Best PC laptop for Audio?

[Moritz Morpheus MkIII]

Right on, a Machead which has no clue which model, which brand, processor, amd, intel...is best for running audiosoftware..

oki, gimme those links!

[Moritz Morpheus MkIII]

btw, this shouldn´t be a discussion wether which model is better or not(and those mac vs.pc dudes...goto hell)

..I´m just interested in different opinions, that I can have a closer look next time when I´m sneaking into a pc-shop!

[jones-y]

I'd say, as long as the components are quality, it doesn't really matter what name is on the case. There are only a handful of 'real' computer component manufacturers. The rest are OEM'ers (assemblers and distributors).

As for Intel vs. AMD, that's about as heated as Mac vs. PC. Both work, both work very well, and each has its weaknesses. Nowadays, there is much less to differentiate the two CPU families, in terms of real-world performance/reliability/etc.

[Moritz Morpheus MkIII]

so what would be /or is your dream-model, then?

[declassified]

I'd say the most expensive laptop is the best on the long run. If you want the "best PC laptop for audio", it's about the same as if you want the "best laptop for general use", except that you'll buy an additional audio interface.

The only thing is: I wouldn't be concerned about graphic cards. Even some "Intel BX540" or whatever will show a VST gui well and will not hang when you're scrolling in your sequencer.

[Moritz Morpheus MkIII]

thx for your replies, but please somebody point me to some specific models!

[Landphil]

Check out Sager Notebooks.
A bit pricey, but I've read nothing but good reviews, and you get to choose how it's built.

I've got my eye on one after I win the Lotto.

Phil

[Moritz Morpheus MkIII]

thx for the link

dumb question...what is a IEEE-1394 Port (4 PIN)?
Is it Firewire?

[badpioneer]

thx for the link

dumb question...what is a IEEE-1394 Port (4 PIN)?
Is it Firewire?

Yes. Exactly.

I like my Toshiba Satellite quite a bit. It seems to me like the added cost in laptops tends to have to do with weight and size. My Toshiba was cheaper than most but heavy and bulky. That wasn't a concern for me as its specs were good and its continued to work well for a couple years now.

-bp

[Moritz Morpheus MkIII]

thx, bp

[John Vulich]

thx for the link

dumb question...what is a IEEE-1394 Port (4 PIN)?
Is it Firewire?

Yeah, it's a Firewire port.

I just picked up a Toshiba M35-S456 a few months ago, which I am extremely happy with. It's the 3rd Toshiba I've owned and they've all been great machines. The wide screen is ideal for viewing sequencer tracks also.


Whatever you settle on I highly suggest that you get a machine with a Pentium M chip and one above 1.7GH. They have a 2MB L2 cache and the lower rated chips only have 1MB. BTW, don't be thrown off by the lower MGHZ rating. The Pentium M chips run almost twice as fast as a P4 chip. These chips seem to be (inadvertently?) optimized for audio apps. I'm not sure about the technical reasons but I think it may have something to do with the large amount of memory on the L2 cache. The other positive aspect, with the M chips, is they tend to run cooler than the P4 chips so there is less fan noise. This is obviously important if you're going to be using this machine for audio applications. I bought a Toshiba machine with a P4 chip and promptly returned it because every time the fans kicked in it sounded like a jet airplane taking off. Any high powered laptop is going to be loud but the M35 is very tolerable.

Someone put together a chart, with different CPU benchamarks, over at the Ableton Forum and the high end Pentium M chips smoked just about every other chip except for the dual 2.5 G5 desktops, and that was a tie! Then again Ableton is notorious for not being optimized on the Mac.

[Moritz Morpheus MkIII]

this is some great info, thanks, john

[whyterabbyt]

1) General purpose laptops might not be better for audio; chipset incompatibilities are more likely to rear their ugly head here than in the larger desktop market. As a possible 'benchmark' have a check on Google to see how well it works with Linux on it; if it has issues, there's more likely to be odd stuff onboard which may cause you issues.

2) John's right, up to a point. Pentium-M's definitely seem to be much better for audio apps than P-IV's. However there are more than a few AMD64 laptops out there. And they seem to be better still than the P-M's, so check them out as well.

[Omniphonix]

My partner picked up a ProStar 4764 from Xtreme Notebooks for our live work. We've been very happy with it. Prostar are considered whitebox notebooks and a number of vendors configure and sell them. Xtreme seems to have the best prices for their configurations. The screen on the thing is fantastic, probably the most real estate on a notebook LCD (17" 16:9 1680x1050) and sharp as glass. Also, you can't go wrong with an Athlon 64 DTR (he got the 3400+ and the thing will run nearly as many plugs as our 3500+ in the studio). Also, make sure you get the 60GB 7200RPM hard drive! This is very important for audio streaming to/from disk.

[Omniphonix]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, steer clear of HP/Compaq notebooks. My company bought me a shiny new Compaq nx9500 with a P4 3.4 and a gig of RAM. The thing is so fast, but it has serious problems with noise. I decided to see if I could use it for live sets next to my partner's laptop. I've tried his Echo Indigo, my M-Audio Fast Track, and our MOTU 828mk2 and they all get so much noise off this thing it's unusable. I think it may not be well sheilded inside. Plus, the PCMCIA controller is so cheap, the Indigo was completely useless (like no audio, just noise).