Shopping for a new Laptop tomorrow.

[DrNomis_44]

Hi everyone, tomorrow (24/06/2015) I'm going to be going shopping for a new Laptop computer so I'll be able to take my music-making software with me without having to lug around my desktop PC, I'm giving myself a budget of at least $800.00 to start with, I'm going to look for a Laptop that satisfies these criteria:


CPU: i7

CPU Clock Speed : At least 2.4Ghz.

Ram: 4Gb installed (I can install more later on).

Hard Disk: Conventional HDD (I don't want an SSD since they have a limited number of Read/Write cycles before they fail) with at least 200Gb capacity.

Screen Size: at least 15inch.

USB Ports: 2 Minimum.

Optical Drive: DVD Burner.


Will let you know how I go, I saw one that piqued my interest in JB Hi-Fi in the Casuarina Shopping Centre, it was retailing for about $845.00 if my memory serves me right.

[dave.king1]

G'day DrN,

I use my wife's old Toshy Satellite for portable recording and then transfer the projects to the big box in the office when I get home.

It's a pretty basic machine running Vista 32 bit ( don't ask ), the big box has a lot of grunt and runs Win 8.1 64 bit.

I'm really not sure how much grunt you need but the little lappy seems to be up to the task and I also use it for video editing of my incar race stuff it's quite a bit slower than the big box but still does the job out in the field ( or more to the point over a beer or two in the motel at the end of the day )

[DrNomis_44]

G'day DrN,

I use my wife's old Toshy Satellite for portable recording and then transfer the projects to the big box in the office when I get home.

It's a pretty basic machine running Vista 32 bit ( don't ask ), the big box has a lot of grunt and runs Win 8.1 64 bit.

I'm really not sure how much grunt you need but the little lappy seems to be up to the task and I also use it for video editing of my incar race stuff it's quite a bit slower than the big box but still does the job out in the field ( or more to the point over a beer or two in the motel at the end of the day )


I'm looking at getting something that has a fair bit of CPU grunt since some of the plugins I use on my desktop PC are a bit CPU intensive (Glitch being one of them), also, FL Studio needs a bit of CPU grunt too, my current Desktop PC has an i5 3.3Ghz Quad Core CPU in it, my previous desktop PC had a 2.14Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU in it and I was always running out of CPU grunt, so I'm figuring that an i7 CPU should definitely give me lots of CPU grunt, reason being, the new Laptop is going to be used for live performances as well as studio recording.

I'm going to be using a Focusrite Scarlett USB audio interface with the new laptop.

[keloooe]

Errrrr I need to find the name, but a mate of mine has a $850 laptop that I think suits those specs nicely.
If I were to pick brands, I'd go either Asus or Toshiba, possibly even an Acer or HP....

Maybe this could tickle your fancy? http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/hp-envy-15-15-6-laptop-hp15k039tx

[kimball492]

If you want it to work with your Pro Tools make sure they are compatible . I've bought two laptops neither worked properly, so be wary . This may help
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/compatibility/Pro-Tools-12-System-Requirements

[DrNomis_44]

If you want it to work with your Pro Tools make sure they are compatible . I've bought two laptops neither worked properly, so be wary . This may help
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/compatibility/Pro-Tools-12-System-Requirements



Definitely a very good point there, I should have included that on my list of criteria, cheers.

[DrNomis_44]

Errrrr I need to find the name, but a mate of mine has a $850 laptop that I think suits those specs nicely.
If I were to pick brands, I'd go either Asus or Toshiba, possibly even an Acer or HP....

Maybe this could tickle your fancy? http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/hp-envy-15-15-6-laptop-hp15k039tx


That HP Envy Laptop was one that caught my attention as I was doing some browsing in my local Dick Smith Electronics store last year, definitely going to put it on my list of contenders....cheers.

[kimball492]

When you use Pro tools on laptop you'll still need two drives one for the operating system and samples you may use ,the other would need to be specifically for recording audio to.The ext drive will need to be a 7200rpm drive . Min of 8gb memory if you have any FireWire devices you'll need a Texas Instruments chipset FireWire Card . Windows 10 is coming soon . That will hopefully give audio on laptops a big boost. Have fun Dr Nomis.
The other option you have , is buying a secondhand 2012 i7 MacBook Pro . That way you can use as mac and run windows too, on same machine. Just choose which operating ststem on the boot up screen. That's what I do .

P.s some notebooks can take two drives internally if so again just make sure the audio or drive you record to is 7200 rpm or you might be lucky and get away with using An SSD drive for audio work.

[DrNomis_44]

When you use Pro tools on laptop you'll still need two drives one for the operating system and samples you may use ,the other would need to be specifically for recording audio to.The ext drive will need to be a 7200rpm drive . Min of 8gb memory if you have any FireWire devices you'll need a Texas Instruments chipset FireWire Card . Windows 10 is coming soon . That will hopefully give audio on laptops a big boost. Have fun Dr Nomis.
The other option you have , is buying a secondhand 2012 i7 MacBook Pro . That way you can use as mac and run windows too, on same machine. Just choose which operating ststem on the boot up screen. That's what I do .

P.s some notebooks can take two drives internally if so again just make sure the audio or drive you record to is 7200 rpm or you might be lucky and get away with using An SSD drive for audio work.


The only problem is, a MacBook Pro is a bit out of my budget, and a lot of the software I'm currently running on my Desktop PC only runs on Windows although Image Line, the makers of FL Studio, are working on a version for Mac OS X.

Good point about the extra hard drive though, I'll be using an external hard drive for audio.

Since I have Windows 7 Home Premium installed on my Desktop PC, I'm eligible for the free update to Windows 10 and I've already signed up to it, I'm pretty excited about the new Windows 10 OS and can't wait to try it out once it's been officially released and installed on my PC, the free update to Windows 10 will be available on July 29th this year so there's not long to go.

[dave.king1]

Sadly I expect that the upgrade will be Win 10.0 and Win 10.1 won't be a freeby

Too many years have taught me that x.0 releases are always beset by major problems and often x.1 ( hello Cisco are you listening )

[keloooe]

Dave, Microsoft are giving Win10 away to anyone who tests it, I think they scrapped the original plan of a completely free update, even to non-legit installs.
The only time a Mac would be "in budget" for anyone would be as you hit Uni.... Damn I still gotta wait over a damn year!!! And KB, yeah I did that to my PC, works great being able to pick either one, but mine is now setup so that I can also boot to Linux off another SSD of mine :D

[dave.king1]

Dave, Microsoft are giving Win10 away to anyone who tests it,

That's the scary bit, although I did click on the upgrade when available option when I was downloading & installing the various Win 8.1 patches today.

Are you supposed to get some sort of notification when you click the link because I got no response ??

[keloooe]

That's the scary bit, although I did click on the upgrade when available option when I was downloading & installing the various Win 8.1 patches today.

Are you supposed to get some sort of notification when you click the link because I go to response ??

It isn't out yet Dave, comes out next month. When it is out it will automatically be downloaded to your hard drive and I don't know what happens after that!

[dingobass]

It isn't out yet Dave, comes out next month. When it is out it will automatically be downloaded to your hard drive and I don't know what happens after that!

Your pc shits itself......

[dave.king1]

It isn't out yet Dave, comes out next month. When it is out it will automatically be downloaded to your hard drive and I don't know what happens after that!

Yep, I'm aware of that Pest and also fearful of DBs prediction because over the years I have met Murphy and every last one of his misbegotten relos.

Bring back OS/2 Warp I say or better still CPM :D

[keloooe]

Your pc shits itself......

Most definitely! Can't wait for Windows Iceman to be released!

[wokkaboy]

Most definitely! Can't wait for Windows Iceman to be released!

haha thats it Pest, they will be beta testing it on DB's PC for sure

[keloooe]

haha thats it Pest, they will be beta testing it on DB's PC for sure

Nah Apple should do OSX 10.11.x dubbed "Iceman" and test it on his iThing!

[dingobass]

I run Linux on my pc....

[DrNomis_44]

Lol....

Anyway, time for an update......


I've got my new laptop at home now (bought it from JB Hi-Fi), it's a Dell Inspiron 15 with the following specs:


CPU: Intel Core i7 4510U @2.0Ghz (3.1Ghz in turbo mode).

Ram: X1 8Gb DDR 3 Ram Module Installed.

OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit.

Hard Drive Capacity: 1Tb (1000Gb).

Display: 15.6 inch Widescreen.

Graphics: 2047Mb Nvidia Geforce.

Connectivity:

X3 USB Ports.

X1 HDMI.

Optical Drive:

HL-DT-ST DVD +-RW GU90N (Means I can burn disks).

Audio:

Realtek High Definition Audio.


The laptop was originally retailing for $874.00, but the sales assistant gave me a good deal on it and I ended up paying only $805.00 for it, I had enough money left over to buy a Focusrite Scarlett Studio USB audio interface bundle ($399.00 from Top End Sounds) ,included in the bundle was a pair of headphones, a condenser mic, mic stand fitting, a Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interface, an XLR lead, a USB lead, manual, registration card etc.

I'm happy with what I've bought so far, using my new laptop right now to post the update in this thread.

[keloooe]

Nice buy Nomis! Haha also had enough for the 2i2 package even better! If your fan can handle it I'd suggest overclocking the CPU, but since it is a lappy, that might not be possible..... But still, $805 for those specs I'd be happy with!

[kimball492]

Well enjoy your new lap top Dr Nomis .time to create some music the 2i2 is a great little interface . I use mine with the iPad

[stan]

Well done DrN, enjoy your new toys!

[DrNomis_44]

Well enjoy your new lap top Dr Nomis .time to create some music the 2i2 is a great little interface . I use mine with the iPad


I've actually been pretty impressed with the performance of my new Scarlett 2i2 USB Audio Interface, after downloading the driver from the Focusrite website, it installed on my laptop with virtually no issues, and the driver performance was rock-solid, I managed to get my Audio Latency down to 10ms in FL Studio, 10ms latency seems good enough to my ears and so far I can't hear any audio-breakup, I played back one of the demo songs in FL Studio and there wasn't any audio breakup that I could hear even at 70% CPU load, so I'm pretty happy with that.

Focusrite have definitely been doing some hard work on their hardware and software.


All in all, the Scarlett 2i2 just works, and works really well for me, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an affordable Audio Interface.


Here's a link to a handy little app for pc for checking a pc's ability for handling real-time data streams properly (very important for music production and performance):

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml