New PC Laptop for Kontrol S4
hey all…
so i have done every possible thing to get my laptop to get my S4 to work flawlessly without any dropouts/crackling etc. I have come to the conclusion that i need to upgrade my laptop.
I am looking at getting a dell XPS1645 or the Dell Studio XPS
Does anyone on these forums currently own one of these laptops and can they give me any feedback as to if they perform well without any drop outs and a MAX latency of 9ms?
Im using the Toshiba Satelite that has been optimized and it works like a champ. I have only had it mess up twice and that was because of the HDD protection. I turned it of and no problems. It is an i7 processor with 6 gig of ram and a 17" screen
Look into the samsung 7 series, just bought one for my dad for $800 from bestbuy and now I want one myself.
Its an extremely sleek, overpowered laptop, it also has an antiglaire screen which is always a plus…especially when macbook anti glare screens cost an extra 200.
The only PC laptop I’d even consider would be a Lenovo Thinkpad.
why a lenovo thinkpad?
Is there any reason behind this or are u just a mac guy??
Brand names dont really have anything todo with a PC…its more about the guts inside the laptop that matter…ie manufacture of the hardware…ie western digital, seagate. etc
I like the build quality of the Thinkpads and they are simple to upgrade/work on.
My friend DJs and he swears by them. He has several x40s with cloned hard drives. He’s all about portability and having several backups.
I’m actually in the market for a new laptop myself. I’m debating on a Thinkpad x120 or waiting it out for a new unibody MBP.
I’m running a 5 year old Macbook right now and its flat out beat. It put it through hell…time for an upgrade.
ah okay i will take a look at them.
I can get a really good deal on an Asus G73 which is a little bit overkill for just DJing but i just cant justify spending 1800 on a MBP when i can get the Asus G73 for 1/2 the price and has 10X the guts of a MBP
I’m looking a 13" MBP for around 1200ish…depending on how I build it.
I’m not really anti-PC or pro-mac…I can spin and get by with whatever. I just really like OSX and the build quality of Mac notebooks. I also run Windows 7 so I have the best of both worlds.
Thats why I’m a big fan of the Thinkpads. They are crazy durable. I prefer a smaller laptop so I’ve also been browsing the x40s. They can be had for 300-400 running Windows Vista. You drop in a bigger HD, upgrade the RAM and you’re set.
yeah the Asus G73 is a 17" with an all rubber finish around it, backlit keyboard yadda yadda yadda.
Since i use 2 decks plus 2 track decks i like having the bigger screen.
I would jump on a MBP in a second but heck they are so dang expensive
the specs on the Asus G73 are
· Intel Core i7-720QM(1.6GHz/2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB L3 )
· 12GB PC3-1066 RAM 1333MHz DDR3(Max 16GB)
· 17.3-inch 1080p (1920x1080) display with LED backlighting
· ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 graphics card
· 1TB 7200RPM (2x 500GB) hard drives
· Atheros AR9285 802.11n Wireless LAN adapter
· Built-in Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
· 8X DVD±RW Super Multi drive with blue-ray
· 2.0MP smart webcam
· Backlit keyboard and number pad
all for 900 bucks
If i could find a MBP that came even close to that in specs for 1000 i would jump on it in a second.
I plan on using my lappy for production as well.
My current laptop
AMD Turion dual core
4gigs ram
and the HD in it is only 5400 rpm.
I plan on swapping out one of the 500gig HDs for a 120gig SSD
Yeah it all depends on personal preference and what you’re using it for. That’s a lot of beef for only $900.
I’ve never really heard anything bad about Asus notebooks. I’m all about reliability. I’ve had two Dells crap out on me in the past and then I went Mac because of the student discount at the time. I’m not against going back to a PC, but it might be difficult to make the switch.
Check out Alien Ware!!! My buddy is using one right now and this thing is solid!!! Looks amazing and can handle huge processor draw! We ran multiple software programs and live video mix through it without a hickup for 3.5 hours. Im convinced!
Why not a little MacBook ? At least you’re sure everything will run smoothly with the S4, whatever model you get.
I have a 2007 MacBook Black and guess, what, Traktor and the S4 still run perfectly ! I only see start seeing perf issues when using a the Digital Vynil System with the S4 and Traktor 2.x Scratch.
Macs have solid OS and drivers and pretty good hardware, so no bugs and things are well optimized in terms of perfs.
Note : I’m definitely in the pro-Mac camp, I admit 
I’m glad you admit it because its actually not the mac OS at all that causes traktor to run smoothly.
Its the fact that NI optimized the software for the mac OS first, but now they are about equal, with that I mean that similar hardware will run it at equal performance.
I have a 4 year old sony vaio with probably lower specs than your macbook and I haven’t had a hickup or glitch ever since about 3 updates ago.
Honestly, anything, weather mac or windows, with a dual core processor and 4gb or ram will run traktor fine…if you want to put ableton, vsts, and maschine ontop of traktor then you should really invest.
I can vouch for this. My 4 year old thinkpad doesn’t even have a core 2 duo and it runs tp2 perfectly. I’ve also dropped it before (by accident!) and alcohol’s been through it (stupid girls), and it still runs without problems haha.
Where are you getting that for 900 bucks?
I’ve seen them around refurbed with half the RAM, and less a 500gb hard drive for 900, but not fully spec’d new or refurbed for anywhere near that. There have also been a laundry list of reported issues with this machine, however, most seem to be from guys pushing it to the brink for its intended use of gaming.
Well I am a total PC fanboy. I have been on PCs forever.
Macs are easy to use and easy to operate for people that have little to no experience with Computers. The whole idea of a mac is “It just works” Which may be fine for the average person but i like to be able to mod the shit out of my computers…thats also why i use Traktor over Serato. If i dont like something about my OS i can change it to however i want to. Same as Traktor Vs Serato.
As my DJ’ing has become more evolved and i am starting to get more regular gigs i wanted to have a machine that i can dedicate to JUST DJing/Production.
I have no problem getting a mac for this…but come on…they really are overpriced laptops, which is fine for people who dont know how computers work or operate and just want a stable machine to do whatever they want. BUT coming from a computer background…i know i can trouble shoot 99% of the problems and make it do exactly what i want it to do.
As for where i am getting the G73 it is through a friend of mine who got it as a gift and really doesnt game at all and i made a deal for 900 bucks plus a few older production tools that i never use and have since been sitting collecting dust for the last year or so.
Yeah i know its over kill for just Traktor, but i run ableton vsts, and sometimes i do Video DJing for weddings and such here and there, but since i have jumped head into EDM DJing my friends have taken over the wedding/(what i consider boring DJing)
“It just works”, doesn’t just apply to the average person… This comment suggests that you have to be a lay man, and unable to use a computer in order to want to plug something in and have it function from go.
There are plenty of intelligent, computer minded folk, who can write 10 different high level program languages while sleeping, who utilize a Macintosh, and more specifically OSX, who enjoy plugging things in and having them “just work”. They would know. These are some of the same people that write the drivers to make it “just work”. And to suggest that you can’t change anything about OSX, implies that you know very little about it.
But thanks for at least telling us you are a fanboy, without anyone having to call you out on it first.
This argument is so tired. About as tired as Traktor vs. Serato. It’s not the best option because YOU use it, and the sooner you dump this notion, the better off you will be.
Maybe you should read the rest of his argument rather than quoting 1/4 of it.
Simple fact of the matter is, nowadays “It Just works” is a dumb marketing ploy by apple that gets grandma and grandpa’s to spend more of their retirement check on computers more expensive than their PC counterpart that they are still gonna have to learn to operate anyways. Also, being on the road to a career in film, all I do is play on macs. I hate them. All their nice “features” always get in the way. While some things may be nice for the casual user, it’s a pain in the ass for anyone else.
Fact is, nowadays especially in windows 7 a lot of things “Just work” and there is very little configuring your average person is gonna have to do to run basic computer functions on either platform.
I’m speechless.
Particularly as you only quote 1/4 of my argument, and try to tell me that I argued a marketing campaign, that they never advertised and somehow are salty about.
Just because you are using a Mac on your “road to career in film”, doesn’t mean you know what you are talking about, made obvious by your post. He argued that you lack flexibility in an OS he knows nothing about, and then suggested, that if you use OSX or a MBP or any other iteration of an Apple product, that you “don’t know how computers work or operate”, or that since I use a Mac, I have “little to no experience with computers”.
I never said EVER ONCE, that you couldn’t do the same things on a Win7, or ANY OTHER windows machine for that matter. I stated that, just because you use an Apple product, doesn’t mean that you are unable to operate a computer, as he suggested. Just because I have a MBP, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to instantiate an object in Java, C#, C++, or Python, in the EXACT SAME MANNER I WOULD, were I using a “PC”, or do something simple like modifying my hosts file to block ads in my browser, or even something even more simple such as utilizing a traceroute.
But you’re too busy putting words in my mouth to understand, so don’t worry about it 