Laptops for live : what to buy?

the war MAC vs PC will come again on this thread im afraid... Im ultra happy with my Dell Inspiron, never crashed, no viruses if you are not a porn or warez fan, if i had to choose again i would take a dell once again. Just make your self a setup on they site, take a dual core, lot of memory (hd and ram) take a fast HD, firewire ports, lot of usb ports, take a big battery and your there for 1500€, voila thats what i got and its perfect for me... dont use the windows multimedia, cant remember the name, he doesnt care of usb controllers, use the XP pro if u can.

Some Apple user will tell you MAC is always better, i dont know if its true, but its TOO EXPENSIVE because if u can handle a PC laptop correctly you wont have any problem... it stable and fast. And i ve seen some mac crashes and viruses so... its up to you and your money... :D good luck amigo

Thx phoneke.... As I said I won't be going online with that computer so I'm not worried about virusses, etc.... Can you say anything about a good laptop-soundcard...? And the sound of that dell, it's good? No noise? Cause that's one of the biggest issues with laptops, that they produce a considerable amount of noise, and that of course I don't want bacause I want to produce on it as well, not only play live....

i'd very recommend a Macbookpro, cause it has all what u need: very silent, among the fastest laptops, VERY good battery, crashes very rarely, ... and a OS that ideal for audiovisual stuff: very flexible and compatibel with external gear, extended audio-/midi-possibillities, intuïtive interface (everything at hand, no infinite submenus of submenu of submenu's,...) runs windows as well (native or via programs like VM-ware, work both excellent). the only disadvantages for the MBP imho are that it has only 2 USB-ports and that it can run a bit hot when doing intensive calculating (HD-video etc,..). and for what you get, it isn't more expensive than a pc-laptop.

Originally posted by : aphone Some Apple user will tell you MAC is always better, i dont know if its true, but its TOO EXPENSIVE because if u can handle a PC laptop correctly you wont have any problem... it stable and fast. And i ve seen some mac crashes and viruses so... its up to you and your money... :D good luck amigo

Mac crashes, ok, I've seen some odd things on that. But mac viruses? That's really negligent, why code a virus and send it off on the off chance someone somewhere is using a mac, much less use porn/warez on one (most mac users are architects, graphical people, etc.).

Other than that, I'd be surprised if all programs and settings you wish to use is 100 percent usable on Mac, is it? I know my Ecler Nuo 5 can be reconfigured/programmed based on PC but not on Mac I believe.

If I had to buy a machine now, I woukd take a 15" MacBookPro I would install windows pro also on it. I would use firewire 800 to link my external drives, it runs faster. About soundcard, the one onto the machine is good, but you can prefer an external one, if so take one on firewire 400 to link it, or PCMCIA card. About the heat, you can buy an external fan and place it underneath the laptop, linked using usb, but it's luxury with a MacBookPro, 'cause it can run without that. This machine is really reliable, and you can benefit of mac and windows environnement onto the same machine, you can also install linux if you're in need of that OS.

This is my personnal opinion, make your own choice freely.

n(^ù^)°

PS I 've got 4 macs, only one crashed 3 years ago, because the drive felt apart. Disk changed, I never encountered any major problems anymore.

I've got a dell laptop with 9 cell battery option. It has about 4 hours atonomy when under load. It also has 4 usb connectors, which is very nice. Macs are very limited on connectivity (2 usb ports, maybe a firewire one). If you want to make it a strong music system I recommend you to format whatever comes with it and install a seriously nlite'd windows xp. This part is very important no matter what pc you buy. If you get the software on it right, your system will fly and be rock solid. The nice thing about dell is that they're not overly expensive and all drivers are easily availlable.Do not buy extra ram from them though, it's cheaper to get extra ram in a normal shop. I use a terratec phase 26 usb card, which is very nice for live because it has 3 stereo outs. The only downside is that it doesn't have an xlr input (and maybe not enough input channels for you). It does have midi IO. The best part is that it's cheap (100 euro) and works flawlessly.

thx for the tips so far... another thing on my mind is this :

apart from being easier to transport, does using a laptop have benefits over a well-balanced desktop system, compiled by a good music-shop?

and what about the noise generated by laptops?

it's a pricy investment so I want to be sure.... 

by far the best thing I could do, was buying a macbook!

You can buy way much more horsepower if you get a desktop. I can build you a nice quad core for about 500 euro. Plus you get a lot of upgradability. If a component should fail, all is not lost, and you can get back on track for a reasonable price. Unless it's your ram, your laptop is dead if something fails.

The noise of my laptop is quite ok, it's just as silent as any of the macs I've worked with.

interesting, kyran, i'll pm you one of these...

any more oppinions?