DELL XPS Laptop

i hope you intend to buy a USB interface and even then it has a good change of not working..
firewire is a sure bet it wont work at all.

an i5 would suite you i am sure unless you do a good deal of samples

most off the shelf laptops are plagued with numerous issues
at best 1/2 will work ok with USB, few at any decent low latency.
 most will not work with firewire

I have a Dell Inspiron 1720. I ordered it with a few tweeks but it's basically off the shelf.  It has a 3.5 year old Intel Core 2 Duo chip in it. It runs Vista.  I used it exclusively for 2.5 years are my main DAW.  It ran many projects with from 10 to 20 tracks. Lots of synths. As it aged (more stuff on the HD and more plugs sucking CPU's) I started to use the Bounce to Track function on many of the synths and then archived or removed the synths.

The interface I use is a Focusrite Saffire. It is a firewire interface. The problem is many of the computers do NOT have the correct chip set to run the firewire interfaces like they need to. A USB interface is a sure bet to work right on the widest range of computers in the "off the shelf" catagory.

As a side note, I built a new DAW and fully expected to have to buy a new interface, but the firewire chips in the new MOBO worked perfectly with the Saffire. 

Even now with my new MOBO, running with an Intel i5 chip, I tend to run 10 to 15 tracks and still like to bounce or freeze to work in audio. I like my processor CPU numbers to be low so I have lots of power available in the mixing stages.


In short: Although there are better options and configurations available..............A Dell off the shelf should work OK with a good USB interface running ASIO drivers to record small to medium projects with little problem.

Guitarhacker


I have a Dell Inspiron 1720. I ordered it with a few tweeks but it's basically off the shelf.  It has a 3.5 year old Intel Core 2 Duo chip in it. It runs Vista.  I used it exclusively for 2.5 years are my main DAW.  As a side note, I built a new DAW and fully expected to have to buy a new interface, but the firewire chips in the new MOBO worked perfectly with the Saffire. 


In short: Although there are better options and configurations available..............A Dell off the shelf should work OK with a good USB interface running ASIO drivers to record small to medium projects with little problem.

you cant judge a dell laptop made today based on a 3.5 yr old laptop.
things have got much worse since then.
 
Scott
ADK
 

prsdude


So can somebody please enlighten me as to why a laptop that has an i5 or i7 processor, 7200rpm HDD, 6-8G RAM, wouldn't work as good as a desktop with the same specs?  Is it the chipset? I know mostly everyone wants a desktop, in which I can understand if they run big projects or do it for a living, but for my case of averaging 10-20 tracks, why couldn't that work? Thanks for all the input by the way, i do appreciate it.

just google dpc latency....its is all over the internet, and on this, and other popular forums.... that being said, you may be able to get away with the following:

1 - Using the onboard soundcard with the latest ASIO4ALL
2 - purchase the highly priced rme interface
but you may still experience dropouts and stutters due to DPC latency.....10-20 tracks, in my experience with custom made Toshiba and HP laptops, Sonar performed horribly (cubase too).  

Thanks for the reply, I am new to the dpc thing.  That info definitely helps me.

• DPC Latency
• Power-management (general purpose users want more hours of battery use).  This comes at the expense of performance
• Crap Firewire controllers

For live purposes, I've moved from laptops to using a custom mini-ITX i7 based machine.
Blows most laptops completely out of the water... and the whole lot (including the RME Babyface and all cables) fits into a single rolling 16"x12"x12" case.

Dell has come over as a renowned name in the market which has been crowned to deliver deliver heart hacking model of laptop computers. It is important for you to agenda that the Dell XPS 14 is not just an all play but no plan machine. This is one great machine that will enable you to handle a lot of tasks due to the fact that the processors and the memory of the computer are well designed for multitasking.