Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2003 7:09 pm
I recently wanted to upgrade my trusty but ageing Dell P3 1.2ghz laptop, so I spent a lot of time doing some research. There was no specific need to upgrade, as my Dell has been serving me very well for quite a while now, running very nicely indeed with my Magma PCI chassis (housing 2 Pulsars) and RME multiface. However I wanted more speed and memory (my laptop has 815 chipset which as many of you know is limited to 512mb RAM).
Someone mentioned to me that my findings may be useful to others, and I'm inclined to agree since I found virtually zero up-to-date info about serious audio laptops (by serious I mean using a proper audio interface, not USB toys). Indeed, many users may not need to consider these things if their laptop is just a quick scratchpad for ideas or internet surfing or whatever. However, I am looking for a serious desktop alternative.
So here it is, a quick guide to what to look for when buying a music laptop.
Basically I found that theres no less than 3 intel-based laptop solutions around at the moment:
Pentium 4 - A standard P4 chip in a laptop. Heavy, hot, low battery life.
Pentium 4-M - A mobile P4, presumably a bit more refined in terms of battery life.
Pentium-M - The newest chip, part of the 'Centrino' concept. Faster than its clock speed indicates : a 1.6ghz Pentium M is roughly equivalent to a 2.0 to 2.2 gHz Pentium 4. This chip generates less heat and has better battery life, and also results in much lighter laptops.
There are many pro's and con's for all laptops, regarding features etc. For music use, I found that it is very important to look carefully at the following :
1. Cardbus controller
This is extremely important. I recently got the use of a Sony Vaio 2.6ghz P4 laptop at work. Nice laptop in many ways. However, this Sony like most others has a RICOH cardbus controller which, as it happens, is the one type of controller specifically not recommended by Magma. I tried to install SFP on it anyway, and it installed and ran fine (very fast in fact). The problems began when I tried to drag devices into the project - insurmountable PCI overloads. Even with 1 masterverb.
The cardbus controller seems to work okay with the RME multiface, although it does some weird things occasionally (strange buzzing appearing randomly), although I need to test further. In any case I would never recommend a Sony laptop to anyone.
Another thing to be careful about is how many Cardbus slots you think you may need. Most laptops nowadays are opting for 1 cardbus slot, which in my opinion is very lame indeed. For example, on some occasions I have needed to run the Magma and RME at the same time, this would be impossible with only 1 slot. The only manufacturers I have seen so far with 2x cardbus slots in their newest machines are Toshiba and IBM - for example, the Toshiba Tecra S-1, or the IBM T40p.
2. PS/2 port
Trust me, you will go insane using a trackpad or 'nipple' joystick as an input device. I can't work for long without plugging my optical PS/2 mouse into my Dell. However I was extremely disappointed to note that hardly any manufacturer provides a PS/2 port anymore. So unless you want to use a USB mouse, hunt down a laptop with a PS/2 port. Again, the Toshiba Tecra S-1 is the only new laptop model around with a PS/2 port.
3. Other I/O ports
Like the PS/2 issue, don't just assume any 'standard' i/o port will definitely be there on your shiny new laptop. Read the specs carefully. During my research, I was astonished to find that the IBM T40p (arguably the cream of the current laptop crop, reflected heavily in the price) does not have a firewire port. At least, if it does, the specs on the website do not mention it. Neither do the glowing reviews for this laptop. While this seems to be a weird exception, it is true that past standards such as serial and parallel ports are being phased out, so it's good to make sure. It's also worth noting that virtually all firewire ports on laptops are 4-pin, so bus-powering a firewire device is not possible.
4. Screen resolution/graphics
While I do know many musicians refuse to work in anything higher than 1024x768 because otherwise 'they will go blind', I personally could not deal with a resolution lower than 1280x1024. Most plugins these days demand it anyway. Unfortunately, the standard with laptops is still 1024x768 : an unusable resolution for me. While it's true that high-res screens add to the cost, you will not regret paying the price. There is also an increasing amount of laptops which have widescreen LCDs. Very nice for sure, but undoubtedly these add to the weight and battery consumption.
Also, it is definitely good to have a dedicated graphics card inside the laptop. Integrated graphics solutions (such as Intel etc) will usually share the main RAM. Everything is just so much faster when you have a 32mb+ GeForce/ATI mobile card.
5. Realtime performance
This is obviously a bit difficult to guage until you bring the laptop home and install your stuff on it. However, I can at least relate my experiences. While the Dell Inspiron 8100 I've used for the last year or so has served me extremely well, I have had concerns about the performance, namely latencies possible. I cannot go below 12ms on my RME multiface, even though I have seen people with Toshiba's and IBM's report 1.5ms latency with slower processors than mine! I personally don't have the technical knowledge to know why this is happening, but it seems that the Toshibas and IBMs are engineered better. I've seen similar reports with higher-spec Dells like the Inspiron 8200 as well.
My personal choice for a laptop would be a pentium-M 1.6ghz or above, with 1GB of DDR, 1400x1050 screen with a 64mb DDR ATI mobility Radeon9000, 2x cardbus slots with Texas Instruments controller, firewire (ideally 6pin), PS/2 port, 54mbit wireless, gigabit ethernet (I haven't found a single laptop with this so far), ability to take a 2nd battery, svideo/composite TV-out.
No laptop that I found has all this stuff, for now anyway. The closest I found is the Toshiba Tecra S-1. Unfortunately for me I live in the UK, where Toshiba does not supply all models, or offer any customization of their laptops. The result of this is that the Tecra S-1 is only available with 1024x768 resolution, and the default Intel 22mbit wireless. While this would still be a great machine, in the US it is available with 1600x1200 and a 54mbit wireless card. If I lived there, I would buy one with no hesitation.
Anyway I hope some of you find this info useful, if there's anything I forgot I'll post it later.
peace!
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dArKr3zIn on 2003-07-22 20:37 ]</font>
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dArKr3zIn on 2003-07-22 20:38 ]</font>
Someone mentioned to me that my findings may be useful to others, and I'm inclined to agree since I found virtually zero up-to-date info about serious audio laptops (by serious I mean using a proper audio interface, not USB toys). Indeed, many users may not need to consider these things if their laptop is just a quick scratchpad for ideas or internet surfing or whatever. However, I am looking for a serious desktop alternative.
So here it is, a quick guide to what to look for when buying a music laptop.
Basically I found that theres no less than 3 intel-based laptop solutions around at the moment:
Pentium 4 - A standard P4 chip in a laptop. Heavy, hot, low battery life.
Pentium 4-M - A mobile P4, presumably a bit more refined in terms of battery life.
Pentium-M - The newest chip, part of the 'Centrino' concept. Faster than its clock speed indicates : a 1.6ghz Pentium M is roughly equivalent to a 2.0 to 2.2 gHz Pentium 4. This chip generates less heat and has better battery life, and also results in much lighter laptops.
There are many pro's and con's for all laptops, regarding features etc. For music use, I found that it is very important to look carefully at the following :
1. Cardbus controller
This is extremely important. I recently got the use of a Sony Vaio 2.6ghz P4 laptop at work. Nice laptop in many ways. However, this Sony like most others has a RICOH cardbus controller which, as it happens, is the one type of controller specifically not recommended by Magma. I tried to install SFP on it anyway, and it installed and ran fine (very fast in fact). The problems began when I tried to drag devices into the project - insurmountable PCI overloads. Even with 1 masterverb.
The cardbus controller seems to work okay with the RME multiface, although it does some weird things occasionally (strange buzzing appearing randomly), although I need to test further. In any case I would never recommend a Sony laptop to anyone.
Another thing to be careful about is how many Cardbus slots you think you may need. Most laptops nowadays are opting for 1 cardbus slot, which in my opinion is very lame indeed. For example, on some occasions I have needed to run the Magma and RME at the same time, this would be impossible with only 1 slot. The only manufacturers I have seen so far with 2x cardbus slots in their newest machines are Toshiba and IBM - for example, the Toshiba Tecra S-1, or the IBM T40p.
2. PS/2 port
Trust me, you will go insane using a trackpad or 'nipple' joystick as an input device. I can't work for long without plugging my optical PS/2 mouse into my Dell. However I was extremely disappointed to note that hardly any manufacturer provides a PS/2 port anymore. So unless you want to use a USB mouse, hunt down a laptop with a PS/2 port. Again, the Toshiba Tecra S-1 is the only new laptop model around with a PS/2 port.
3. Other I/O ports
Like the PS/2 issue, don't just assume any 'standard' i/o port will definitely be there on your shiny new laptop. Read the specs carefully. During my research, I was astonished to find that the IBM T40p (arguably the cream of the current laptop crop, reflected heavily in the price) does not have a firewire port. At least, if it does, the specs on the website do not mention it. Neither do the glowing reviews for this laptop. While this seems to be a weird exception, it is true that past standards such as serial and parallel ports are being phased out, so it's good to make sure. It's also worth noting that virtually all firewire ports on laptops are 4-pin, so bus-powering a firewire device is not possible.
4. Screen resolution/graphics
While I do know many musicians refuse to work in anything higher than 1024x768 because otherwise 'they will go blind', I personally could not deal with a resolution lower than 1280x1024. Most plugins these days demand it anyway. Unfortunately, the standard with laptops is still 1024x768 : an unusable resolution for me. While it's true that high-res screens add to the cost, you will not regret paying the price. There is also an increasing amount of laptops which have widescreen LCDs. Very nice for sure, but undoubtedly these add to the weight and battery consumption.
Also, it is definitely good to have a dedicated graphics card inside the laptop. Integrated graphics solutions (such as Intel etc) will usually share the main RAM. Everything is just so much faster when you have a 32mb+ GeForce/ATI mobile card.
5. Realtime performance
This is obviously a bit difficult to guage until you bring the laptop home and install your stuff on it. However, I can at least relate my experiences. While the Dell Inspiron 8100 I've used for the last year or so has served me extremely well, I have had concerns about the performance, namely latencies possible. I cannot go below 12ms on my RME multiface, even though I have seen people with Toshiba's and IBM's report 1.5ms latency with slower processors than mine! I personally don't have the technical knowledge to know why this is happening, but it seems that the Toshibas and IBMs are engineered better. I've seen similar reports with higher-spec Dells like the Inspiron 8200 as well.
My personal choice for a laptop would be a pentium-M 1.6ghz or above, with 1GB of DDR, 1400x1050 screen with a 64mb DDR ATI mobility Radeon9000, 2x cardbus slots with Texas Instruments controller, firewire (ideally 6pin), PS/2 port, 54mbit wireless, gigabit ethernet (I haven't found a single laptop with this so far), ability to take a 2nd battery, svideo/composite TV-out.
No laptop that I found has all this stuff, for now anyway. The closest I found is the Toshiba Tecra S-1. Unfortunately for me I live in the UK, where Toshiba does not supply all models, or offer any customization of their laptops. The result of this is that the Tecra S-1 is only available with 1024x768 resolution, and the default Intel 22mbit wireless. While this would still be a great machine, in the US it is available with 1600x1200 and a 54mbit wireless card. If I lived there, I would buy one with no hesitation.
Anyway I hope some of you find this info useful, if there's anything I forgot I'll post it later.
peace!
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dArKr3zIn on 2003-07-22 20:37 ]</font>
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dArKr3zIn on 2003-07-22 20:38 ]</font>
and all this thru a simple usb 1 port. it's quite incredible.sure it's USB1 is not for big audio projects, and having tested both firewire and USB 2, i can say that firewire has to be preffered. If it's not on the pc (most cases) you should be able to extend it thru a pcmcia firewire card.