HP Beats with Traktor Scratch Pro 2
Do any of you have experience with the HP Beats laptop (Hewlett Packard Pavilion dm4-3090se)? I know the Beats branding doesn’t make it a better laptop for music, but price and specs seem pretty decent on this machine.
You should also look into the Dell XPS 15. I got one for myself this year at christmas and love it. Engadget.com has some great reviews for laptops and have reviewed both the HP pavilion and the Dell XPS.
I have an HP with Beats Audio. Had a few hassles getting all the audio working properly. But Ive been gigging with it for around 4 months now. Seems stable.
I cant recall the issues I had but I think not using beatsaudio helped a lot.
Dell XPS are known to not be the greatest at handling real time audio, and I know quite few people have had issues w/ the HP Envy w/ Beats Audio as well but I guess thats not exactly the same as what you are looking at
They’re fine. I taught a intro to DJ’ing class for a while and the kids that brought their “beats” laptops always seemed to have issues out of the box. Granted, they were also their daily computers. After some optimization they ran without issues. The specs are more than capable.
I personally thought they were built rather cheaply and did not like the high gloss finish/branding. It scratches easily and the screen was a bit wobbly for my tastes. If you’re going after durability, this is not the laptop for you.
If you’re willing to drop $800, check out the Dell Precision M4400. I loved mine when I had it - they are built like tanks, run very cool, and have some of the nicest screens I’ve ever seen on a laptop. Very professional looking, too.
Well, having a big beats logo glowing on the back of your laptop is a good way to ensure you look like a tool while DJing. Not to mention already poor HP quality.
I use an HP DV7 with Beats Audio and it is gash. The laptop is spot on so i just installed ASIO and works perfectly now
Thanks for the info. I don’t particularly like the big beats logo on the back but the red back-lit keyboard sounds pretty cool. I was also looking at the Rain laptops. They just announced a new “A2” that looks interesting: http://raincomputers.com/products/livebook-a2/
$1599 for a horrible looking laptop with vents all over it, no backlit keyboard and specs than can be found on any corner shop ?
Those “Rain” laptops look like basic $400 OEM laptops at a highly inflated prices due to marketing blurb .. you would be better getting an IBM thinkpad and customizing the windows install to pieces. I can’t see ANYTHING that makes them better for music production (correct me if i’m wrong).
$1799 would get you a 15’ macbook pro, with OSX backlit keyboard, Thunderbolt, no vents all over the place and stability out of the box and easy to get serviced (I don’t know if Rain have shops anywhere you can drop it in or provide pick up) - granted not everyone wants a mac but mainly due to the price.
Doesn’t look very appealing 
That’s even worse than the HP and like deevey said I could find that identical laptop for $400.
If you want a proper laptop and that’s your budget just get a mac, and I’m not say that as an apple/osx fanboy it’s just PC laptops are built like total crap these days. I was anti-mac for years but nobody makes PC laptops that come close the macbook pro build quality anymore. Just about everything else is creaky cheap plastic junk (just pick 90% of laptops up by a corner and watch them flex or feel the screen hinges).
If you want a PC a top end lenovo thinkpad might be your best bet.
Yeap Meant Lenovo (not IBM) .. best of the Non-apples out there IMHO, they do handle a beating don’t creak quite as much as others and are decently specced for the money - they won’t win any beauty contests but are built as reliable business use machines.
Everything out there IS creaky plastic with the exception perhaps of the Asus Zenbook or Samsung Series 7 which are about on par spec wise but cost the same as a macbook.
My Acer is quite well built, and i picked it up for a song (around 400 pounds), with 4Gb of Ram and a i5 quad its a friggin flying machine, when optimised!
I’d rock a panasonic toughbook any day.
But I currently use a cheapie HP machine because taking £1500 worth of laptop into a place where eventually it will get broken is beyond my comprehention.
I agree they aren’t the best looking laptops. I have never used a mac before so I am not familiar how to install, troubleshoot, etc. Do macs handle drivers better?
Whats a driver again? … kidding but most stuff just “works” on a mac and there is no real troubleshooting involved, no antivirus, no needing to create dual boot partitions, no need to stop browsing your favorite porn sites etc… I’m not gonna turn this into a mac vs PC thing, if you are comfortable with windows maybe better off sticking with it.
Bulletproof machines as well (literally) … priced as such though 
What kind of places ? (intrigued)
+1. That’s a large part of what factored into my decision to get my MBP. They’re not indestructable, but they’re in another league compared to most PC laptops out there. There are two main factors; 1) The hinge on the MBP runs about 80% of the length of the laptop which provides much better support than the 4 inches or so that most PC manufacturers use for the hinge and 2) there is very little plastic used for the chassis. In fact, the only plastic that’s even exposed on the unit is the cover for the hinge and the keyboard. Then again, you could always go with the Dell Macbook Pro (Computers, Monitors & Technology Solutions | Dell USA) lol. I had a good chuckle at that redesign.
^haha plastic dell macbook pro wannabe
inb4 nem0nic to tell us all why plastic is a great product design material and as good as solid metal
Check out Acer Aspire S or Asus Zenbook lines if you like the Macbook look.