Laptop Review for Music Production

[Remeniz]

I'm thinking of getting a laptop just to run Reason 5, Cool Edit Pro, ReCycle and REAPER. Just something portable I can lug around and something to quickly create ideas on.

HP Compaq nw9440
Lenovo ThinkPad T61
Dell Inspiron XPS M1530
Dell Latitude D830

These are the choices. I'll be hooking up a Steinburg MR816X so it needs to be stable with FireWire.

Any help on this appreciated, wanna pick one up this weekend.

[Dave.R]

interesting and kinda funny thread this

the OP has gone from slamming HP and praising Lenovo to praising HP and slamming Lenovo and then back again

[Tnevz]

Mac book pro. Ftw!

[Remeniz]

Originally Posted by Tnevz

Mac book pro. Ftw!

Na. I'd rather have a high end Lenovo any day.

Originally Posted by Remeniz

I'm thinking of getting a laptop just to run Reason 5, Cool Edit Pro, ReCycle and REAPER. Just something portable I can lug around and something to quickly create ideas on.

HP Compaq nw9440
Lenovo ThinkPad T61
Dell Inspiron XPS M1530
Dell Latitude D830

These are the choices. I'll be hooking up a Steinburg MR816X so it needs to be stable with FireWire.

Any help on this appreciated, wanna pick one up this weekend.

Well I went for the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 in the end.

I have to disable the WiFi card @ driver level, using the hardware switch isn't enough, and disable the on-board audio. Both done in the Device Manager. Also I use the Legacy Firewire driver... The Lenovo driver will give you dropouts.

Once all this is done it runs fine with the MR816X.

[neeko]

I can def' co-sign on those Thinkpad laptops. I owned one before the Fujitsu Esprimo currently running in my rig. The Fujitsu is a great laptop too! No firewire though...

[gazelle]

Originally Posted by Disease

Many thanks for this useful information you don't sound noob to me smccarthy! No info anywhere on which domestic laptops are good for pro recording I nearly thought about Dell but thanks to you will stick with a nice Lenovo instead! Didn't know about the grounding issue! Cheers bud!

I worked in computer repair industry for more than 15 years as making living, Lenovo is one of the few companies that impressed me with their warranty work, one of our customers Lenovo laptop was gone gone.. We called lenovo for warranty, it was a regular warranty too, shipping box came next day before noon, we shipped the same day, and the laptop came back fixed before the 3rd day. And this is probably 2 years or 3 years ago tops. (not like 1999 or something)
I'm using MSI laptop, but Lenovo's always good, and good quality hardware and warranty work. oh not to mention north american based warranty makes everything little bit smoother. I think its a good choice.

[aaliasmith]

Compaq is also good , lenovo is best but it is so delicate , for rough and tough work compaq is best.

[Vibes Antagonist]

Hey folks, I'm looking for a replacement laptop. My Toshiba Satellite L555-12P, which apart from a near-cataclysmic HD crash has served me well, has died - or rather, its mainboard has died.

I was looking to just get another L555 when I realised how much having only two USB slots bugged me, so I started looking.

Right now the Hp ProBook 4730s A1F10EA is looking really tempting. Intel Core i5, 4GB RAM (which I will be upgrading with RAM for my Toshiba to get 8GB) 640 GB HD, 3 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0. Windows 7 64Bit. It also has a 17" display. Does that sound like a good option?

[scoob]

buy a 4530 do some reading ad you can dual boot lion and w7. just sayin...

[Doxsound]

Another vote against Sony Vaio laptops. I bought mine because it had a Blue Ray drive in it, and use it mostly to control a JBL Vertec system via System Architect.

The first battery died within a year, and although it took a lot of persuading on my part, Sony did send me a new battery, that only lasted a couple months after that.

Touchpad is crap and I've gotten to the point that I don't even use it.

Anybody know anything about the new Macbook's? Release dates, new features and the like?

[JonathanComis]

I've been using an HP Pavilion dv6 with an i7, 6gb of ram, 500gb harddrive at 7200rpm's and it runs Sonar pretty flawlessly. Asio4All does the trick. Unfortunately, no firewire ports. So if it is just for mixing then it's a good choice, but if you need a laptop to record onto through firewire then this ain't the one for you. I also edit music videos and HD animations on this too and it handles it really well.

-Jonathan