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Gear / Technical Help => Post-Processing, Computer / Streaming / Internet Devices & Related Activity => Topic started by: kskreider on March 08, 2004, 11:40:16 AM

Title: Preferred laptops for field recording
Post by: kskreider on March 08, 2004, 11:40:16 AM

Hey folks,

My wife is finishing up her PhD. and is killing me to get her a new laptop.  

As a taper I know that I'd really like to get her a teeny Vaio or Lifebook (wink wink), but then she'd kill me for real.

Can anyone tell me what would be wrong with going and getting a low budget lappy (preferably<$1000), say with a Celeron processor, etc. to use for taping?  Or preferred makes/models for field use?

Pros and cons please?  

Remember this would only be used secondarily for taping.

ha ha, I can hear myself now, "Can't you work on your stoopid dissertation tomorrow?  The XYZ band is in town and has never played here before!"  :P

with foot in mouth...Kk :-X

PS, yes I am eyeballing Damon's Lifebook

Title: Re:Preferred laptops for field recording
Post by: F.O.Bean on March 08, 2004, 12:51:49 PM

well, me personally, i wouldnt muck up damons lalppy w/ anything but taping, buts thats just me

hehehe, honey, xzy is playing and NOONE else can do 24-bit;-)

Title: Re:Preferred laptops for field recording
Post by: RRobar on March 08, 2004, 12:59:02 PM

Avoid the Cellerons. Go centrino if you can. the biggest issue with laptop taping is getting power to the laptop. A P4 will hog power, you will need a powerpad or similar. The centrino's give a great power. Or and I know this is not a option most likely. But I just got a Mac iBook through work. It's rated at 6hours of battery time. I've run it for about 5 while running photoshop and Illustrator constantly. It still had 40% battery life.

Title: Re:Preferred laptops for field recording
Post by: Thom Joad on March 09, 2004, 07:49:11 AM

"hehehe, honey, xzy is playing and NOONE else can do 24-bit;-) "


actually she knows that there are other locals that can do 24 bit

DSJ - I had no problems at all using this old compaq 1210 the one time I did 24/48 with it, and it was pretty cheap when work bought it for me on 9/10/01, but then again I had homefield advantage (literally) and AC power ta boot

Title: Re:Preferred laptops for field recording
Post by: nic on March 09, 2004, 09:10:46 AM

a celeron processor will be more than fine for laptop taping. max out the ram and you should be fine(Damons laptop uses a Transmeta cpu which is basically a low power celeron/pentium compatible chip-about the same cpu power as a celeron)

Title: Re:Preferred laptops for field recording
Post by: sygdwm on March 09, 2004, 02:07:10 PM

fwiw i run a sony vaio p3 700 w/ 128 ram flawlessly. ill let you know about 24bit if i ever get this usbpre.

Title: Re:Preferred laptops for field recording
Post by: rando on March 11, 2004, 11:14:49 PM

i'm running a p3 500mhz 192RAM. Dell Latitude csx500xt and i invested in the ncharge 130 and am now good to go for a full nite of taping or half a day at a festival.  I also upped the HD to a 60g.

rando

Title: Re:Preferred laptops for field recording
Post by: dklein on March 12, 2004, 12:46:34 AM

I bought the cheapest new Dell I could get my hands on and have no regrets.  It's an Inspiron 1100.
2 gHz CPU
256 MB RAM
30 GB drive
CD/DVD combo drive

Now I bought it for work of course  ;)  It's not the smallest but it cost like $700 after rebates and runs ~4.5 hours with the standard battery that came with it.  Only down side, closing and opening while recording causes a glitch.  You have to keep it one way or the other.

watch www.techbargains.com for good deals on lappies
Dell seems to come up with good deals and rebates every month or so.