Lenovo vs HP Notebooks

  • Thread starter Thread starter 12milluz
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12milluz

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I'm looking to get a laptop for general purpose but some light home recording(not more than 3 tracks at a time). I've looked at the HP dv4t and Lenovo T400 notebooks. Any insight on either of these in regards to recording?
 
my personal preference would be the lenovo... for one I've always found ibm's to be extremely well constructed and solid.. and generally built with much better parts and design all around (lenovo is ibm's home division... its actually a little more complicated then that but basically... yeah) Never been a fan of hp. Both would probably be adequate for your purpose though. What's going to be the important part in terms of recording will be the interface you buy.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. My brother (in college to be a computer engineer) is insisting the HP is better but I heard there are internal grounding issues with HPs that cause hum within the audio. Any comments on that? I also have the Presonus Audiobox for my interface.
 
as far as the grounding issues im unable to comment. the hp probably does have better specs and it's probably cheaper, but there's more to a computer then specs, i'll pretty much guarantee the lenovo has a better motherboard and higher quality more standardised parts from the bottom on up. The motherboard plays a big part in how a machine is able to use those specs, in fact theres a dual core hp sitting in the corner over here which is trash due to a motherboard problem... while im typing on an old ibm t23 and theres another one acting as a network gateway in the other room.. both these machines are about ten years old and have never given me problems. That interface should be fine whatever route you choose to go though.
 
12milluz said:
Thanks for the quick reply. My brother (in college to be a computer engineer) is insisting the HP is better but I heard there are internal grounding issues with HPs that cause hum within the audio. Any comments on that? I also have the Presonus Audiobox for my interface.
Click to expand...

There's a simple rule of thumb about this. Look at the power cord. Is it three-prong or two-prong? If it is two-prong, buy a different laptop.
 
dgatwood said:
There's a simple rule of thumb about this. Look at the power cord. Is it three-prong or two-prong? If it is two-prong, buy a different laptop.
Click to expand...
Interesting observation coming from Silicon Valley :)

So, I am typing this on an HP laptop that has a 3 prong power supply. I am using a Lenovo laptop at work with 2 prong power supply.

I am gonna say, "it don't mean a thing".

I make a living as a Systems Admin, and just recently dealt with an IBM Blade server with corrupt BIOS that was still running :D

If I compare my HP to the Lenovo, I'm gonna say that Lenovo is lighter, although the case does feel more sturdy (it's metal, I believe aluminum alloy) rather than plastic. The trackpad has a better feel. The keys on the keyboard are in funny places, but that's probably because I'm more used to the HP.

As far as USB ports are concerned, it seems the Lenovo laptop outputs more power through the USB ports compared to HP. How do I know this? When I plug my PDA/Phone into the HP it complains that it doesn't get enough juice. Plug it into the Lenovo, it charges, almost as quickly as if it was plugged into the wall outlet. This may be important to you if you decide to use one of the portable, bus-powered USB interfaces for portability.

The bottom of the HP tends to get hotter compared to the Lenovo, which perhaps due to the fact that it has a metal case, does a better job of heat dissipation.

I am not even going to get to the motherboard and other components, which IBM historically has been known to have and use better quality materials.

So yeah, I am with DuddyGuy. Spend the extra money and get the Lenovo.

So, then you ask why do I have an HP laptop? Simple, it was my work laptop that I got to keep when I got laid off back in March, so the price was right :)
 
Thanks guys! One more thing...should I get a dedicated GPU or just use an integrated card? Doesn't having a discrete graphics card take work off the central processor?
 
Dedicated GPU is always good because the integrated cards use part of on-board RAM for video purposes which can impact performance. However, keep in mind that the battery on those laptops will not run as long as the ones with integrated video.
 
Battery won't be a huge issue as you can switch the dedicated card off and use an integrated one if you want(I won't be recording off battery usually). My biggest gripe is it will cost about $120 more for the dedicated card. How large an impact will it save me from?
 
Depends on how much RAM you get. If you get 3-4GB then it might not be such an issue.
 
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