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Laptop for Serato/Ableton

(Note - Copy+Pasted from an Australian so website so keep in mind the values are in Aussie dollars so prices aren't really comparable to other parts of the world. More after technical feedback )

Hello gents, I'm after a laptop for Serato and later on a mixture of Serato and Ableton.
I've done a search on this website and others so have a fairly decent idea of what I want, but just wanted to run through some stuff before I drop the cash for it.

It's mainly for Serato SL3, and I plan to incorporate Ableton, Max4Live and my APC40 later on so a bit of processing power for Abes is a good thing.
I'm away on business every 6 weeks so might take it with me occasionaly to produce some music and play a game or two, but generally I'd like to keep it relatively clean and away from the internet as much as possible.

I've got my eye on the Dell XPS 16 in this configuration:
HD DISPLAY 15.6" Edge to Edge Full High Definition(1080p) Display with TrueLife�-Alpine White
PROCESSOR Intel� Core� i5-540M Processor (2.53Ghz, 4 Thread, turbo boost up to 3.06 GHz, 3M cache) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows� 7 Home Premium 64bit (English) edit
MEMORY 6GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (1 x 2GB + 1 x 4GB) edit
HARD DRIVE 500GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive edit
VIDEO CARD 1GB DDR3 ATI Mobility Radeon� HD 5730 edit
AUDIO SOLUTION Integrated CREATIVE Sound Blaster� X-Fi MB Audio Software Solution edit
BATTERIES 6-Cell (56WHr) Li-Ion Primary Battery edit
WIRELESS NETWORK CARD Dell 1520 Wireless-N card

With the current 10% off, that comes to $1609.80, so around my $1500 budget. About $50 less if I drop the CPU to the i5-520.

I looked at the MBP despite the fact that I don't like the OS, but before anyone tells me to dual boot, I just can't justify paying a thousand dollars more for a comparable (though still not as good) laptop. It just doesn't make sense to drop >$2500 on a 15" MBP.

Also looked at some of the HPs and prices are too high compared to Dell too. Looking through their website now for more PCs.

*Some concerns with the Dell above, does the RAM configuration seem weird to anyone? 1x2gb + 1x4gb - I was always under the impression that RAM should be matched pairs (or triplets now)?
*It's only got 2x USB2.0 (well 3 if you count the USB/eSata hybrid port). One for Serato, the other for most likely the APC40, kind of limits me to adding much else in.
*The core i3/5/7 issues with Serato. Seems to be mainly SL1 with USB 1.1 having problems but there are some reports of SL3 stuffing up.

So, any other laptops I should look at like Acer, Sony and so on that come close to this one?
My last laptop was a 17" XPS so I'm quite happy with their products, just want to make sure I've covered all bases before I buy anything.
Cheers

macbook pro.

MacBook Pro without question.

Two idiots in a row. Amazing.

If you don't like the OS X operating system fair enough, don't bother going with it. It's the fact that the machine needs less maintenance, that's one of it's main selling points.

If you know your computers, and are nifty around installing anti virus software and preventing all kinds of spam infiltrating your computer by all means a pc is as good as anything else out there.

People get lazy though and complacent, next thing you know you've got a virus or your computer wont start up, blue black pink screen of death whatever you want to call it.

You seem to have made up your own mind and the system you've posted seems to have more than enough oompf to do everything you want.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Two idiots in a row. Amazing.

good luck man. antivirus on stage is pretty cool. if u dont like apple you should have said it in your first post because it is the obvious choice and most people will tell you get a mac for anything music related. good or not it is the standard.

quote:

Originally posted by nortek good luck man. antivirus on stage is pretty cool. if u dont like apple you should have said it in your first post because it is the obvious choice and most people will tell you get a mac for anything music related. good or not it is the standard.

Had you bothered to read my post properly:

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz I looked at the MBP despite the fact that I don't like the OS, but before anyone tells me to dual boot, I just can't justify paying a thousand dollars more for a comparable (though still not as good) laptop. It just doesn't make sense to drop >$2500 on a 15" MBP.

Why is $1000 more an obvious choice? That's almost a second laptop, or an entire new smartphone, or 500 digital tracks. Remember, that's still not a comparable Mac too (which would cost even more).
You don't need a virus scan if all you use the laptop for is music (which in this case I will, I decided against using it for other things), and Win7 has been shown to be just as if not more stable than the latest Apple OS. There is no justifiable reason to spend that much more on a Mac. None.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Had you bothered to read my post properly: Why is $1000 more an obvious choice? That's almost a second laptop, or an entire new smartphone, or 500 digital tracks. Remember, that's still not a comparable Mac too (which would cost even more). You don't need a virus scan if all you use the laptop for is music (which in this case I will, I decided against using it for other things), and Win7 has been shown to be just as if not more stable than the latest Apple OS. There is no justifiable reason to spend that much more on a Mac. None.

Just get your Windows 7 laptop already.

As I said before you seem to have made up your mind.
If the system you're buying is $1000 cheaper than a mac that isn't even comparable (specs wise) then you shouldn't really have to ask the question about whether or not the system will perform the tasks you need it to. Obviously it will no?

Of course. I'm just getting input from various sources about whether any knows of a better deal on a similar laptop like an HP or something, but the XPS seems to be the pick of the bunch

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Of course. I'm just getting input from various sources about whether any knows of a better deal on a similar laptop like an HP or something, but the XPS seems to be the pick of the bunch

Fair Dinkum..

Hands down, look at ASUS laptops before going with the others. You will get better CPU's, memory, Hard Drive, Graphics, and Soundcard with their laptops than the others. I use to do my DJ'ing with an ASUS GS-1, which is a gaming rig, and never had an issue with it. Part of the reason I switched is a freind was moving back to Romania and needed a laptop, so I sold it to him cheap to help him out. He told me last month it's still running without a hitch and it's over 3 years old. Look at thier gaming rigs. In fact, it's not well known, but they use to make the first Mac's that came out for Apple. ASUS Gaming laptops are known for being able to out perform most desktops. But there is a sacrafice for that, the battery power sucks.

But, that being said, I sold it and went with a MacBook Pro when the new unibody design came out. I travel 3-4 days a week for work, and like you, I like to have a separate laptop that is away from the net and exclusivly for my music. Other manufacturers are going to be more bulky than Apple's design, and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to tote a 2nd laptop when I have to carry my company issued Dell for work on every trip. I have a Burton Gig Bag, throw my Mac in the computer slot, put my dell in a sleve case inside the main compartment, and still have a ton of room to carry other stuff with me. I know you say you don't like the operating system, but have you really had a chance to use it? I didn't like it at first, now I like it a lot.

One thing to think about:

one in three pc laptops malfunction or break to point of factory repair in their first three years!

Cheap netbooks (small notebooks) are even more likely to break, in fact the failure rate is 20% higher and the chance of hardware failure is 40% higher.

A study in to 30,000 laptops over a three year period shows that Asus is best with a failure rate of 15.6% and HP is the worst with more than 25% of laptops experiencing hardware failures within its first three years.

Just saying......

@Rann - Definitely, it's a sad part of life when it comes to electronics. That's why you always back up
Hardware is hardware. Most of it comes from the same factories these days anyway. Dell, Apple, HP, IBM, and most of the major companies use the exact same components, then just rebrand them so you're not getting anything different when purchasing a different brand in a lot of cases.

quote:

Originally posted by progress Hands down, look at ASUS laptops before going with the others. You will get better CPU's, memory, Hard Drive, Graphics, and Soundcard with their laptops than the others. I use to do my DJ'ing with an ASUS GS-1, which is a gaming rig, and never had an issue with it. Part of the reason I switched is a freind was moving back to Romania and needed a laptop, so I sold it to him cheap to help him out. He told me last month it's still running without a hitch and it's over 3 years old. Look at thier gaming rigs. In fact, it's not well known, but they use to make the first Mac's that came out for Apple. ASUS Gaming laptops are known for being able to out perform most desktops. But there is a sacrafice for that, the battery power sucks.

Excellent, that's the sort of feedback I was after. Any models in particular that are similar to the Dell above?
I'll check out some local Asus ones tonight.

quote:

Originally posted by progress But, that being said, I sold it and went with a MacBook Pro when the new unibody design came out. I travel 3-4 days a week for work, and like you, I like to have a separate laptop that is away from the net and exclusivly for my music. Other manufacturers are going to be more bulky than Apple's design, and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to tote a 2nd laptop when I have to carry my company issued Dell for work on every trip. I have a Burton Gig Bag, throw my Mac in the computer slot, put my dell in a sleve case inside the main compartment, and still have a ton of room to carry other stuff with me. I know you say you don't like the operating system, but have you really had a chance to use it? I didn't like it at first, now I like it a lot.

Actually yea, plenty of times. We used to have an entire lab full of Macs at uni and I've used friends ones plenty of times.
Even if I was to somehow start to like the OS, it still isn't enough of a reason to warrant spending so much more money on it unnecessarily.

YOu're absoltely right about them being the same.

I always liked ASUS, but the one I'm writing this from is a pain in the arse sometimes. In fairness it's a vista laptop that i installed XP on (obviously) and it's never been happy, but apparently it's worse under win7 so this is as good as it gets.

ASUS are cvnts about drivers as well, so when you have to reformat, they make you go through all this bullshit just to get to the right one.
The onyl other thing I have against them is that when you buy a new one, if you're using it for audio, you're going to have to format it and start again because they include all these built in programs such as the ASUS software downloader which there is no need for as ASUS only really update their shit every 6M to a year but still they leave you with a resource hog for those seldom moments. And you can't remove it!

I will say build quality is good and I've given this thing quite a kicking, a lot of travelling and it still doesn't look bad. The performance has been OK.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is currency vs the mac debate.

In the USA and some parts of Europe Apple are basically the same price as normal PC laptops (although there aren't cheap version to compare) to whereas in down under, it's at least 50% more when comparing like for like.

I think this is the latest 15":

http://www.NotebookReview.com/defau...eview=asus+g51j

and this is the latest 17":

http://www.NotebookReview.com/defau...=asus+g73+g73jh

Yea, and I didn't think about price. Apple in the USA is relatively the same cost as a Windows PC, so it was a wash for me.

Went with the Dell Studio XPS 16 and it arrived yesterday.

Fantastic laptop, so happy with the buy. The design of it is fantastic.
I'm happy to say that Serato SL3 has had no issues with the i5 so far which was the biggest concern for me.
Dell have certainly gotten better with the bloatware but I'll still most likely do a fresh Win7 install once I've figured out what I want to keep.

Once that's done, I'll stick Ableton Live 8 on as well and test out the Bridge for those in that other thread who wanted to know how well it worked. Will even throw in the APC40 for good measure.

Funny thing was dad had a look at it and went "I love the macbook kind of styling on it"

get mac, avoid all soundcard issues. did try to install a soundcard on win7 today and boy was that hell. im never going back.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Went with the Dell Studio XPS 16 and it arrived yesterday. Fantastic laptop, so happy with the buy. The design of it is fantastic. I'm happy to say that Serato SL3 has had no issues with the i5 so far which was the biggest concern for me. Dell have certainly gotten better with the bloatware but I'll still most likely do a fresh Win7 install once I've figured out what I want to keep. Once that's done, I'll stick Ableton Live 8 on as well and test out the Bridge for those in that other thread who wanted to know how well it worked. Will even throw in the APC40 for good measure. Funny thing was dad had a look at it and went "I love the macbook kind of styling on it"

Congrats but just make sure you kept the receipts and box. Not trying to shit on the parade but I just read a ton of reviews on that laptop for mate and people have have serious problems, for some reason, after about a month of use. Worked perfectly when they first geet it then things start going wrong.... everything from no responding keys to multiple crashes. However, you know what you're doing and I always consumer reviews about crashing computers with a giant fist full of salt as most of the time it's user error etc.

But yeah, I really don't miss driver bollox since switching to mac for my main audio rig.

Of course, mind you most of the problems were with the 1645 build, where as this is the 1647. Plus they released updated BIOS a few months back which helped a lot.
Also, most the problems in terms of throttling and overheating were with the i7s, not with the i5s.

KR - What sound card issues? It runs directly through SL3 over USB, not through the internal soundcard.
My production PC has a TI firewire chip anyway.

Remember, this is just a DJing laptop. My actual production desktop is completely separate

you will see in a year's time or so why Dell is a POS. I've mostly heard only bad things about dell, but you get what you pay for, shitty hardware = bad quality overall.

Macbook pro. Its by far the best laptop. Low maintenance, dont have to install driver,s stable, unlikely to get viruses. 90% of the pros use macbook pro.

I c people blowing through pcs like every other year on avg. Macbooks last a lot longer.

You get what u pay for.

^^ the above poster is a tool

^^^ the above poster needs to get laid

quote:

Originally posted by orTof�nChiLd ^^ the above poster is a tool

What's your beef?

Just curious. It's always aimed at discobiscuit?
Apart from the pro comment his points were actually valid enough so i'm just curious..

quote:

Originally posted by Ravist you will see in a year's time or so why Dell is a POS. I've mostly heard only bad things about dell, but you get what you pay for, shitty hardware = bad quality overall.

Yea except for the fact that I've had an XPS before that lasted for 4 years without fail.

quote:

Originally posted by discobiscuit Macbook pro. Its by far the best laptop. Low maintenance, dont have to install driver,s stable, unlikely to get viruses. 90% of the pros use macbook pro. I c people blowing through pcs like every other year on avg. Macbooks last a lot longer. You get what u pay for.

I'm happy that you're on the Apple overpriced bandwagon and need everything handed to you on a silver platter. I really am

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