Powerful Laptop For Protools 9

[spuxxxx]

Hey there all,

Do any users out there currently have a working setup of PT9 on a portable laptop?

If so what recommendations could you make to ensure the hardware is performing at its best for you?

Currently besides the few 'qualified' Windows-based laptops that are suggested on the avid site there is little information about which new multi-core laptops (intel i series) work well.

Besides the Macbook Pro, does anyone have experience with the Lenovo Thinkpads? T420 /T520. I hear they perform well and have balanced inputs.

[promixr]

I would seriously consider Rain Computers laptops, we have many successful Pro Tools installs involving these:

http://imsproav.com/main/Laptops.html

The two main reasons-

a) they 'pre-tweak' Windows so that it is optimized for digital audio.

b) They actually own and support Pro Tools systems. Try to ask Lenovo anything at all about Pro Tools ; )

Feel free to contact me about customization options or with any other questions about Rain.

[Herkimer]

Believe it or not, I've been running PT9.0.2 using ASIO4ALL and my iLok on an i5 Acer Aspire Timelinex 1830T-3721. I even run the session from a 4GB flash card.

Granted, I'm not recording, only editing. My sesssions are 12-15 tracks. Just today I did elastic audio correction on 8 drums tracks grouped. The buffer was set to 256.

I started using a Mbox Micro but quickly gave in to the onboard sound with ASIO4All. It's cleaner when I'm sitting on a train.

I have NOT run into buffer errors or hard drive problems yet. I can't speak to how this setup works for recording, though.

[KroNEe]

I use a Asus G51JX that is a little dated now, but runs real good right out of the box. i7, M360 video with 1 GB video ram, 4 GB of memory stock, windows7 home premium. HDMI out. All for $1200 new over a year ago. I am sure a used one can be found much cheaper. And the newer model would have a Sandy Bridge CPU I would think. Not a bad price for all of that. PT 9 runs good for me. I keep a clean install for pro tools and use a esata dock when I boot for PT. I also use it for watching movies and web surfing on the stock internal drive. So it's multi purpose for me, I have a new Asus P8P67 Deluxe with a Sandy Bridge K2600 unlocked CPU with 8 gigs of Kingston memory. Things a beast let me tell you, I have to try real hard to get PT to choke. But the laptop will record 18 tracks no problem. Even on the OS drive, though I would advise against that. A FireWire external or if it's going to be just for PT use the internal and get a esata external. Great for tracking remote for me. I am sure it is not Avid approved so beware.

[feliponk]

HP 8540w Mobile Workstation, i7 anc 12GB Ram, a great system.

[19 frets]

Originally Posted by feliponk

HP 8540w Mobile Workstation, i7 anc 12GB Ram, a great system.

+1 I have a friend that has one and DPC Latency showed some really nice numbers for a laptop. Seems like it would work really well as a portable DAW machine. I am saving for one now.