Ableton Forum

Tone Deft wrote:Live 8.1 !!!!!

of course I'm serious.
and don't call me Shirley.

Lenovo.

Yes the thinkpads are boring as hell looking, but they are built like tanks. Business grade stuff. I have an Ideapad myself, not as good construction as the Thinkpad but still better than most HP/Dell/Asus/whatever (which may only have a good model here or there) and really nice performance for the price.

So id say Thinkpad if you need rugged construction, and Ideapad if you want performance on a budget. Sometimes cheaper if you buy from an online retailer and not direct from Lenovo.

A pc running xp

rikhyray wrote: Not exactly true the carbon made SZ, and Z series are definitely more solid then MBP but more expensive too. Like most Sony excellent professional level products and same like everyones else consumer trash just bit more expensive. AW,FW and now F series are OK, probably better deal then any other pc notebook.
What was always Vaio advantage - TI chips for everything.

Well, thats good news to me, ill have a look at vaio sometime then! I admit I havent experienced them myself. Only by reading.
However, when I bought the Thinkpad X61 with max specs, I spent almost half of what an equal Macbook Pro would cost me at the time. In fact Apple don't even have a 12" anymore. And at the time, its battery was lasting longer then the macs. (5-6 hours)
I don't care about the screen as long as it works as needed. Its for the road, not for graphics. And I was actually happy it didn't have a CD drive! Dont need, and its slimmer without.

IBM no question best build best cooled notebooks with terrible - for audio- Ricoh chips, lousy displays, and boring, ugly look. I had Thinkpad and hated every single day, hour , minute seeing this ugly byatch. Good for insurance salesman or policeman. Seriously though, give them better displays, illuminated keys and MBP style touchpad - could be best touring musician notebook, but I dont think IBM Lenovo cares at all for creatives, their market are boring people.

Hey now Mr."Creative" You calling my baby ugly?

I don't see anything ugly with this picture. Or is it maybe because she doesn't look like your stereo type "pretty" mac book?
X61 can take a glass of water on the keyboard, and she does have a light for the keyboard to. How much water will your pretty little model take on the keyboard? Or will she break her pretty little circuits? And what about macbook air? Is that air head the slimmest you get in the family? Shes huge compared to X61, and she cant do shit with only one usb port!

And for the record, my X61 haven't had any problems with any hardware sound cards, controllers or synths, ever. And I have used a lot of gear with it. Its been touring a lot around the world since I got it 16 months ago. Indoor venues and dirty outdoor venues from Japan to California, Russia and all around Europe. The old G4 Power Book fell apart from road trips like that.

I don't really care for apple laptops anymore. I have my old G4 buddy here, but everything on it is broken: the usb ports, the firewire port, the screen, (2 times) and the track pad. Never treated it bad, only used it a lot. If Apple created a sport/heavy duty model that can take solid use, and is easy to update with parts, then maybe, just maybe im interested. In the mean time, id only want macs if I had a solid income! You need to spend a lot more on software too, like osx upgrades for instance. And sending your mac to a repair shop? Over here it cost about $800 to change a disk, and $300 just to have a look at it. They add it together of course.

Tone Deft wrote:I've had very good luck with an HP DV8000 laptop running Win XP. no construction issues, and I've travelled around with it plenty. the only thing about is that the shift key gets stuck from time to time. GREAT box because it has two hard drive bays in it, a rare thing in laptops (it was when I shopped for it.) OS and apps on one, data on the other...

Success here also with dv9000 series. The quality of the build is superb(on this machine at least) I fell on my stairway whilst lugging it and dislocated my shoulder! The lappy was fine. I'm not going to say it's 100% bliss. In spite of disabling most of the hardware that's unused (ethernet, firewire, internal sound, modem, etc.), I still get a hiccup every once in a while. I've upgraded both internal drives to 7200 rpm, twice! I have managed to crash Live only a handful of times in the 2 and 1/2 yrs. I've had it.

HP EliteBooks work great. Not that cheap, but very rugged, awesome build quality, big hw and sw testing (much more than their consumer parts).

you can stand on it and it still works

Seriously it wasnt that much the look, Thinkpads are boring but not really ugly, it was weak GPU and display that made me gave up, poor max brightness, poor colours. Otherwise as you said, no other notebook mac or pc, except Toughbook, can take so much of road abuse. I had Tninkpad run video installation at 100% for days, we had to put MBP on icepacks to run same even for few hours.
Regarding battery life- the difference is that X series like your have only low performance GPU, MBP has top notch GPU. OSX has better batt management and if anyone wants batt life Apples are actually cheaper - similar specs PC to match mac battery life will cost more.
Sony SZ and Z series do it different way, you have switch. I use 90% Intel cause of battery (5-6 hours) but when I need proper GPU for video or After Effects I have it. That is the only drag of IBM X series which otherwise are weltmeisters of battery life.
The new i7,i5 processors can be problematic because of heat, I guess that is why Apple delays new MBPs. I will definitely check new T510- not yet available in EU- because IBM is the best at handling heat, if their displays get better I might choose it over MBP.
It is a myth and nonsense spread by conspiracy theorists that Apple and Sony "cheat" overpricing thier products. It is bloody capitalism they want to sell more units like everyone else but dont go the cheaper components at any expense route. Making unibody costs, same the R&D that lead to that,so is carbon never cheap to make chassis. My dog, if I had one could design Asus or Acer. You get what you pay for but having invested lots in all ext gear saving on the heart of DAW is unreasonable in my opinion. It is 5-10% that you pay more for Apple, Sony better design and build quality, for me it is worth.
Current Macbooks (non Pro) are rubbish for music, just like most pc notebooks. Any MBP is safe bet, regarding pc notebooks I advise anyone to try particular notebook with your gear or have return, refund option.

rikhyray wrote: My dog, if I had one could design Asus or Acer. You get what you pay for but having invested lots in all ext gear saving on the heart of DAW is unreasonable in my opinion. It is 5-10% that you pay more for Apple, Sony better design and build quality, for me it is worth.
Current Macbooks (non Pro) are rubbish for music, just like most pc notebooks. Any MBP is safe bet, regarding pc notebooks I advise anyone to try particular notebook with your gear or have return, refund option.

Well, you must have a very smart fantasy dog, who can build PCs. But as you say, the computer is the hart of the audio workstation. Not the graphics. I use my quad core desktop for that. My lesson after running "jack of all trades" laptops, (both pcs and macs) is to instead have a few computers, and specialize them to specific tasks. To my work flow, its less messy and less buggy. Different strokes for different folks though.

vaio is fine, not overpriced, good built quality. go buy one and you'll see ;-]

rikhyray wrote:Seriously it wasnt that much the look, Thinkpads are boring but not really ugly, it was weak GPU and display that made me gave up, poor max brightness, poor colours.

When I bought mine they had this Video upgrade thingy, you had to click on the one you want n stuff. It was real hard. I've since been diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel.. They probably quit doing that though, way too dangerous.

Got me an aging Alienware for 300$ on craigslist that is rock solid and very happy to run 8. It has the Texas Instruments firewire, too. And looks good on stage.