i mean, "notebook"

[jfb]

I'm thinking about buying a laptop. Actually I've been thinking about it for a couple of years, but now I'm thinking about a specific laptop. There are four things I'd like to use it for: portable recording, working remotely, net access on road trips, and possibly live performance. Everyone says if you're going to use a PC for music, don't do anything else with it, but oh well.

Here are the specs for the laptop I'm leaning toward. If anyone has any advice, you know, give it.

The plan is to have Central Computer build me a computer based on the ASUS Z71V barebones system. It's got the latest version of the Centrino platform, whatever that means, and a 15.4" 1680x1050 widescreen display. Widescreen seems like a good idea for recording, and also because, I forgot to mention, the fifth purpose, watching DVDs. It also has a built-in card reader that reads every format I don't need; whatever.

It supposedly weighs 6.5 lbs., although that must depend on what's in it. ASUS claims 6-hour battery life; reviews suggest it's lower, but still pretty good. Notably, the Z71V supposed to be very quiet--the main fan, according to one reviewer, is audible only if you hold your head up to the back of the machine, and the other one spins up only if the machine gets hot. Which I suppose it might during recording, if I'm doing a lot with plug-ins. The hard drive I'm looking at is also supposed to be very quiet; the main noise source is apparently the DVD, which I won't use while I'm recording.

On top of that:

• 1G RAM, single module so there's room for expansion.
  
• Pentium-M, 2GHz or possibly 1.86.
  
• ASUS DVD+-RW drive.
  
• XP Pro.
  
• Intel 2915 a/b/g wifi.
  
• Hitachi Travelstar HD, 60G, 7200rpm.

The system as described is probably about $2100 with tax. (I have an exact quote but some details have changed.) Plus I'll need a spare battery and maybe a car adapter.

I haven't settled on an audio interface yet; for now I may just use the Tascam US-224 I have lying around. I'll be using external drives, which I already have, for recording and stuff. I'd like to get Ableton Live, because man, the demo was fun, but after the laptop I probably won't be able to spend any money on anything for a while.

Comments

[monkey587.livejournal.com]

Live is all-seeing and all-knowing.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

If only it were omnipresent as well as omniscient, I wouldn't have to buy it because it'd already be here.

[bushmiller.livejournal.com]

Get a Mac.

I was surprised

[(Anonymous)]

I can't say that I do a huge amount with music, but I do use Logic Express and record through a little firewire box. I'm very happy with my little iBook G4.

Most of what I do "artistically" is photoshop (oddly enough I work on ads and commercials on the side for the fashion industry - go figure). This pretty much demands a fixed setup with a wacom tablet and large screen and a bit of horsepower (dual G5 with 8 GB of RAM and 3/4 of a terabyte of disk).

So which machine gets used? The big desktop about 20% of the time and the little laptop the other 80%. Almost all of my net use, quick Mathematica calculations, writing (LaTeX and Pages:-), reasoning with the digital music collection (and linking to the stereo as a remote) .. most of this falls to the little laptop. Portability turned out to be very important to me.

At my age and background I'm sort of addicted to Unix and tend to prefer the command line for many things and the Mac is pretty good for this - I like its BSDishness more than Linux (there are many little Apple weirdnesses, but I've come to learn them).

Windows may be a better way to go if your apps are there. I'm surprised at how a $1000 laptop runs so much of my life. A $2500 PowerBook would only add marginal value in my case.

So all of this said I need to spend a night with Silvermitt (the desktop) - I have a Photoshop job to get out tomorrow and will probably spend an all-nighter at the big Mac.

Steve

Re: I was surprised

[jfb.livejournal.com]

My plan is to ditch the big desktop and keep the Shuttle XPC, at least for now. But part of the process I'm in is to downsize everything, so the Shuttle might go too. I probably will get a second (LCD) display after the move.

And yeah, my music app of choice is Windows-only, so, no Mac for me. Also I've become the Mac guy at work (!) and have been fairly miserable with it, but that must be at least partly because the box they put on my desk is underpowered. (It's a web shop, so "Mac guy" really just means making things work on Safari and Mac Firefox. But it's really too slow even for web surfing.)