By high street stuff I meant brands like Advent, Packard Bell etc. Apple laptops are fine for recording but you might want to get an external drive for it as I don't think any of the models support 2 internal drives. Get Applecare warranty to make sure your covered in terms of hardware failure.
Things like memory and harddrives aren't that important at the time of purchase as these parts are simple and cheap tp upgrade anyway.
Remember as well that you need to think in terms of all three things, the laptop, the audio interface and the software. Some audio interfaces have specific problems with certain firewire chipsets for example. For a happy life you need to be certain all 3 things will play nicely with each other.
Personally unless I wanted Logic I would plum for a Windows laptop. I'm not knocking Apple, I use one running Protools in my home studio but their laptop designs always put aesthetics before practicality. When it works it's great but when they go wrong they are a complete pain in the arse to fix.
Am I right in thinking that they're all most likely made in the same factories just with mild differences in spec and outer cladding?Originally Posted by Danny1969
You're with stupid. ▲
Yeah a lot of them are based on Medion, Twinhead and other chassis. The same laptop could then be an Advent, a Novatech or a Fujitsu.
The Tier one brands like Dell, HP etc use Compal, Quanta and a few others to build all their models. I can't remember who was building the Macbooks, maybe Advantech. It's all subbed out as manufacturing startup must be huge
Thanks Danny1969! I'm swaying more and more to an apple laptop now. In terms of software and hardware, if I ever did get a mac I would get an apogee duet as a soundcard. Its a firewire and I know it works well with a mac. Also, if I did get a mac, I would get apple care because I know how hit and miss computers can be sometimes.
With regards to a windows laptop, I think vista has been a big stain on Microsofts reputation. No one really has made a good case for a windows laptop. Windows 7, by the reviews I have read, is not looking too good. But yet again, Windows 7 isn't fully out yet.
Anyway, if anyone else has a good laptop rig they want to tell me me about, don't hold back.
One side note, why is firewire so good? Why is it better then USB?
Really ? I thought collective wisdom was that they'd fixed most of the warts from Vista.
It isn't really. But Mac heads will tell you it is. USB 2.0 is marginally slower that FW400, but USB is useful for a lot more things (in that you can have diect conneected and hub connected devices). If you are recording multiple (i.e. a lot more than 2) channels and very high sample rates a FW400 interface will give you a small benefit over USB 2.0.One side note, why is firewire so good? Why is it better then USB?
FW800 is a bit of a Apple abberation, not an industry standard.
Firewire is more "reliable" in communications terms. There's a speed benefit in that USB is quoted as a maximum burst speed, whereas Firewire can run at its rated speed constantly.
I think.
You're with stupid. ▲
Must it be a laptop? Just, if you're going to use it at home I'd advise a MacMini. It's a very good machine, put 4 gig ram into it and it's extremely powerful. It would cost about £500.
It's small enough and light enough to carry about should you want to cahnge where you use it.
Drawbacks: You get only the computer so you need to provide screen, keyboard etc. In that sense it's better treated as non-portable. It will connect up to just about any peripheral though.
I'm very pleased with mine, tiny footprint and works very well. It has a firewire port so would work very well with Logic and apogee.
Just a thought along the lines of, if you plan to leave it in one place it would do the same job as a laptop but at less cost.
Never knowingly sinking a thread
So you've got intimate with the putty knives and "gone in" have you ? Straightforward ?
Wimpy confession:I ended up taking it to a guy I know who sets up computers and he did it for me. Cash was exchanged. He reckons it's not an easy task. He seemed not keen so I crossed his hand with silver. I copped out.
On the upside, it works fine so the guy managed to do it.
Never knowingly sinking a thread
Well, I looked at that. Your right, the computer is cheaper then the macbook, but then you add in the ram upgrade, the computer screen, the mouse and the keyboard and then it becomes not so cheap. Thanks for your suggestion anyway
Right, I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that an apple laptop is the way to go. So now really, the only question left is, should I get the macbook entery model and then upgrade the ram to 4 gb and harddrive to 329gb or get the macbook pro standard 4gb model?
Which do you recon would be the most reliable and wise investment?
Look forward to your answers!!
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