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Posted by dJohn on Nov-03-2003 20:34:

Laptops

For you laptop DJs and producers, I was wondering what brand and model of laptops are suitable for producing and whatnot...looking for a fair balance of price, power, features and style.
I have a budgent of roughly ~2000 USD, and I was wondering how the Apple G3s or G4s, or Sony Vaios...
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Posted by Vlad on Nov-03-2003 20:50:

If your gonna get an apple laptop, buy the G4.

If your gonna get a PC laptop, buy a Dell.

End of story.

Posted by whitesmoke on Nov-03-2003 21:50:

quote:
Originally posted by Vlad
If your gonna get an apple laptop, buy the G4.

If your gonna get a PC laptop, buy a Dell.

End of story.

he said it perfectly. i have a dell and i love it.

Posted by tvmann on Nov-03-2003 22:33:

Vlad & Whitesmoke - can you give more information on why you like Dell notebooks? Thanks. I have a Dell tower and it's great but the Dell notebooks seem a little expensive compared to other brands.

Posted by auujay on Nov-03-2003 23:22:

In the Apple OS X world definitly get a G4. The new G4 iBooks are sweet (though be aware that the 14" iBooks have a max resolution of 1024x768). If you live in a major city, there may be an Apple store near you, check it out, play with them. See how fucking awsome the the hardware is. If there are no Apple Stores I quess you could look for CompUSAs or other places to get your hands on the hardware, but usually those sales people don't know dick about Apples so take what the say with a grain (like a huge mound) of salt.

With the PC notebooks I hear Dells are OK (they sell a buttload of them so they can't be that bad). I do hear from people that the Gateway notebooks suck (although it is cute that they want them to look like the Apple line) but maybe their newer ones are better. That said, I worked in IT for a large company that used PC desktops (Dells) and notebooks (IBMs) and I would highly recommend ThinkPads. They are very sturdy notebooks. There was a survey of IT support personnel across the counry and one of the things they asked about were notebooks they have the least problems with; IBM ThinkPads was the huge favorite. In my mind that says a lot, because these people get a good "sample" of the notebooks out there (not just one bad "lemon" or a lucky one that works) and they can see trends just were they work. The Sony's are cool but sometimes can be a real bitch because they sometimes do not let you boot from the CD (so loading Linux, or FinalScratch sux big time).

Posted by `pr0digy on Nov-04-2003 04:06:

My father has an IBM Thinkpad, and it performs well, as well as taking tons of abuse over a year or two.

Posted by BlInX on Nov-04-2003 04:18:

My dad owns a dell laptop he is comfortable with it, I'm concetrating on a mac, since i need it for school and graphic designing, but hey if your looking for a laptop to install tracktor and all kinds of programs and your concetrating on buying it for another purpose than work get it... I'm not saying the dell is horrible for work, but im a fast worker and i need something fast that holds huge programs..

Posted by Vlad on Nov-04-2003 04:50:

Dell is superb compared to the other simply because of their customer support... there isnt a single company out there that has this kind of support. A month ago my hard drive got fried and I couldnt use my computer, I called Dell, they made me run a harddrive test, and than we scheduled a day for the tech guy to come. He came, installed the hard drive and left... free of charge. The warranty's are GOLD!

Posted by las3rjock on Nov-04-2003 05:00:

First off, I would recommend against getting a Sony. I have a Sony VAIO PCG-GRX520, and I just discovered that it doesn't have a line-in jack. As a result, I would have to connect my mixer to the microphone jack in order to record or stream mixes, but there is a 20 dBV mismatch between the signal coming from my mixer and the signal level that the microphone input is designed to accept. I tried to find an appropriate attenuator at Radio Shack to compensate for this mismatch, but they either don't have such a thing or they don't have such a thing in stock.

If your mostly going to use this computer for DJing and production, I would recommend going the Apple route. The Powerbook 15" Combo Drive model fits neatly within your price range and seems to have the best price/performance balance among Apple laptops. I would recommend against getting an iBook because it seems to lack a line-in jack (at least according to the Tech Specs posted on Apple's website).

Posted by Vert on Nov-04-2003 05:51:

quote:
Originally posted by Vlad
If your gonna get an apple laptop, buy the G4.

If your gonna get a PC laptop, buy a Dell.

End of story.

Not end of story.. but close. I own a dell d600, and love their souped up warranties, but if I had unlimited funds, I would definitely be an IBM T40 owner ..

Oh, the thing about the mac still being better for graphic design is bullshit. The only reason people think that is because apple came out with the gui first, so naturally all the graphic design software was developed for it. Then came windows... and things are exactly even now.

es

Posted by Vlad on Nov-04-2003 05:59:

quote:
Originally posted by Vert
Not end of story.. but close. I own a dell d600, and love their souped up warranties, but if I had unlimited funds, I would definitely be an IBM T40 owner ..

es

Yea the IBM is also a good piece of machine... but you get so much more with Dell than IBM. For what you would pay the $2400 for a T40 (256 RAM, 40 GB), on Dell you could get 512 RAM ez and 100 GB.

Your choices are:

Dell Latitude 600m (@$1800) -or- Mac Powerbook G4 Combo Drive ($1899)

If you can pool some extra money together go with:

Dell Latitude 600m (w/ xtra goodies) (@$2200) -or- Mac Powerbook G4 Super Drive ($2599) -or- IBM Thinkpad T40 (@$2400)

Posted by dJohn on Nov-04-2003 19:11:

Hey everybody thanks alot for your inputs...it's helping me alot more than you probably think.
So I've narrowed it down to Dell, IBM and Apple...how are the iBookG4s compared to the regular G4s?
Thanks again.

Posted by `pr0digy on Nov-04-2003 19:17:

quote:
Originally posted by Vert
Oh, the thing about the mac still being better for graphic design is bullshit. The only reason people think that is because apple came out with the gui first, so naturally all the graphic design software was developed for it. Then came windows... and things are exactly even now.

es

Not completely true. Run filters in Photoshop on both windows + macs, and the mac will do it faster. I'd still stick with Windows anyway, but there is still some truth to the argument.

Posted by Vert on Nov-04-2003 19:45:

quote:
Originally posted by `pr0digy
Not completely true. Run filters in Photoshop on both windows + macs, and the mac will do it faster. I'd still stick with Windows anyway, but there is still some truth to the argument.

No. That depends on the hardware in specific. It is about the PLATFORM in general. The mac would only do it faster if you were running a dual g5. Before that, PC machines were at the top. Making your comment bunk. Just because it is minesculy faster, does not mean it is better for print work.

http://arstechnica.infopop.net/Open...2685#2340982685
Benchmarks...

es

Posted by Tranquil010 on Nov-04-2003 19:57:

Apple g4 are aweusme

Posted by auujay on Nov-04-2003 20:22:

quote:
Originally posted by dJohn
Hey everybody thanks alot for your inputs...it's helping me alot more than you probably think.
So I've narrowed it down to Dell, IBM and Apple...how are the iBookG4s compared to the regular G4s?
Thanks again.

I assume you mean the G4 iBook compared to the G4 PowerBook. I here they stack up very well. Some of the differences:
- Powerbook has twice the L2 cache (very helpfull)
- Powerbook can support much more RAM (about twice as much I think), the iBook maxes out at 640 or something which is decent but not impressive.
- If you plan on using dual monitors you need the powerbook

In the end it depends on what you are going to use it for and screen size. Like I said before, I highly recommend that you find a store that carries these so you can decide about he screens. If you are going to be doing lots of work (I am thinking producing or something) with this bad boy, the large cache of the PowerBook will help. It also depends on the screen size, personally I would get the 12" PowerBook but if you want a larger screen it is a toss up for the limited resoultion (but cheaper) 14" iBook or the 15" Powerbook.

Posted by Vert on Nov-04-2003 23:41:

Posted by auujay on Nov-05-2003 01:31:

quote:
Originally posted by Nou
Agreed get Dells for PC and G4 for apple.

Also to comment on the graphics thing (off topic ) apple does have a diffrent in color, some say richer in depth etc... but its true... Apple defines its RGB values diffrently (i think this might have to do with the monitors, im not sure, but i do run a apple brand monitor at school on a pc and do notice diffs in color) but if you even look in PS there is a color settin for Apple RGB.

Jus my 2cents

The Gamma is much brighter on Macs than PCs by default, everything else is the same. This has the effect of making all the colors brighter. This is a common phenomenon in web graphic design.

This difference is not why Macs are rumored to be better with graphics. The myth comes from the fact Macs used to be much better (MS Windows 3.1 vs MacOS 6.5 or whatever version was out then) but has been equivalant for a long time now.

Also about the no line in on the iBooks, I am not positive but it would not suprise me that this is true however don't expect to get very good recordings from the line in on any laptop (PowerBook included).

Posted by dJohn on Nov-05-2003 08:12:

well I plan to use my main desktop CPU for recordings, and my laptop(when I get it) for portability in terms of work, producing,editing and such...graphics processing power is not really what I'm lookin for, even though I ehar the G4s have excellent output capabilities...
Thanks again...any more info wouldn't hurt at all BTW...

Posted by Teraform on Nov-05-2003 14:17:

well for about a month and a half now i have been running acid pro 4, mix miester 4 pro, and Sound Foundry 7 off a fairly powerful IBM PC...
now people tell me that an Apple G4 would be better to run these types of programs from...better sound and what not....
anyway i dont know i get good sounds...havent really started synthing anything yet....just using mix miester for mixin set that i could use when i get a turntable set going....anyway i could see using something like this if i had a personal one that i could hold parties from my own home...not sure if it has a line out....think it does....
all these programs run smooth and work well...have lots of memory...100 Gigs....good graphics card....G-force 4...dont see what perpose that serves...but i guess to run the programs....im not sure on what type of sound card im running...but it seems to work fine...
i dont have any problems i seem to be able to make decient sets that i could use...and am actually quite proud of....anyways i dont know if this serves any relivence to the topic at hand....
just thought i would throw it out their...