questions about laptops???

[JoshBell]

All my friends that have the mbox (2) both have powerbooks and they said that it was the "way" to go so I looked into a powerbook recently and the thing new was $2500 but I found it for $2100 is the dang thing worth it to pay that kind of dough out? Or would a Dell laptop or something like that work just fine? I mean I can get a P4 2.4 laptop 512megs of ram Combo drive 40 gig hardrive for like $800-900 I mean that is like half the cost mam. So I was wondering some of you PT users that use laptops what do you use and what do you recommend? I will post this in the PC side to too get another opinion.

please let me know because I am going to buy either a mac or pc laptop soon and I need suggestions.

jb

[GregV]

I use a G4 iBook. It doesn't have all of the flexibility of a PowerBook, but it's working GREAT for me.
Disadvantages: The external monitor is a duplicate of the laptop's screen, you can't have split screen. (You can on a PowerBook)
In MY model, the maximum amount of RAM is 640 Meg. (PowerBooks are virtually unlimited) I think the newer iBooks have a higher capacity though.
iBooks have no PCMCIA slots, so you can't use expansion cards like the UADs.

However,
Advantages: It's a MAC... so it'll be a WAY MORE reliable machine than a Dell!!
iBooks are almost half the price of PowerBooks.
The Mac OS is so superior to Windows, you won't believe it 'til you've used it. (I divide my time between Windows and OSX... and I would never use Windows again if given the choice!)

Unless you REALLY NEED the above-listed features on a PowerBook, the iBook is an EXCELLENT option. More affordable... but still a Mac.
As I say, mine's been working GREAT so far.
Currently, my biggest session on PTLE has been 22 tracks of audio with 4 Aux tracks. It didn't crash or lock up once the entire session!

[JoshBell]

thanks for the input man

[alance]

Even my lowly g3 600 can reliably record 10 tracks, sometimes more? Can't wait foe a dp g4. love it. hate windows.

[GORILLA]

All my friends that have the mbox (2) both have powerbooks and they said that it was the "way" to go so I looked into a powerbook recently and the thing new was $2500 but I found it for $2100 is the dang thing worth it to pay that kind of dough out? Or would a Dell laptop or something like that work just fine? I mean I can get a P4 2.4 laptop 512megs of ram Combo drive 40 gig hardrive for like $800-900 I mean that is like half the cost mam. So I was wondering some of you PT users that use laptops what do you use and what do you recommend? I will post this in the PC side to too get another opinion.

please let me know because I am going to buy either a mac or pc laptop soon and I need suggestions.

jb

Right now the best laptops for PTLE are those Centrinos 1.7Ghz'! They SMOKE! And yes, this is from a Mac'ian!

[Shelob9]

I will admit a total bias towards macintoshes and would never actually use a windoze machine for audio production. That said let me say that I will admit that its not a bad idea as long as you've got an AMD procceser. The Pentiums are horid for anything that must be rendered in real time (the same reason windoze gamers prefer AMD over Pentium is why Pentium sucks for audio.) The pentium 4 has a really long pipleline, whci would be a good thing except often it finds itslef with part of the pipeline done with its calculations long before the rest fo the pipleline has. To make up for this it guesses the next calculation that it has to make is. If it guesses wrong (which is often is) it slows the whole processes down.
Minus all the technical gargon, pentium is a really bad choice for audio production, especially the stripped version (Pentium-M) that gets put in centrino machines (centrino marketing+slower pentium+wireless card.) Its not my mac bias saying this (hell I'm considerig building a windoze based synth to slave to PT on my mac) but beacuse the AMD XP chips are a way better way to go. Of course it starts to get more expensive pretty qucik to the point were you might as well buy a a mac.

I used to have a 500mHz g3 ibook that got pretty decent performance in Reason and Pro Tools. I'd put that up against a Pentium with a way higher GHZ measurment any day.

If money is an issue and portability is not get a DP 867MHz G4 desktop for a little more then you want to spend on the dell laptop. It will blow it away. If portability is the issue (with the bsu powered mBox you WILL have to plug into AC power if you want to run the system for longer then it will take you to tune up and get your mic placement right) but the lightwieghtness is still nice (miss my iBook.)


Hope this helps

[Cliffy_Boy]

Currently, my biggest session on PTLE has been 22 tracks of audio with 4 Aux tracks. It didn't crash or lock up once the entire session!

I use a Toshiba 1.7gHZ with 512M and get 32 tracks with loads of plug-ins.

I'm presently setting up a Powermac 2x2.5 G5 with 2G Ram and can't wait to compare that to my cheap Dell 3.06gHz and 1G.

But with all PC based machines - you roll the dice and need to know alot about the system to get it to work. A Mac will just work. My G5 cost 3x as much as my Dell.

[JFreak]

mac holds its value better than pc hardware, so the cost might not be so much of an issue - you can sell it after 2 years of use and still get decent money from it, which is not the case with pc laptops.

i suggest you buy a 15" powerbook which is the cheapest apple laptop with pcmcia card slot.

[dubs]

Actually you CAN have split screen (extended desktop) on a ibook.
Go here: http://macparts.de/ibook/

I recently switched from pC to mac when I bought the new ibook g4 1 GHZ with 768 meg ram.
Yep can have upt o 1.25ghz RAm in it.
after using pc for a few years I go fed up trying to tweak the pc to work better and trying to solve issues with it recording. So I bought he mac and I love it. You plug your stuff in, and it works every time. Plus it seems to handle multitasking ALOT smoother too.

I won;t go back.