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I'm going to upgrade soon and purchase a new machine. The last one I bought was a P III with a lot of RAM and Win XP from HP. I'm wondering is there anywhere you can get Laptops built specifically with Music Production in mind? Any web links are appreciated, bearing in my I'm in Ireland so US stores mightn't be much help to me.

Comments

anonymous Tue, 03/22/2005 - 16:26

pro laptops

well, you brought this subject just in time:) thank you!

I need to buy one too and spent a lot of time looking for something like that.

the best that I found and REALLY for musicians is:

http://www.digitalaudiowave.com

they do everything for you, optimization and so on, even connect all your gear!
but it's not cheap too:)

Zager sounds really good and I think price/quality is the best right now on the market.
They have even pentium 4 3.8 ! which i didn't find anywere else. and price is better than digitalaudiowave but no optimization so it's just a very good laptop (but actually that's what you need right?:)

The only thing is that DAW offers better connectivity...more Firewire ports and USB2 ports and of course optimization...
By the way they are all only PC!
if anybody knows better deals I really would like to know, cause tired surf the net looking for something better:)

and another question: if there is something like that for MAC
thank you,
val hill

iznogood Wed, 03/23/2005 - 12:06

the best optimized for music production:

http://

strap on an rme cardbus and multiface or a magma pci-chassis and it doesn't get any better.....

if you consider the less time spend on setting up this will actually be cheaper than a windows computer!

and you can surf the internet too... without worrying

anonymous Wed, 03/23/2005 - 14:13

I tried to check that link and it doesn't work it says:

"Sorry.For security and privacy reasons, your session has timed out.
To go back to the Apple Store, please click on the link below."
thanks:) may be I will:)

anyway, I'm still thinking Mac or PC, but know for sure that apple will cost me much more and don't think it'll run quicker:)

compare the best Apple laptop and Sager NP7620-V P4 3.6GHz (or even 3.8 GHz) and you'll see that I'm right:)

digitalaudiowave.com is much more expensive and close to Apple in price because of all that optimization for musicians, I believe.

anonymous Thu, 03/24/2005 - 06:13

actually, the speed of a processor in an apple machine can't be compared to one in a pc. if you have a 1.5 G4 and a 1.5 Pentium chip, the apple chip actually runs faster. this is because of the architecture that apple chips are built on. don't ask me to go into the science of this cause i'd only start BSting

anonymous Thu, 03/24/2005 - 07:48

paulybear wrote: actually, the speed of a processor in an apple machine can't be compared to one in a pc. if you have a 1.5 G4 and a 1.5 Pentium chip, the apple chip actually runs faster. this is because of the architecture that apple chips are built on. don't ask me to go into the science of this cause i'd only start BSting

Usually a 3/5 ratio will give you kind of an idea of actual relative cpu speed between the two architectures. i.e. a PC cpu running at 3GHz is round about equivalent to an Apple cpu running at 1.8GHz.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

anonymous Thu, 03/24/2005 - 10:51

Platform wars.... sheesh

Its fine to have a preference and all but it really is apples and oranges. I use both platforms and both have their strengths and weaknesses. Both are stable audio platforms as well (which wasnt the case with windows, pre-xp).

Sorry iznogood, but the ratio of price to performance is a factor for some people (myself included). Times have changed and a good solid (less expensive) wintel machine is just as reliable as g5 powermac running os x. The wintel machine is faster at some things than the g5 and vice versa.

My advice is to go with the platform you are most comfortable with.

anonymous Thu, 03/24/2005 - 19:01

to buy or not to buy:)

lucidwaves is absolutely right.
I don't wanna argue with anybody what is better. the best is in the middle:) to have both (if you have enough $) and enjoy it ...if you can:)

May be I'll buy Mac one day and will love it to death:) but the probelm is that to buy best apple right now with monitor will cost $4000 f... $:)
for that price I'll buy one of the best (not just queckest, I like Mercedes too:) Sager LAPTOP (around $2300) + will have enough money to buy desktop pc which will do not bad job too:)
so why the hell I have to spend $4000 ?:) just because someone said that it's the best?:) I'm working on my friend's pc right now which is complitely crap in comparing to what i'm going to buy and it's still doing good job!:)

+ I have plenty of software for PC:)

I'v been doing research for almost 2 weeks now comparing price and quality ....don't know even why I'm still thinking about apple...I think just because instead of writing music I spend too much time at forums listening to some die hard professionals :)

anyway thanks for your replies and help!

anonymous Tue, 03/29/2005 - 12:25

The G5's are optimal for audio/video processing. While the g5 processor is a 64 bit processor as opposed to the consumer grade intels that are still 32 bit, the fact is most audio software and plugins are not coded for 64 bit functions. THe main advantage the G5's have is that they are dual processor, which means more physical resources for DSP and real-time operations. If the consumer P4's were more readily available in dual-processor configs, the results would be perceptually the same (although benchmarking may yield a slight advantage to the G5). I am by no means MAC bashing, however, you take away the second processor and you are on a level playing field with a higher clock speed P4. I'm still gonna buy one and cross-grade, though! :D