best laptop for production and performance

glu · Post by **glu** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 12:51 am

thanks for sharing your experience bradelectro. Any personal experience will be useful to me. I have heard a couple of Toshiba horror stories, but you can find that anywhere on the web about any company's product- so it forces us to be pro-sumers instead of consumers..

I guess I should check out their business ratings.If I were to get a Toshiba satellite model A-100, this is what I would get

CPU: Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB)

Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Professional

Color Variation: Mist gray

Memory: 2048MB PC5300 DDR2 667MHz SDRAM (1024MBx2)

LCD: 15.4" Diagonal Widescreen XGA display (1280x800)

Graphics Controller: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 8MB-128MB
dynamically allocated shared graphics memory

HDD: 100GB HDD (7200rpm, Serial-ATA)

Optical Media: DVD SuperMulti drive (+/-R Double Layer)

Mini-PCI/WiFi: Atheros® Wireless LAN (802.11a/b/g)

Speaker: harman/kardon® stereo speakers

Pointing Device: Standard Touchpad

Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion Battery

$1,519.20 plus tax shipping is free (or really just factored into base price)

versus the HP i configured, the HP had a Go 7200 graphics card, and the cost of upgrading from shared to dedicated graphics is about 50-75 USD difference. I don't think the toshiba i customized (A 100) had a vga or mini dvi out, so that would mean no dual graphics support? Yikes, so then I would have to add another 120 bones or so to the 1519 subtotal to get dual monitors. not like i need one, since Live's two views are only viewable one at a time

But the 7200 RPM SATA 100 gig drive! HP only offers 5400 SATA, also, HP has student discounts, Toshiba doesn't afaik. I keep going around in circles with what to get, until i don't want anything!

I do need a faaaaast laptop though, for around $1500. The quest continues, the holiday prices get closer...

djmyke · Post by **djmyke** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:20 pm

i wud save up and spend my money on a core2duo 15inch mbp...=)

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:22 pm

Isn't the shared video memory a big no-no with Ableton? I remember people talking about this on this forum before.

eyeknow · Post by **eyeknow** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:39 pm

no matter which you choose, look at MIX MAGAZINE if you can first......the issue I am talking about has "aes" and "steve miller" on the cover......can't remeber what the actual issue is.

Dudes put a well loaded mbp through the WRINGER! Has interesting insight as to what a high end lappy can/can't handle.

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 2:18 pm

eyeknow wrote:no matter which you choose, look at MIX MAGAZINE if you can first......the issue I am talking about has "aes" and "steve miller" on the cover......can't remeber what the actual issue is.

Dudes put a well loaded mbp through the WRINGER! Has interesting insight as to what a high end lappy can/can't handle.

I'll help you out on that.

http://mixonline.com/recording/applicat ... rtability/

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 2:22 pm

UH, OH!
A potentially fatal problem arose after a quick break. When we came back into the room, the MacBook Pro had crashed. A reboot resulted in the computer repeating the reboot sample over and over. After another attempt at rebooting by holding down the power button, the computer came up but the screen on the laptop would not. The pixels could vaguely be seen on the screen, but the backlight would not turn on. We eventually set the external monitor to display the main screen on a wall-mounted screen by shining a flashlight through the back of the monitor through the Apple logo and calling up the display screen to reset the external monitor to show the main screen. That logo isn't just for show after all; try to do that on a PC!

robin · Post by **robin** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 2:39 pm

subterFUSE wrote:Isn't the shared video memory a big no-no with Ableton? I remember people talking about this on this forum before.

I'd be interested to hear if this was the case. My understanding was that the intel gfx were good enough for Live (assuming 2Gb of memory installed).

Anyone have any info?

glu · Post by **glu** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 3:48 pm

subterFUSE wrote:
eyeknow wrote:no matter which you choose, look at MIX MAGAZINE if you can first......the issue I am talking about has "aes" and "steve miller" on the cover......can't remeber what the actual issue is.

Dudes put a well loaded mbp through the WRINGER! Has interesting insight as to what a high end lappy can/can't handle.

I'll help you out on that.

http://mixonline.com/recording/applicat ... rtability/

Thanks. That was a good article. ekk... decisions decisions.....

Anubis · Post by **Anubis** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 4:24 pm

robin wrote:
subterFUSE wrote:Isn't the shared video memory a big no-no with Ableton? I remember people talking about this on this forum before.
I'd be interested to hear if this was the case. My understanding was that the intel gfx were good enough for Live (assuming 2Gb of memory installed).

Anyone have any info?

I've been using a Toshi with only 1gig ram with the in-built Intel graphics accelerator... never a problem. My understanding is that audio apps are not GPU hogs so this is not an issue. I would pay more attention to the in-built sound card on these machines as you may need it as a back-up if your primary audio interface craps out or for occasions when you desire spartan portability. The SoundMax card built into my Toshi gives surprisingly good fidelity and performance when coupled with the Asio4All utility. The output resolution is 20 bits 48kHz and I can get the latency down to 2.33 ms with Asio4All.

djmyke · Post by **djmyke** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:02 pm

want a cheap one?
CPU: MOS Technology/SynerTek 6502

CPU Speed: 1 MHz

FPU: none

Bus Speed: 1 MHz

Data Path: 8 bit

ROM: 16 kB

Onboard RAM: 64 kB

RAM slots: expansion via 1st slot

Maximum RAM: 128 k, with Extended 80 Columns Card

Expansion Slots: 8 proprietary

Video

Max Resolution: 40/80x24 text, 4-bit 40x48, 6 color 140x192, 4-bit 140x192, 1-bit 240x192, 1-bit 560x192

Storage

Floppy Drive: optional

Input/Output

Speaker: mono

Daduk · Post by **Daduk** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:32 pm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

eyeknow wrote:
no matter which you choose, look at MIX MAGAZINE if you can first......the issue I am talking about has "aes" and "steve miller" on the cover......can't remeber what the actual issue is.

Dudes put a well loaded mbp through the WRINGER! Has interesting insight as to what a high end lappy can/can't handle.

I'll help you out on that.

http://mixonline.com/recording/applicat ... rtability/
_________________

This revieuw was not positive at all right? I mean they write about loads of problems and crashes and short comings in order to end with the conclusion that the performance was impressive and that the next gen. CPU's are going to be much better??

I mean, I really want to buy a Mac Book Pro but after reading this article I start to doubt again

robin · Post by **robin** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:38 pm

Daduk wrote: I mean, I really want to buy a Mac Book Pro but after reading this article I start to doubt again

The next gen macbooks and macbook pros are now out and appear to be solid hardware. Now is a good time to buy an apple laptop imo

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:50 pm

Daduk wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

eyeknow wrote:
no matter which you choose, look at MIX MAGAZINE if you can first......the issue I am talking about has "aes" and "steve miller" on the cover......can't remeber what the actual issue is.

Dudes put a well loaded mbp through the WRINGER! Has interesting insight as to what a high end lappy can/can't handle.

I'll help you out on that.

http://mixonline.com/recording/applicat ... rtability/
_________________

This revieuw was not positive at all right? I mean they write about loads of problems and crashes and short comings in order to end with the conclusion that the performance was impressive and that the next gen. CPU's are going to be much better??

I mean, I really want to buy a Mac Book Pro but after reading this article I start to doubt again

Just to add to that:

Last weekend I went to hear a friend play a set at a club.

He had a new Macbook Pro with Live 6.0, A focusrite soundcard, and a Remote SL keyboard/MIDI controller.

He was running 2 Tracks, like turntables.... and he had 3 tracks to the right with a number of loops. So... nothing too CPU intensive going on. When I looked, he was running at 30% CPU stable.

Every 5 minutes or so, the audio would glitch badly. Not just a little click... but the audio would slow down, and everyone would look at the booth wondering what was going on. I asked what was happening, and he said that when he hits too many keys on the keyboard, it glitches like that (eats up the CPU).

Needless to say, I was not impressed with the performance of that Macbook Pro.

robin · Post by **robin** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:54 pm

subterFUSE wrote:A focusrite soundcard, and a Remote SL keyboard/MIDI controller.

.....

Needless to say, I was not impressed with the performance of that Macbook Pro.

Sounds like a Focusrite or Novation driver issue. Nothing to do with the computer as such.
Those saffire sound cards don't seem to have such a stellar reputation in terms of drivers from what I've seen on this forum.

dphouse84 · Post by **dphouse84** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 4:28 pm

i bought a refurbed dell notebook from dell auctions.
got it delivered for $400 upgraded to gig of ram with a warranty, new battery, and case.
i bought an external sound card/midi interface from m-audio (like most people recommend.)
run ableton and fl studio rewired and various vst's with my korg microkontrol.

this is more than enough pc to get the job done

i agree with what the earlier guys said.
it's not the pc it's the sound card and how well you know your host.

my buddy just produced a full album to be released at wmc next year for om's hip hop label and has three singles up on itunes already. he made them in FL Studio with a pc that has less than 700 mhz and it's barely a P2 processor (or equiv) and a crappy sound card. i honestly want to say it's an e-machine (crap) most of it lies in your knowledge of your host.