Re: Thinking About Laptop Computers (yet) Again


"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1150113142.822369.28150@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It seems that I get this urge (prompted in part by some strange
behavior of my laptop, which, just as strangely, seems to fix itself in
a week or so) to buy a new laptop computer. And every time I look
around to see what's out there, the game is very different.

I'm beginning to think that I really should buy two laptops.

Mike, I've been shopping for a new laptop myself for the last month or so
and my requirements are basically the same - I'm trying to avoid choosing
one 'type' of laptop (lightweight or workhorse) over another.

I'm leaning towards one of the new macs, probably the 'Macbook' with the
Intel processor. I don't specifically need Windows, though. I'm completely
impressed with the power, design, and build quality of their laptops. The
battery life is important to me as well. I'd definately look around for one
to see if you like the keyboard (my tactic has been to hang out in starbucks
until I see a guy with a new mac. Mac guys always want to talk about their
computers.)

I also saw a Compaq at Best Buy, also about five pounds, part of the 'v2000'
series. I believe you can opt for a firewire port on the compaq site, and it
runs less than $1000. The model at Best Buy seemed as sturdy as anything
else they had (not a brick house but not cardboard).

Hope this helps a little.

jb



I travel
often enough for real-life business that I'm getting tired of lugging a
20 pound bag of computer and associated *** around in airports. I
don't do audio other than perhaps listening to streaming radio programs
on-line in hotel rooms when radio reception sucks. For this purpose,
I'd like something compact and light. Just the other day I tried using
someone else's little Sony Vaio and, much as I liked the small size and
light weight, I couldn't type on the undersized keyboard and had to
plug in an external keyboard. So it can't be that small. And of course
the smaller and lighter they get, the more expensive they get. But I
could get something functional, weighing in at about 5 pounds, for
$500. But for $500 (at least one that otherwise looks pretty nice) I
don't get a Firewire port (kind of strange but WTF??), no parallel port
(that's all too common now) and a 4200 RPM disk drive (must be using
NOS drives!) - so I can pretty much forget using this one for remote
recording.

I occasionally do audio with my laptop. It isn't serious and it isn't
going to get serious, but it's interesting, sometimes handy, gives me
fodder for the occasional article, and it keeps me in tune with all the
associated problems (but not solutions) for laptop audio recording. I
can tolerate some extra weight for audio work since I'm almost always
traveling by car when I'm going to use the computer for recording, but
everything that I find that would be suitable for audio is heavier than
I'd want to carry for business trips. In addition, with the parallel
port becoming extinct on many models, I'd have to make other
arrangements for the dongle for Sequoia that I occasionally use. (I'm
looking into that now but there are complications which aren't all
technical) I don't need a really high powered computer for auido since
I'll never be mixing a lot of tracks or using plug-ins, but it needs to
have the right interfaces.

I'd really like to buy a computer that I can look at and feel before I
plunk down my money, and that pretty much limits my choices to the
brands and models that are sold at places like CompUSA, MicroCenter,
Office Depot, Best Buy, etc. There are lots of mail-order-onlly choices
but I'd hate to open the carton and find that I've bought something I
didn't like, or it was missing something that I didn't realize. While
(in another thread) I've advocated returning things that don't work
out, there's no such thing any more as a laptop computer that you can
return without paying a restocking charge which would be on the order
of $100 for computers in the price range I'm looking at.

So what to do? Just about everything you can find out about a computer
seems to be related to causing problems with some audio hardware or
software (Via graphic chipset, for example - a popular audio net wisdom
which hasn't seemed to die). Sometimes you can dig out this info,
sometimes you can't. Some Firewire ports work with some Firewire audio
interfaces, some don't. My words of wisdom to others who ask "which
laptop should I buy?" have always been that there are no guarantees,
but that the chances of success, particularly with some work and
perhaps a couple of add-ons, are usually pretty good. But now that I'm
on the receiving end, I find this advice pretty hard to take.

Does anybody have any better advice? Is it likely that I'll find a 5
pound computer that will do audio well and cost less than $1500? Should
I go for separate laptops for business/travel and audio? Or maybe I
should just get a travel laptop and put a few hundred bucks (new disk
drive, for starters) into my present laptop, which at least works for
audio, but which is disk-limited.

And now the inevitiable "Has anyone ever use a . . . " question -
M-Tech? (http://www.m-techlaptops.com) This brand seems to be popular
among the people who like to run Unix on their laptops, and their web
site seems to be more focused on why you should buy one of theirs over
a Dell. But I've never seen one, and never even heard of it until last
night when a friend (who never buys new computeres and hasn't bought
one himself) was raving about it.

????????



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