New Dell XPS 15 for PT11

[Cormonauta]

Originally Posted by sw rec

Pro Tools 8.0.5 will run on 64-bit Windows 7. They say it won't run on Windows 8, but I have it (with limited functionality, admittedly) working as a backup to my backup rig on Win 8.1 Pro. With PT 11, Win 7 or 8.1 are good, but AVID advises strongly against trying Windows 10 just yet. So do a majority of 3rd party plugin manufacturers.
Make sure you get a 7200-rpm USB external hard drive for this rig. It MIGHT work recording to an SSD system drive, but even if just from a pure safety standpoint, do you want to trust absolutely EVERYTHING to one drive? And if (when) it crashes you lose everything....

I would backup the entire SSD drive into an external traditional drive.

Originally Posted by mesaone

15" 4k screen? Assuming it's 3840x2160, thats a really high PPI and probably not easy to use. Unless you like squinting. I have a 15.6" at FHD resolution on my laptop, and even that makes it a bit finnicky to operate.

I just took a little tour of Dell's storefront, and you can configure one with the SSD and 4k screen. Unfortunately, the only OS you can choose is Windows 10.

Yes, but i would like to take a fhd display AND a SSD.. But it seems impossible.

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by The Weed

What interface are you planning on using and what third party plug-ins? If firewire, you will need to be sure you can get a TI chipset ExpressCard for the laptop.

You can always ask a Dell Rep if you can "downgrade" to 8.1. Or, although it's an extra cost, buy and install 8.1 yourself.

Do get the SSD drive, but be sure to set it up properly with provision and Trim.

And have a backup plan. I highly recommend Macrium Reflect 6 Free. I keep rolling images of my system and audio drives as well as archived images of "ground zero" before programs and other steps along the way and I make images before any update/upgrade/install/install.

While costly, you could purchase a MacBook Pro and run Windows 8.1 on that. Heresy from a Windows guy like me, but I know someone - hi albee - will suggest this.

Cheers,

They don't make a MBP close this as fast as this comp and has thunderbolt 3 USB 3.1 and a touch screen with a 17 hour battery to boot. Plus a MBP is about 1000 dollars more. What would anyone run windows on a MBP when they can buy this. The only reason to buy a MBP is to run osx.

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by mesaone

15" 4k screen? Assuming it's 3840x2160, thats a really high PPI and probably not easy to use. Unless you like squinting. I have a 15.6" at FHD resolution on my laptop, and even that makes it a bit finnicky to operate..

I am not sure how this is handled myself. Is there a mode where the screen doubles pixels or something? A retina display MBP would have the same issue and no one is complaining about it.

[mesaone]

Originally Posted by Brandonx1

I am not sure how this is handled myself. Is there a mode where the screen doubles pixels or something? A retina display MBP would have the same issue and no one is complaining about it.

Windows has Display Scaling, which can be used to increase the size of menus and other GUI elements. But it sometimes makes text look blurry and awful, and does not work with all on-screen elements. If I recall correctly, it doesn't work very well with Pro Tools - but I could be remembering wrong. At any rate, this all depends on the person - some people are happy with smaller high-DPI displays, some not.

I don't know what apple does for their high-DPI displays, but a quick google shows that there are indeed a ton of complaints about their smaller retina displays.

[Cormonauta]

Originally Posted by Brandonx1

They don't make a MBP close this as fast as this comp and has thunderbolt 3 USB 3.1 and a touch screen with a 17 hour battery to boot. Plus a MBP is about 1000 dollars more. What would anyone run windows on a MBP when they can buy this. The only reason to buy a MBP is to run osx.

The 17 hours version is the FHD display with i3 version. On the 4k touch with i7 you get 4-5 hours as i know.

[mesaone]

Originally Posted by Cormonauta

The 17 hours version is the FHD display with i3 version. On the 4k touch with i7 you get 4-5 hours as i know.

When they throw battery life figures around, take it with a heaping tablespoon of salt. You can safely assume that the figure is for a machine that has a strict power policy - low minimum processor state, PCIe link state power management enabled, passive system cooling policy - and not under any significant load.

Real-world battery life will be different, especially since all those things must be disabled as part of the operating system optimization that Pro Tools requires.

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by mesaone

When they throw battery life figures around, take it with a heaping tablespoon of salt. You can safely assume that the figure is for a machine that has a strict power policy - low minimum processor state, PCIe link state power management enabled, passive system cooling policy - and not under any significant load.

Real-world battery life will be different, especially since all those things must be disabled as part of the operating system optimization that Pro Tools requires.

I know but that's still impressive. The skylake processors and pcie ssd help with battery life.

[Brandonx1]

Laptop came today. It's a very fast laptop. It runs Pro Tools very well. I'm actually surprised how fast this thing is. It's insane how far and fast technology moves. I highly recommend the XPS 6700! 4k screen is very nice too.

[chrisdee]

Originally Posted by mesaone

Windows has Display Scaling, which can be used to increase the size of menus and other GUI elements.

True.

However the problem with scaling is that text size increases but not in sync the dialog box size. This sometimes results in text going outside the dialog box frame/boundry and becoming unreadable.

I've dealt with this a couple of times. But instead of scaling i finally got a bigger screen with higher resolution and now happily run scaling at normal size (100%).

Personally for my eyesight i wouldn't buy a 4k screen smaller than 32" inches. For me it becomes hard to read the small text well on smaller 4k screens.