More laptop buying questions - processor and hard drive

I wouldn't worry about getting a machine with a serial port - I think USB to serial converters are very inexpensive?

I have not seen one so I would not know whether or not they're inexpensive. I DO know they exist. I've heard though that they are not very reliable or easy to map unusual wiring on the serial end. I'd trust a regular serial connection than an improperly wired converter.

I have a Dell desktop and I must say of all the PCs I've had and built myself, it has been the most reliable one thus far. I've had it for a year and a half now and I have not had a single problem with it.

A comment about external USB cards and noise. IF they have their own external power supply, they are isolated form the computer's noise problems, but some that draw their power from the USB line are not. I experimented with a couple, trying them on several different desktop computers that had no noise problems with PCI audio cards. I guess some of those cute, small, handy packages leave out too much on power supply filtering becaue their nose floors made a cheap SB look good.

Just a couple of comments. If there is any possible need for a parallel port, watch out - a lot of laptops no longer have these.

I'd also need to be convinced about the noise when using a laptop with pcmcia or usb from the mains.

Sadly, I think that an older laptop of a known type with acceptable on-board sound is not the answer. The batteries and any replacements purchased now will probably be the same age as the machine.

Just a couple of comments. If there is any possible need for a parallel port, watch out - a lot of laptops no longer have these.

I'd also need to be convinced about the noise when using a laptop with pcmcia or usb from the mains.

Sadly, I think that an older laptop of a known type with acceptable on-board sound is not the answer. The batteries and any replacements purchased now will probably be the same age as the machine.

A parallel port is a good possibility of use in the broadcast engineering world and the 600m I;m considering has it too. It's the only model in their line that has the serial ports I know for certain.

Yeah my feelings exactly on getting an older laptop the batteries may be harder to obtain. With the deals Dell is having right now it's so tempting.

Just a couple of comments. If there is any possible need for a parallel port, watch out - a lot of laptops no longer have these.

My HP zd7000 does - but I'm not sure about the later models. I think that they probably do though, because they aren't much of a redesign.

I'd still be very interested in whether anyone, accidentally or otherwise, finds a current laptop with usable on-board sound.

The newest Acers seem to have abandoned the audio standards they used to achieve, and I haven't heard about or been able to try the newest IBM's. They now are no longer IBM anyway, so may become an increasingly movable feast.

By usable, I mean achieving about the same performance for noise and distortion as an Audigy or a Santa Cruz card without any unexpected problems like the wildly variable DC offset that I saw in a Compaq desktop recently. Having and actively using these older Acers and an older IBM, I know that machines used to exist.

I'm no longer in the position of actively buying numbers of machines or seeing them pass by my "test bench", so it would be really helpful if  all these people buying new machines could do a quick battery powered check of the on-board sound rather than just write it off.

Well, my old Santa Cruz had roughly -80db noise floor on all 4 inputs... I rarely have seen any onboard sound that can even give a floor that is half as quiet as that.

Edit: You're probably referring to playback, in that case, im sure there's at least a couple laptops out there that can playback with good quality.  I haven't found them, though.

I'm typing this on my Acer Travelmate 223. I've just fired up AA1.0, which is the only version that is installed on this machine.

I have set a tone source up to feed 1kHz tone through my current domestic system (i.e. -10) and into the line input. Line in gain is set so that the tone reads 0dB on the AA meter. I can then either switch off the source or unplug it from the laptop. In either case the laptop AA meter falls back to around -80 (peaks of -78 on the left channel and -80 on the right).
Recording and replaying this noise results in similar readings on the AA meters.

I wouldn't pretend that this is anything but quick and very dirty, but it is about the performance I get from 3 Acer laptops and the one IBM I use. And the fact is that if I hang this laptop across the output of a mixer in a live radio show or a casual recording, it sounds not bad at all.

All I seek to suggest is that I don't accept that everyone should give up on laptop sound. It can, or could, be good enough to be useful.

Yesterday I was on the phone to a local music gear store asking about Firewire audio interfaces and laptops.  Amongst much other advice, some of it quite sound, the guy I spoke to cast aspersions on the HP laptops, citing (amongst other things) chipset incompatibilities with various audio interfaces.  I'm a bit sceptical, because looking closely at laptop specs, most of them (at a given performance level) have the same chipset, across the different brands.  So I would expect any incompatibilites to affect a wide variety of brands, not just HP.  Does that sound plausible?

 So I would expect any incompatibilites to affect a wide variety of brands, not just HP.  Does that sound plausible?

Yes. AFAIK the only problem with this was one particular chipset (I can't remember which), and a) it was never used in laptops. and b) is fully resolved - years ago. With apologies in advance to anybody who falls into this category, it must be said that people in shops are trying to sell you things, and they are only working there because they can't get proper jobs - usually through lack of any sort of qualifications or aptitude. You may find the odd exception, but they will be rare - so you are likely as not to get opinions, not facts, from them. I'm quite prepared to listen to alternative arguments, but I've yet to find anybody working in a hi-tech music shop who actually wants to be there - unless it's their first week. And I am not saying that they're not trying to be helpful, or kind people - far from it. It's just that you should accept what they tell you as much as you'd accept what an estate agent (I believe that's a realtor if you're in the USA)  or second-hand car salesperson told you in terms of reliable information, because they're no different.

I hope to have my hot little hands on my HP in 18 hours (sounds like I'm counting!) and once I have the Traveler, hopefully to be delivered in the coming week, I'll be able to comment authoritatively!  (though of course SteveG has already blazed the trail with a different model HP).

Well, the 1.88Ghz HP8220 seems up to the task, at first glance.  It will play back eight tracks of "Great Hall" full reverb without stuttering, and will record eight tracks of 44.1/16 of its built in mic without showing any signs of working hard.  I haven't yet tried mixing a test session down on it in comparison with my 3gig P4 with HT, but will probably do so tomorrow.  Fan noise is pretty minimal.  It would still be too much really near an audience, probably ok 20 feet away - hard to express really.  It made some loud clicking noises to begin with, which I quickly discovered were system sounds (beep) - now OFF!.  Display is excellent, though characters such as track names are really tiny - if you wear glasses to read, you're sure going to need them.  Sideways visibility is very good if working with a colleague.

[pod]

Thanks Steve, you have expressed my suspicions about retailers quite well.  I hadn't thought about it in quite those terms, but I think you are quite right in making the distinction between facts and opinions.  Admittedly it is similar when researching the various forums around - there are a lot of opinions about there as well.  That's one reason I'm asking questions here, of course.  The thing is, though, that at least with a wide enough search you can get a variety of opinions, which may help identifying general trends.

I'm rambling here, but what I'm getting to is that I have done further forum searches, and there are conflicting opinions on whether or not the latest (or at least recent) Intel notebook chipset, which supports PCI express graphics, is causing problems for audio apps.  But again, I figure this is going to affect all the different brands using the same chipset, so it is no reason to exclude a particular brand.


Ozpeter's comments encourage me, though, as he has just got a similar model to the one I ordered on the weekend (yes, I've finally stopped dithering, and made the plunge).  The only doubt remaining is that our usage will be quite different: Ozpeter, I gather, does a lot of multichannel recording, and so will be pushing the I/O on the laptop, while I will be maxing out the CPU with software synths.  The reverb test sounds good, though.  The main thing left for me to decide on is whether to go with the Presonus Firebox (no, not the Firepod - I don't need that many inputs) or the M-Audio FireWire 410.

Ozpeter, I gather, does a lot of multichannel recording, and so will be pushing the I/O on the laptop, while I will be maxing out the CPU with software synths.

I don't think that he really has - yet! The majority of his work is single stereo pair, plus the odd fill-in, I think. Mind you, he certainly will be able to multitrack everything in the future if he wants.

The PCI express graphics issue wouldn't surprise me that much - we're talking about a bit of a resource hog here. Quite frankly, the amount of performance you get out of it in graphics terms is totally out of place on a laptop, I think.

The PCI express graphics issue wouldn't surprise me that much - we're talking about a bit of a resource hog here.

Damn!  I didn't want to hear (read) that.  Unfortunately, I think it is already hard to find high-end laptops with PCIe, as that is what the current chipset supports.