday shopping deals and I would like to hear about other experiences with the new Toshiba satellites or other models with multi-core.

On the recommendation of another user here, I just got the Toshiba R25 tablet this week and I'm loving it so far. Core Duo, hard drive is plenty fast and it's a convertible so that's huge for me- not having a screen in my face, in front of the audience. My only complaint so far is minor- the latch button is on a hair-trigger and pops open too easily. Anyway sh*t, most lappys are built pretty flimsy IMHO.

More on Toshiba- I had a Satellite a few years ago and while it was totally fast and badass it also had a tendency to overheat (and immediately shutdown). So far this R25 seems to run a LOT cooler. The fan kicks in after 5 minutes running my Live 6 set, but it doesn't sound like a vacuum cleaner like the Satelite and it doesn't get nearly as hot as my old Powerbook (yes I use both PC/Mac).

If you have the ducats, spend 'em. Look into the ruggedized lappys if you're serious about playing out. I've been playing live for 6+ years and I think the R25 will do OK out there in partyland but I'm going to hafta be super careful.