Which laptop?

[Sascha Franck]

Hi,

I will most likely be buying a new laptop next week or so.

My main interest (obviously) would be which CPU to chose.
I don't necessarily need extreme battery life, proper performance is my main interest, this thing will have to work as my main workstation for a while (I'm going to do quite some touring the next months, that's why).

So, what I need, in order of importance:
- Powerful CPU (not necessarily *the* most powerful, I'm looking for a good VFM factor).
- Silent operation.
- Large display (1200x800 should be possible).
- Large, fast HDD (80GB or more, I need to have a lot of samples permanently, without using external drives). Must be 5400RPM at least, as I will be recording live bands with it as well.
- 4 proper USB 2 ports (I will partially be using them for mobile audio interfaces, so there should be good power support, something I've seen lacking on quite some notebooks).
- Proper cardbus type II slot (I use an RME Multiface and I will also be using an Indigo which I'll be buying in addition).
- Probably a great working FW port - but so far I never felt the need for FW, and I don't think I'll be using it for audio interface operation any day soon (my experiences with PCMCIA stuff are way better).
- A proper keyboard. I will have to type on it quite sometimes as well. A good operating touch pad would be welcomed as well.


Right now I'm using a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo (it's not *exactly* mine, I just have permanent access) that I'm not unhappy with, but the fans are killing my nerves, so I could not work with it at home. In addition, battery operation is almost impossible for anything CPU intensive - 1 hour if not less, when running large projects in whatever sequencer. It's got a plain PIV 3GHz, so that's certainly not what I want to see in my new machine.
The good things about it are the excellent USB ports (I never had a single problem with anything, no need for external PSUs at all), the fast HDD (been recording 16 tracks at 24bit while playing back around 25 allready) and the nice display, so I'm kinda used to that sort of luxury and wouldn't want to miss it.
I don't need much other gizmos, such as DVD burners (DVDR and CDRW is quite enough), card readers, TV tuners and whatever blurb there might be.

Finally, my main concern is the CPU, and admittedly I'm a bit out of the game for a while, so I don't know what's shit-hot these days considering laptop CPUs.

Ok, anybody with recommendations, sites doing comparisons (relevant in terms of an audio workstation) and such?

Cheers!

[Sascha Franck]

Add on: I've just been reading quite some sites and found the AMD Turion to be looking quite promising. Anybody with some hands on experience?

Also, ACER notebooks seem to offer a great bang for the buck - any known drawbacks?

[egbert]

Dual core Yonah mobile processors are due pretty soon from Intel (early this month) and DC Turions a couple of months later.

Here's a link on the launch dates. Product will be ready to ship from the major vendors I expect.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/1 ... _launches/

It might be hard to get your hands on these next week but they will double CPU power. If you want CPU performance and to hang onto the machine for a while I would definitely wait.

[Sascha Franck]

Thanks for the link, very interesting.
Thing is, I really need a new laptop soon (touring starts at the 18th and the aforementioned Amilo won't be in my hands anymore by then). I would also expect those new CPUs to be quite expensive. I plan on spending something around the €1000-€1400 marks, which (from what it looks like) would give me a reasonable performance boost allready, compared to the Amilo.
Most likely the new dual cores a) will cost around another 500 or so more (considering an identical feature set for the rest of the parts), b) won't be available early enough. In addition, I really don't like the thought of buying something that hasn't been tested by others before.

Further, I'm getting away quite well with the Amilos performance, so anything above will most likely make me happy allready.
FWIW, this ain't gonna be my main production machine for years or so. I plan on getting a dual G5 when touring is over and I've got some time to re-do my stationary studio. After that the laptop will serve as an additional machine for the Windows-only stuff.
So, even if the thought of having all that dual core power in one small convenient machine is quite tempting, I probably won't exactly need it. Plus, as said, I really need a new laptop somewhen during the next 2 weeks.

So far the only questions remaining seem to be:
- Acer, good or bad?
- Centrino or Turion?

[egbert]

I would also expect those new CPUs to be quite expensive.

Well I don't expect them to be a whole lot dearer. Intel wants to sell these in volume - they will be cheap to manufacture (10 bucks a throw for Intel) on the 12" wafers/65nm process and Centrino is already a high margin product. They will not move these if they are any dearer at the top end than the current top end Centrino 2 (Dothian) chips. Intel is making a lot of its bucks on mobiles since they are north of 50% of the game now and AMD rules on workstations, servers and gamers machines. It makes no sense for them to harm their market share by overcharging. The market segmentation will be on speed - top bins will be dear - and also on the number of cores. Single core versions of the new chip will be cheaper.

The other thing is that there will probably be a bit of a fire sale on current models and price reductions on the equivalent speed single cores after the launch of the new models. I would definitely wait till next week and see what is announced. Remember that manufacturing and distribution of these chips has been going on for a while - the product announcements are embargoed until the launch. If you really don't care about performance you might be able to save a bundle on superceded models.

[flanneljammies]

I've been looking at the same type of system and have been checking out the Asus Z71V. Totally customizable to your specs... Geared2Play is purportedly a good place -- dunno about UK retailers tho.

[Sascha Franck]

Yeah, I will in any case wait for the official announcements (I have to anyways, paychecks need to arrive first). Gotta buy it kinda in time though since I have to configure it and try out various audio related things.

[egbert]

Yeah, I will in any case wait for the official announcements (I have to anyways, paychecks need to arrive first). Gotta buy it kinda in time though since I have to configure it and try out various audio related things.

The other thing to checkout is whether the current and future Centrino chipsets will work well with your choice of audio interface. I remember hearing that the early 915s were problematic but I suspect the later ones are better - don't know for sure. The new platform will have a new chipset and possibly faster RAM too.

Those configurable ASUS machines look pretty cool don't they - thanks for the link jammies.

[Sascha Franck]

I've been looking at the same type of system and have been checking out the Asus Z71V. Totally customizable to your specs... Geared2Play is purportedly a good place -- dunno about UK retailers tho.

Oh, that's looking like a good place to buy from indeed.
Too bad I won't be able to order from there... and I can't find something close to that offer in germany.

[Sascha Franck]

The other thing to checkout is whether the current and future Centrino chipsets will work well with your choice of audio interface.

Yeah uhm... that's the main thing I'm worrying about for sure.
But then, the Hammerfall has been working fine in almost all machines I tried with so far, the same goes for the Indigo I/O it seems.
I don't think I'll be using my Edirol PCR A-30 much anymore, latencies are too huge to go for software monitoring, the keys are quite questionable too.
Just have to decide for another MIDI-only keyboard then...

However, one good laptop retailer in germany is in my town, so I could probably give the thing a testride and change it in case it won't work properly.

[egbert]

Oh, that's looking like a good place to buy from indeed.
Too bad I won't be able to order from there... and I can't find something close to that offer in germany.

I just googled that Asus model here in Australia and found a dealer (ITBox) with more or less the same deals - at local prices of course. Don't know the track record of that firm - any Aussies who know feel free to enlighten me

Anyway - sounds like this barebones/configure your own thing might be what Asus is doing worldwide.

[Sascha Franck]

I found a german site with some online configurator for that model as well, but the price in € is *quite* higher than the price in $ on the other site. Add to this that the US$ is worth around 0.80 €...

[egbert]

I found a german site with some online configurator for that model as well, but the price in € is *quite* higher than the price in $ on the other site. Add to this that the US$ is worth around 0.80 €...

Do you have a consumption tax in Germany - 10% in Oz but none in most US states.

[Sascha Franck]

Do you have a consumption tax in Germany - 10% in Oz but none in most US states.

Yeah, we have. 16%.

Btw, I found an Acer which is looking quite good.
Pentium M 270 (2GHz), 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD (they say ATA 100, but nothing about the speed, gotta phone them tomorrow), ATI Radeon mobile 128MB, etc. for €1249.
Unfortunately just 3 USB slots, which isn't that great considering that I often have 2 dongles and 1 mouse attached. Nothing left for USB audio, MIDI, external drives, blah... wonder whether they have enough power to feed a USB hub properly.

They've got almost the same spec'ed model with an 1.8GHz Turion (and 4 USB slots...).

Do the 2MB of L2 cache of a Pentium M compared to just 1MB on the Turion make a huge difference?

[arke]

Whatever you do, don't get a Medion ^^