Laptop Review for Music Production

[cptnhook]

Originally Posted by Cicatrix

It seems that it is almost impossible to find a new laptop these days with a TI firewire chipset. A while ago I had an HP dv9000 that I was planning on using for my home setup. It ran mediocre at best. I decided to sell it and purchase a new laptop from a custom DAW builder. I have been really pleased with my ADK laptop I bought back in 2008. I then got a FireFace UC to take place of an Ultralite and I'm hard pressed to ever even hear a hiccup.With the current firewire chipset issues in laptops these days, I'm curious as to how everyone is working around this problem.

Are you guys switching to USB interfaces?
Are you guys buying Custom DAW laptops?
Are you guys searching out older model laptops that still use TI chip set controllers?

What gives.

interested as well. Any input?

[J_O_P]

Originally Posted by smccarthy945

Apple hasn't released a bootcamp update to the Windows side in 9 months. They don't care about the Macbooks anymore as most of their revenue is coming from the phones and ipads.

That said, when I was using my Macbook White with said outdated Boot Camp drivers it ran very well. Tweaked accordingly and it did a very good job.

I use an ADK Laptop now and I am VERY happy with it.

[The Hydrilla]

What about ASUS?

I dont think I have seen any discussion about their laptop products. They seem to have everything thats needed

i7
4-6GB
500 GB 7200rpm HDD
USB 2, 3.0
1 year accident warranty (up to 2 for parts)

Price ranges around $1200
(No firewire though if thats what you are looking for)

Link1
Link 2

Most of the negative newegg reviews center around the usual laptop complaints; heat, port pacement, fingerprints, and the occasional lemon. Anyone have any feedback on audio? I might be in the market for something just to run Sonar, a dozen or so vst's (komplete, garritan, machine), with no audio recording. These seem cheap, and powerful enough.

[jrides]

I'm surprised as well. Add HP and subtract Asus, interesting.

[mintyfreshbeats]

Originally Posted by smccarthy945

Believe it or not, Dre has standards and theyput serious design and money into the Envy series. Enjoy your Chinesee made piece of crap Lenovo. If you look at the design labs of HP vs Lenovo these days, its almost a joke. Lenovo is barely treading water right now.

Barely treading water?

Lenovo sees $54.9 million net profit in Q1 earnings, hits double digits in global market share -- Engadget

Stop with the hyperbole.

[djburnone]

so is it really that bad the envy 15 seems to be A1 but from these response theres a lot of negative to say, with that have any of you even tried one?

[richtrix]

Originally Posted by smccarthy945

Things change fast in tech. Below are my new recommendations:

1. HP. They have changed their whole game up. I am sure you noticed the Dr. Dre ads. The boards are now grounded and the audio interfaces are night and day better than before. I still have my Lenovo but use my HP Elitebook more and more to produce. Fast, stable and clean.

If you want a dope machine, take a look at the HP ENVY's or HP Elitebooks. They are top quality equipment with a focus on audio now. Lenovo is starting to slip. Would make sure what you are getting into if you consider them now.

Can you recommend any good model numbers... Preferably one that may be a little dated but still good so I can pick it up cheap on the used market.

[cynic one]

Originally Posted by mintyfreshbeats

Barely treading water?

Lenovo sees $54.9 million net profit in Q1 earnings, hits double digits in global market share -- Engadget

Stop with the hyperbole.

Lenovo thinkpads are built like tanks. Great machines and they use good hardware.

[musicsound-2]

what is with this one ?

MSI Europe ? Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more

[mintyfreshbeats]

Originally Posted by cynic one

Lenovo thinkpads are built like tanks. Great machines and they use good hardware.

+1.

[Retrofreak]

[sctuk99]

I'm looking for a laptop for a DAW. Looking at new ones, but have a chance to buy a used Lenovo T61(reading this thread) for about £230 for 14.1 screen, and £295 for 15.4, would this still be up to the job in 2010? I would mainly be recording guitarists vocalists on location, adding their work to my own arrangements with vsts and sample libraries played with kontakt 4 in cubase. I can freeze tracks, as most of my heavy production will happen on my desktop pc.

The Lenovo only has an 80Gb hard drive and 2 Gig of ram. Can i upgrade these easily?

many thanks

PS- What do photos look like on the screen of the T61, as i will be doing photo editing on as well?

[troggg]

HP leads the world in orphaning owners of their many lemon series of laptops. Doesn't matter what the machine is like in the beginning, if it has MB problems you and every one else on god's green earth will be SOL. No, I am not the one guy ragging cause I had a problem. I have had to abandon two laptops for my college student daughter because even when HP replaced MBs - at customer expense - they still kept overheating and frying all the other components. Never again. Google the 9000 series, google the 2000 series. It's not that they had problems, it's the company's attitude toward the problems and the people that had them that's despicable.

Meanwhile, the Thinkpads keep on ticking. Can't comment on the last couple of years quality, but I'd rather have a 2-3 year old Thinkpad than anything else on the market today - and you can get them off corporate leases for $300ish. Maybe they won't handle the biggest productions, but you can definitely get down the road with them. And some of them had TI FW chipsets - anyone remember which ones? I forget. . .

[sctuk99]

Great info troggg. Yes would be good to know about which thinkpads have the TI chip. The guy selling one doesn't know if his has a TI chip

[0t0b0t]

The T60 line, especially the T60p should be equipped with TI controller chips.
If the seller doesn't know, he can find out in the device manager:

System -> (Hardware ->) Device Manager -> then right click on the entry of the FireWire controller -> Properties -> Details tab

there is an entry for manufacturer or the like (I'm not in front of my T60p right now). If it's a TI, it contains something along the lines of "Texas Instruments..."

[aman74]

Originally Posted by mintyfreshbeats

Barely treading water?

Lenovo sees $54.9 million net profit in Q1 earnings, hits double digits in global market share -- Engadget

Stop with the hyperbole.

Yep, this guy is really talking out of his a**.

Internet forums are a great exchange of info, but it's kinda sad when someone who's obviosly misinformed posts in an authoritative manner and people then go to them for advice.

[sctuk99]

Originally Posted by 0t0b0t

The T60 line, especially the T60p should be equipped with TI controller chips.
If the seller doesn't know, he can find out in the device manager:

System -> (Hardware ->) Device Manager -> then right click on the entry of the FireWire controller -> Properties -> Details tab

there is an entry for manufacturer or the like (I'm not in front of my T60p right now). If it's a TI, it contains something along the lines of "Texas Instruments..."

Thanks very much for that, cheers Scott

[wildthang]

I'm a complete noob.
I want to start incorporating ableton live into my bands/projects (i'm a keyboard player).
Not even familliar with the program but watched some keyboard players do some amazing things with it + videos on the web.

I've seen a lot of praise here about the elitebook.
right now i'm looking at ebay and the elitebook is like 100$ more expensive than the Pavilion (for the moment), yet:

both have i5 2+ ghz, 4gb DDR3 memory and 7200 rpm hard drive.
all parameters I've seen recommended here.

so help me, is there a big difference between them performance-wise?
what do you think i should go for?

[Keyflo]

My ASUS is well built, very sturdy, and it also has great specs for mobile production...I was reccomended Asus and so far so good.

[sctuk99]

Hi Keyflo,

What model number is your asus laptop? Has it a texas instruments firewire chipset. I managed to get a refurbed HP duel core laptop with a TI firewire chip, but had to return it because the battery was faulty....back to square 1

[smccarthy945]

Update to my original post:

The new HP Elitebook's are using cheap replacement components. They are horrible. Stay away from them!

On the flip side, Lenovo T or X series (t410 or X201) is top of the line. Lenovo is now my top (and only) recommendation for the PC side.

The HP envy's are crap and a gimmick after I tested them for a couple months.

Of course, Mac's are still solid machines if you are going that way.

Official Recommendations as of now:
1. Lenovo x201 or T410/T410s
2. Macbook Pro

[edmann]

Great thread!

I have owned many macs, and a Lenovo T42 - the Lenovo is by far the best machine I have ever had.

I confirm the HP horror stories, my partner has 2 dv series, same problems described here - no matter how many times HP replaces the mobo it fries again, the build is terrible.

Right now I am looking for a new audio laptop, all research I have done puts ASUS in very good standing and some of them do have FW. I think that Acer quality has come up too. Gateway is also made by Acer as is Emachines.

Does anyone have anything to say about shared GPU memory vs. dedicated? It used to be THE issue in laptop for audio. Now it is not mentioned as much, and people seem to be ok with Shared memory as long as the processor and system RAM is sufficient.

thoughts? thanks

Ed

[zoopdewoop]

Originally Posted by smccarthy945

On the flip side, Lenovo T or X series (t410 or X201) is top of the line. Lenovo is now my top (and only) recommendation for the PC side.

Lots of reports of bad DPC latency with Lenovo T series, and Lenovo acts completely clueless and tells people to defrag their hard drives and other useless crap:
T410 Extremely Annoying Audio Issues - Page 11 - Lenovo Community

Dell, on the other hand, addresses the problem directly and has solved some of the conflicts with hardware manufacturers.
Dell, DPC Latency, and You - Direct2Dell - Direct2Dell - Dell Community
Update on DPC Latency for Alienware M17x Customers - Direct2Dell - Direct2Dell - Dell Community

I was almost certain I was going to get a T410, until I found this.

[mintyfreshbeats]

I have a Thinkpad W510 and I get about 125 microseconds in my DPC latency measuring tool on average.

For what its worth, its been alright for me.

[wax808]

I've got the Envy Dre Edition, I just copped the Dre Beats headphones, and I'm drinking a Dr Pepper that I place on my turntable while it spins. Why don't my beats sound better?

[Krush411]

Would this be a good comp for audio recording?

Gateway Official Site: Shop - Desktops - DX4831-03 Desktop Product Details

Has Firewire support as well, let me know-

[mrpeeman]

Originally Posted by wax808

I've got the Envy Dre Edition, I just copped the Dre Beats headphones, and I'm drinking a Dr Pepper that I place on my turntable while it spins. Why don't my beats sound better?

thumbsup. Genius

Registered solely for that, but i might as well add some input too.
This thread feels outdated and has seemingly a lot of false information, it hasn't helped me a lot but i appreciate the time you guys have put into helping people but of course technologgy is changing fast and so are brands quality along with it, so its hard to keep up.


Most people either be wanting the cheapest strong built laptop for home recording/sampling without cuts and glitches.
or
Live gigs which will run smoothly again for a cheapish amount (not everyone can spare 2K+ dolla)


I am looking for the former, i want to record guitar and bass and vocals smoothly possibly going up to about 10 tracks maybe 15 in a project. and have been checking out dell outlet. Also wouldn't mind if i could play a couple of casual games on it too.. maybe some short video editing.
All this i'm looking for under £500 ($800)

I've been looking at studio 15's with a 7200rpm hd, i3 or i5 processors and 4gb ram.. (most of them come with something like a 5470 radeon gfx card). but they seem too expensive. Is the 7200rpm neccesary?

Possibly thinking of experimenting installing OS X on it for logic but not too concerned due to it not making much difference. Also I'm assuming I will only be using usb interfaces.

Would that be enough horsepower? Too much? Could i get away with just an old Dual core with a high clock such as:

Studio 1555


BASE,NBK,STUDIO,1555
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz,1066MHz,3MB)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
320GB HD (7200RPM)
6144MB (1x2048 + 1x4096) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel
Optical Drive : 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Roxio Burn software
Display 15.6in Widescreen Full High Definition (1920X1080) WLED with TrueLife
LCD Back Cover Black Chainlink

for £500 inc vat and delivery

Studio 1555


BASE,NBK,STUDIO,1555
Pentium Dual Core T4300 (2.1GHz,800MHz,1MB)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
320GB HD (7200RPM)
Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel
Display 15.6in Widescreen Full High Definition (1920X1080) WLED with TrueLife
LCD Back Cover Black Chainlink

for £400


oh in both these laptops are graphics cards which are as i mentioned above but that isn't too bigger deal..


Also wondering if i could get away with an inspiron 15 or is the studio 15 a better build for audio. Just wondering where i can cut some £££/$$$

Thanks

[Hmartel]

originpc.com best/fast processor speed laptop in the market

[deadleaves]

Damn, it makes me going nuts to choose right laptop for sound production / desktop replacement. Can you just point me something without major DPC latency/heat/stability problems not much above 1000$ price tag? Something that would actually WORK reliably.
How about:
HP dv6t Quad Core i7 SE 6GB HD5650 640G 7200rpm Backlit - eBay (item 250729283343 end time Nov-28-10 22:08:27 PST)
Lenovo T series seems a lit bit more pricey for same CPU/RAM/HDD.

[MrMeek]

Hi

What do you guys think of running windows 7 ultimate with bootcamp on MacBook Pro? I think I'll invest in a Mac because it has a reliable reputation when used in live setups. I'll be running Traktor scratch duo in OS X 10.6 on gigs and FL9 producer edition in Win 7 when I'm on the road.

I was performing last week live to several thousand people using my friends macbook pro and was really satisfied in the way it worked. I'm always feeling a bit nervous about pc's connected to a big sound system

My main computer is an i7 machine with 12 gb's ram, ssd drives, 64-bit Win 7 etc. (enough for my home production studio) so the mac will be used for live shows, on-the-road production and internet access...