As my (not so) trusty old Macbook is showing more and more trouble keeping a stable USB connection i am now looking for a new computer.
As the Macbook line is not so compelling i am seriously thinking about choosing a Lenovo Thinkpad instead.
It is delivered with Windows 7 Pro. Should i upgrade to Windows 8?
All my DJ fellas are joking that i’m going to have a lot of trouble. I never DJ’ed on Windows and have had OSX the last 10 years. The Windows computer is going to be dedicated to DJ’ing as my Macbook works fine for daily use.
I can’t comment on the actual laptop choice itself, but as for upgrading to Windows 8 I would say it is well worth it- or even finding a laptop that comes loaded with it from the outset.
I brought a windows 8 Acer laptop last year for Traktor Scratch use and not had a single issue in 6 months of hard use.
For me though the best thing about windows 8 is the boot-up speed. On my laptop you press the power button and the login screen appears in a couple of seconds, I type the password in and the Win8 home screen is there in another couple of seconds.
If there are no updates to configure it will go from pressing the power button to having Traktor open in around 10-15 seconds. Obviously this will also be dependent on system specs (mine’s an i5 with 6gb Ram) but this boot-up time still amazes me every time ( but then I’m easily pleased… ).
I would take Win8 over 7 though for that reason alone!
Mine is an i5 with 8gig. I will check if there is any issues with Win8 with my computers hardware before a upgrade. But i don’t suspect it. The thinkpads is as far as i can read very strong built machines with good hardware specs/manufacturers so there are probably drivers for win8.
Have you upgraded to win 8.1?
Yeah I should have pointed that out- I upgraded to 8.1 shortly after I got the laptop (mainly to get the ‘start menu’ button back but in reality I’ve hardly used it), but can’t say I’ve noticed any other differences between 8 & 8.1!
i had audio problems with crackling while using traktor. also USB 2.0/3.0 drivers sometimes act weird with 8. maybe 8.1 fixed some of these issues, but i still hated Windows 8. Windows 7 is great though. I woulda recommended a Laptop with win7 anyday, but i woulda stayed away from 8.
Even without just DJing, I hated 8 and I hated my laptop. it was an Asus n56VJ. it was dedicated to DJing, but i would surf/digital crate dig for tracks on it and the wifi would cut out every hour. it was a known issue with windows 8 and the asus drivers.
all in all, i hated windows 8. but would recommend 7 any day.
Also the trackpads on a macbook pro are by far the best trackpads in the biz… and when Im DJing and selecting tracks in traktor, the last thing i wanna do is fumble around with a BullshXt trackpad.
ALSO… Windows allows you to postpone a restart sometimes after some updates have installed… well sometimes you’ll get a pop up saying ‘windows is restarting in 15 min’ and you have no choice to postpone. my heart dropped when that happened during a gig. thank god i had my ipod as back up for the 15 minutes it took for windows 8 to reboot back again.
In life… you get what you pay for. Yes i know Windows PCs are a third of the price of a brand new MBP, but in the end… you get what you pay for. trust me.
That is some very good advice. I will try and contact NI and hear if they have any issues with the Sound drivers on Windows 8.1. I use three different soundcards: NI Audio10, DJM900 og CDJ2000 so it is fairly easy to pin point if i would have any problems. For now i stick to Win7.
Acutally by now i have played around with the Thinkpad and it seems as a very nice piece of gear. There is no cut outs and it seems rockstable.
Yes the Macbook Trackpad is great. I find the Thinkpad Trackpad good also. There is an extra “trackbutton” (i don’t know if you are familiar with thinkpads). I Configured that for scrolling only. Lenovos drivers include the “two finger gestures” known from OSX. So i can scroll and zoom with two fingers on the normal trackpad.
Actually that specific function you can disable. That is one of the points i want to test before a first gig. And that is why i am playing around with the thinkpad. Browsing and cratedigging a bit Now the box says: You need to reboot. Do you want to do it now? In xx minutes or do you do it manually yourself. That’s about the same as my Macbook says.
Actually this Thinkpad is more expensive out-of-store than a Macbook 13" here in DK. I recieved a very good offer from a company that bought several hundreds for their staff and that is why i only paid a small piece of the price.
For stability: I found out that Lenovo actually made an original kit to remove the optical drive and put in an hdd instead. Also they made it possible to make a Raid.
That means that i have to identical harddrives in my computer. If one should fail the computer automatically shifts to the other drive - without any interruptions. That seems to be a very good feature for DJ use where the bass is know to fuck up harddrives.
I use Lenovo Ideapad Z580 with Windows 8.1. Initially I had some issues but after the 8.1 update and a few updates from NI it works flawlessly.
I absolutely got what I paid for, £400 worth of hardware. I didn’t, say, pay £1200 for £500 worth of hardware though, and apparently that means I’m not a professional.
I haven’t had any of the above issues on my Windows 8/8.1 laptop- in fact I’ve had no issues what so ever, it’s great.
It cost me £450 new (i5 with 6gb RAM) so it’s not a top of the range machine either.
My only gripe is the layout of Win8 compared with earlier versions (it’s more tablet-esque), but as I don’t use my laptop for anything other than Traktor/Engine and other music related stuff I can’t say it’s been an issue.
Best Windows laptop i’ve used so far; DELL Vostro 3560. i7 quad core, 8gb RAM.
Has 1920x1080 screen resolution and flies along effortlessly under heavy loads.
Check out these awesome DPC specs …
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21843[/ATTACH]
best i’ve seen after testings dozens of different laptops over the years.
Not too expensive …
All USB3 ports but reverts to USB2 by simply uninstalling USB3 drivers. Work great …
It’s twice the size of a MBP with half the battery life and 1/4 the screen resolution. You got exactly what you paid for - there’s no reason to be ignorant though.
never once did i say DJs without macs arent pros. but if you feel that way, then thats insecurity on your own end.
Its nice to see alot of people having success on windows laptops. thats fine. but the same ammount of Mac book fans that are out there, you have Windows trolls claiming they are ‘smarter’ for spending less. Whatever makes you happy is fine. I love my Mac and will never go back to Windows unless 8 is totally revamped.
Quick question do you have windows 7 or 8? I have a new alienware with all 3.0 and windows 7 and want to convert them to 2.0 so that NI interfaces will play nice. I’ve heard it is a problem with dell motherboards on another thread and that converting them doesn’t help with things like the Kontrol products.
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