advantages and disadvantages of laptops

M

Melsi

Padawan
Im thinking about either getting a new computer or laptop and im more inclined to go with a laptop so i can move it around easily, wanna know what people think about using laptops for recording and producing, i would get a very good spec one! Is there any disadvantages to using a laptop for recording over a pc?

Thanks

ps would most probably purchase something along the lines of this

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Core-2-Duo-T8300-2-4Ghz-Sony-Vaio-VGN-AR61ZU-Laptop_W0QQitemZ270260243660QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item270260243660&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A3&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14.l1318
 
Melsi said:
Im thinking about either getting a new computer or laptop and im more inclined to go with a laptop so i can move it around easily, wanna know what people think about using laptops for recording and producing, i would get a very good spec one! Is there any disadvantages to using a laptop for recording over a pc?
Click to expand...

Many.

1. Hard drive performance. Laptop drives are quite a bit slower than desktop drives by nature. You probably won't hit that wall, but you never know.

2. CPU performance. Laptop CPUs pretty much have to be slower than desktop CPUs because of the smaller thermal envelope.

3. Heat. Laptops have to dissipate heat really well or the CPUs start putting themselves into a momentary sleep mode to protect themselves. This would ruin audio recordings if it happened during tracking. Make sure you get a fan control app o you can crank the fan up if you run into this problem.

4. Fan noise. Laptop fans are much smaller than desktop fans, which makes them automatically louder if they are running at full speed. With a desktop, you can make changes to the hardware to reduce the fan noise. With a laptop, you're stuck. This probably won't be a problem during tracking, but once you start throwing effects on, it may be irritating.

5. Theft risk. Rare is the day somebody breaks in and steals a desktop.

And with that particular unit, I'd add:

6. Vista.

:D
 
thanks for your response dgatwood but surely a laptop with 2.6ghz dual core2 processor and 4GB ram would be alot better than my old 3ghz pentium 4 pc proessesor?

and dont the new laptops with latest technology deal with heat particulary well?
 
the lappy will want a separate external drive to record to and some have noise issuses... though iirc that's more of a live performance issue...
 
Most people never open up their computers any more to add anything and unless you're sticking with a 2-channel soundcard most people add external soundcard/interfaces anyway (firewire can handle HUNDREDS of audio channels.) THE guide is here with 'you can't go wrong' choices: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_and_audio_interfaces.htm

You WILL want to put as much memory as you can into it; no big problem these days as most laptop manufacturers stopped using proprietary memory.

You WILL want to add an external hard drive - you NEVER want to record to the primary drive on any computer system anyway. USB2 and firewire drives work and you can get a 500 or 750Gb drive for less than $150 (jeesh, I used to pay $2500 for 9Gb scsi drives..)

If you want to simultaneously record more than a handful of channels you should go Firewire rather than USB (USB runs out of steam quickly). If you go Firewire try to find a laptop with TexasInstruments firewire chips, the gold standard and required by most pro audio interfaces. SIIG and Belkin make Firewire PCMCIA and ExpressCards with TI chips in 'em for reasonable amounts if you cant get a laptop with 'em inside.

----- I've been running a Gateway XP laptop on a Motu828mkII daisy-chained to a Glyph firewire drive, plus a Seagate 500Gb USB2 drive for sample libraries and video editing with ZERO PROBLEMS for a couple of years. ----

In the last few years the line between laptop and desktop is just not there anymore.
You don't have to sweat it but you do have to plan ahead and know what you need to get.
Otherwise it .just .doesn't .matter .anymore....
 
As someone also looking to get a new computer--and software--this discussion is of interest to me.

I'm confused.

dgatwood--your comments about speed don't make sense to me. I thought the processors are commonly the same. Some of your other comments could--to my non-techie brain--maybe make sense, but I don't understand the thermal envelope thing.

Don’t know that I have to, because of what TimOBrien wrote, which I took as: there really isn't much difference between laptops and desktops these days.

Tim, or anyone, why wouldn't you want to record to a computer's primary drive? I'm a pretty low-end user, and I’m just curious.

I use CoolEdit Pro 2.1a--will be getting a new program, uncertain which--which is on my primary drive C. I files to that and also to another hardrive D, and two USB flash drives. But I can only use the program from the C drive, which I assume is because that's where my operating system is. Or at least I think that's the way it works. I moved the program and all of it'/s assoc files to a diff drive w/no success.

So when you say, " you NEVER want to record to the primary drive on any computer system anyway" are you talking about saving files and/or where the program itself is located? Maybe I don't understand the relationship between software, op systems, and drives.
 
Look at the front side bus speed that will tell you some of the story on speed. Its NOT just the ghz of the processor itself, far from it.

Main issues in notebooks are compatability based. ie, if a certian network card is messing up your audio program you're stuck with it on a notebook where on a desktop you could just use a pci card to replace onboard. And if something inside dies you're stuck. If a video card on a desktop dies after 3 years, you can just replace the video card for cheap. If it dies on a notebook you're shopping for a new notebook.
 
i dont really care about compatability, all i really wanna know is if it would be able to keep up with a desktop pc if it has really good spec.
 
jackstpaulUHS said:
Tim, or anyone, why wouldn't you want to record to a computer's primary drive? I'm a pretty low-end user, and I’m just curious.
Click to expand...

First, laptop primary drives are usually slow: 5400rpm.

Secondly, the OS and applications have little housekeeping chores to do all the time.
When you're streaming in a big chunk of audio, you do NOT want the disk arm to have to raise, move to another point on the disk and set down again, do its housekeeping and then have to go all the way back. That leads to clicks, pops and dropouts of data.

You want the recording drive to do NOTHING but lay down a continuous, uninterrupted stream of data....

Best setup for ANY recording computer-
OS, applications and vsts on primary drive
Sample libraries on another independent drive
Audio projects and misc data on all other separate drives.

A 7200rpm drive, if uninterrupted, can stream upwards of 100 tracks @ 24bit/44.1khz
You don't need to think about splitting projects among multiple drives unless you get over 100 tracks
(the big film and video orchestrators that work with entire symphony orchestras will do this...)
 
Let me jump in here with a few points I didn't see raised in the other posts.

Laptops are... first and foremost... fragile. The larger the laptop, the more fragile it is, because it's heavier. You really won't appreciate this until you've had one for a while. You'll rationalize, underestimate, and then the day will come when your grip isn't as sure as you might wish, and something is going to slip.

I own both a 17" HP and a 14" Dell. I am aware of the issues and try to be careful. The HP weighs a ton and is slowly falling to pieces, the Dell... though older... is quite lite and is still in fairly decent shape.

The other thing that people don't appreciate... I cringed when I saw the eBay link... is the warranty.

I just bought a Dell 1420 (14" widescreen) for my daughter and I insisted that it have the 4 year soup-to-nuts warranty. That warranty was 1/3rd of the purchase price. If you can't afford the warranty, you can't afford the laptop.

No ifs, ands, or buts.
 
Hmmmmmmmmmm

I'll consider your 14" over the 17" wisdom. You might have something there. Really. I will be weighing this point for the next few days, since I'm getting ready to make another purchase.


But, the warranty thing... Well... The reason they offer those things is the same reason companies go into the insurance racket. BIG PROFIT!


I have never bought an extended warranty for any of the 20 computers I have purchased (1 year guarantee warranty by the government) or been involved with purchasing for others.

If the computer is going to falter, it will happen during the 1st year. If it falters after that, you should be able to fix the issue yourself.


What kind of problem would an extended warranty cover in all likelihood? Hard drive? Buy a new one. They're cheap.

RAM? Buy new. Very cheap!

Wireless networking card? Dirt cheap.

These things almost never go bad.


Sound card? If it works for a year, it should work for 5 years.

Keyboard or screen? Ok... this could be an issue. But why would they start to falter after a year? You're hard on it? Don't be.

And guess what? In 4 years, you could buy a replacement machine for the cost of that warranty (according to you, 1/3 the price of the new machine).


I just wouldn't.
 
jackstpaulUHS said:
dgatwood--your comments about speed don't make sense to me. I thought the processors are commonly the same. Some of your other comments could--to my non-techie brain--maybe make sense, but I don't understand the thermal envelope thing.
Click to expand...

No, not the same. You can put a Xeon into a desktop. You can't put that chip in a laptop. Thus, the laptops are limited to the bottom and middle grade of CPU, while desktops can take all three.

The thermal envelope is referring to the enclosure. Smaller case = more concentrated heat = harder work for the fan. Add to that the fact that the fans are also smaller because of space constraints (smaller fans automatically = louder assuming they push the same volume of air) and it's a double whammy.


jackstpaulUHS said:
Tim, or anyone, why wouldn't you want to record to a computer's primary drive? I'm a pretty low-end user, and I’m just curious.
Click to expand...

I've never used anything other than my computer's system drive, but then again, I mostly record with desktop machines. Unless you are low on RAM and your computer is doing a lot of paging, it really shouldn't make enough difference to worry about. The low end of modern desktop hard drives can handle something like 400+ tracks at 192 kHz/24-bit, at least if you're looking at theoretical throughput. Real world is probably half that, but still such a huge margin over what is needed that the occasional seek to write a log file or whatever is pretty much immaterial unless you are very short on RAM and are paging constantly. :)
 
Toddskins said:
But, the warranty thing... Well... The reason they offer those things is the same reason companies go into the insurance racket. BIG PROFIT!
Click to expand...

Not on laptops, it isn't. At least not in my experience. I've never had a laptop where the extended warranty didn't pay for itself many times over. Never. Not one. Desktops, not so much, but even then, of the two times I've bought one, the first of them paid for itself about 3x in repair savings.

As always, YMMV.
 
i only said that because im certain everything i use would be compatible with all the laptops i have looked at!


Main issues in notebooks are compatability based. ie, if a certian network card is messing up your audio program you're stuck with it on a notebook where on a desktop you could just use a pci card to replace onboard. And if something inside dies you're stuck. If a video card on a desktop dies after 3 years, you can just replace the video card for cheap. If it dies on a notebook you're shopping for a new notebook.
Click to expand...

and if i network card and video card dies in a laptop, you think you cant get them replaced for cheap? or i guess people just chuck there expensive sony and dell laptops in the bin if there network card is playing up ay?
 
Toddskins said:
But, the warranty thing... Well... The reason they offer those things is the same reason companies go into the insurance racket. BIG PROFIT!

I have never bought an extended warranty for any of the 20 computers I have purchased (1 year guarantee warranty by the government) or been involved with purchasing for others.

If the computer is going to falter, it will happen during the 1st year. If it falters after that, you should be able to fix the issue yourself.

Hard drive? Buy a new one. They're cheap, RAM? Buy new. Very cheap.
Wireless networking card? Dirt cheap. If it works for a year, it should work for 5 years.

Keyboard or screen? Ok... this could be an issue. But why would they start to falter after a year? You're hard on it? Don't be.

And guess what? In 4 years, you could buy a replacement machine for the cost of that warranty (according to you, 1/3 the price of the new machine).
Click to expand...
Your desktop experience is obvious and resulting bias glaring. None of what you mentioned... other than the display and keyboard... is of any concern.

You are 110% correct in what you say, but none of that is an issue in a laptop. The issues in a laptop are the housing... which cracks... the screen... which breaks... the keyboard... which can't just be tossed and replaced.

And if you go with... 'well, I can buy another laptop in four years with what I paid for the warranty...' logic you are reasoning incorrectly. The question you SHOULD be asking is can you buy another one NEXT year, and the year after THAT, and the year after THAT, because that is EXACTLY what the people that I know have had to do when they did not have a good warranty.

The whole idea behind a laptop warranty isn't to replace a bad RAM stick or a HDD, it's to replace the whole friggin' thing because some dunderhead dropped it off a balcony!
 
wheelema said:
The whole idea behind a laptop warranty isn't to replace a bad RAM stick or a HDD, it's to replace the whole friggin' thing because some dunderhead dropped it off a balcony!
Click to expand...

I would think that a high end laptop wouldnt be mistakenly dropped off a balcony - i dont really think this is a reason to spend alot of money on a warranty, as long as your not an idiot and you take care of your possessions i think your be safe.

And as far as the housing cracking, i dont think many of the new systems are that flimsy and are built pretty strong.
 
Melsi, it seems clear that you were already set on a laptop and no advice from anyone will make you change your mind. It kind of makes me wonder what the point of the post was, but I guess it doesn't matter.

I currently use a laptop for all my recording. When I started using it, I thought portability was a big plus, but that's not really true. For it to be truly portable, I'd have to forego the use of not only my audio interface but also my studio monitors. So, what's the point of portability? If I'm looking to do field recording, I'll just buy a Zoom H2 or something similar -- incredibly portable and gets the job done.

When I get ready to build a new DAW, it'll be a self-assembled rackmount case. Why?

1. It will fit in the same rack as other studio gear I'll no doubt be purchasing.
2. the rack itself will be a flight case. If I truly need to move my studio, I lock it up and with me come my DAW, interfaces, pres, etc. The only thing left to case up is my monitors.
3. Ease of upgradeability/repair. Sure, laptops can be repaired, but I don't have tiny robot fingers... why would I force myself to work in such a restrictive environment?
4. A good quality rackmount case should last for many, many years. Even if technology has a grand explosion, worst-case scenario, I'm slapping in a new mobo/cpu. Not the case with a laptop -- it's replacement time regardless of whether the internal hard drive, display, etc. still work.
5. NOISE CONTROL. Throw a blanket over that laptop for 30 minutes while you track and then do it again tomorrow. Pray that it doesn't overheat. Laptop fans are loud, bottom line. I can keep my rack in a control room with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse in the tracking room AND the same in the control room. This can also be done with a laptop but what's the point -- you've just negated the portability aspect.
6. I may get hassled on this one but it still seems from my research over the past year that the best interfaces/DSPs/etc. are PCI. While I don't doubt this will change as more designers lock onto FireWire, I'd rather have both options at my disposal.

That's a newb's take. I bet you'll still go for a laptop, but at least consider the advice you've been given.
 
Melsi said:
I would think that a high end laptop wouldnt be mistakenly dropped off a balcony - i dont really think this is a reason to spend alot of money on a warranty, as long as your not an idiot and you take care of your possessions i think your be safe.

And as far as the housing cracking, i dont think many of the new systems are that flimsy and are built pretty strong.
Click to expand...

I admire your positive attitude, but...

My wife has run over the laptop I am typing on to create this post... twice! I couldn't freaking believe it.

I am still able to use it because I had a three year warranty.

The first time it was placed, lovingly, carefully, while bundled in it's case, in the back of our van. The door didn't shut. It slipped out. CRUNCH!

The second time I was extremely sick, the laptop was left accidentally behind on the ground, and she nailed it while looking over her shoulder while she was backing up.

If you don't think accidents happen you are either shit-house lucky, or young.

I going to guess young.
 
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