Over the Christmas holidays I’m gonna be working my ass off to save up lots of money for a new laptop. I’m going to use it for mainly music production in FL Studio and as a part of my home studio that I’ll be building bit-by-bit for home mastering as well. I’ll also be using it for DJing when I get to performing my own tracks.
I was thinking of getting a macbook pro because I know they’re really quality and reliable, and dual booting the mac os and windows 7, so I can use FL Studio, and just because I’m more used to windows and like it =)
But would it be better to just get a normal pc laptop if I’m going to use windows? Or would it still be better yet to just not dual boot the macbook and switch DAW’s?
I don’t want any ableton fanatics automatically saying that I should ‘just use ableton anyway.’ I legitimately an unbiased opinion on which of the 3 options will give me the best performance for music production and performance.
a) Macbook Pro with Windows
b) Higher-end pc laptop with Windows
c) Macbook Pro with MAC OS requiring switching DAW’s.
Yeah that actually sounds alright. I’d prefer to get a windows laptop but with the experience I’ve had with the one I’ve got now it’s quite off-putting. I suppose that’s kinda unfair to say about all pc laptops though coz this is a chinese cheap piece of crap that I’m on now, but I do still see glitches in higher performance windows computers all the time. My gf has an expensive sony vaio that has a really annoying sound and video glitch, and my old pc I built brand new and it was very powerful for it’s time and parts started dying within a year.
That’s definitely some good credentials for ASUS then. I’ll definitely have a look into getting one of them, really liking the fact that you haven’t had them crash before, that’s most important to me at the moment. =)
i am using a toshiba quad core a665 it has served me well and also taken a serious beating… i was able to run 71 tracks of ableton on that beast and best of all i got it for 600
If you like windows then i dont see the point of paying the apple premium. Use that to get a better windows PC. Also look at HP’s range. I’ve got a HP elitebook 8440p for work and it’s solidly built and has not crashed so far and it’s already taken a beating as i go to some very dusty work areas etc so it’s sturdy!!
Just remember to remove the bloatware you get on most laptops these days and stop any unnecessary services and it will be fine.
Yeah I talked to my friend who’s really good with this stuff too. I told him that I was keen to get an ASUS laptop because of KeyWee’s recommendation. He said it’s a good idea. When he was about to buy a new laptop he did a lot of research and asked a lot of professionals for their opinion and they all pointed to ASUS. Which is cool. Apparently there’s some table of reliability for different laptop brands out there and ASUS is in #1 position with apparently only a 10% chance of malfunction over a 5 year period. This emachines laptop I’m on now has fucked up more time than I can count already and it’s been half a year.
My mate bought one of the top of the line ASUS laptops with one of his scholaships and it’s a beast. Definitely going to get an ASUS and I looked at prices for the N61JV and they are very affordable for me. I also won’t be doing any too intensive gaming on them either. Only when my flatmates want to have a games night really. Gonna ask around a bit more about Asus laptops closer to the time when I’m going to get one and if nothing else suits me better - N61JV it is. =)
Depending the ASUS retailler you choose, some can give you the 1-year accidental damage warranty… which is a sick advantage. http://campuslife.asus.com/index/warranty-2/
Here BestBuy, Future-Shop and alike CAN’T and DON’T give this warranty.
Only a really few amount of retailler can give it, ask them BEFORE… unless… well you’re still covered a standard 2 year waranty.
Dont discount Dell - I’ve had one for the past two years and it’s still solid as a rock. Never crashed on me while running Traktor, and I get a ridiculous latency with my S4 - about 7.6ms, with no problems what so ever.
But at the end of the day, almost anything will be better than your old laptop. Just dont buy a HP!
I’ve not known a dell that hasn’t given it’s owner hell. Woah that rhymes. Well it’s true. There’s no way I’d get a dell, even if they have improved on what they used to make before people realised they were completely unreliable and stopped buying them. Pretty set on an ASUS =) I want a laptop that won’t crash AT ALL lol.
+1 on that. I’ve had my Dell XPS 17 for over 5 years and have run Traktor since the very beginning and it’s never given my one second of problems. I run TP2 w/ an S4 and I’m about to put a Maschine on it. I even plays games and use it as my regular laptop to surf the web. I am careful and just take good care of it. If you take good care of your laptop it doesn’t matter what manufacturer you go with. It will last a long time. Lastly, don’t believe the whole mac vs PC bs debate. It’s a waste of time and forum posts. Get what you are most comfortable using.
I vote for option C, but recommend either Logic or Pro Tools over Ableton for reasons I’ve outlined elsewhere (search my username in conjunction with any relevant phrase).
But if you want to keep using FL Studio…you can kinda get more for your money with a high-end audio-centric PC maker like Rain (http://raincomputers.com/). I’d still suggest switching away from FL Studio in the long run if you’re making a legit attempt at production, but you don’t have to. On Windows, I’d recommend Pro Tools over everything else including Ableton. But apparently I’m weird. I just don’t like Ableton for production; Ableton for performance is another story.
it has served me well and also taken a serious beating… i was able to run 71 tracks of ableton on that beast and best of all i got it for 600