I'm just getting back into Sonar X3, haven't really used it since Sonar 3 a number of years ago. I'd like to get a laptop rather than being chained to my desktop for editing. I've looked at a number of gaming laptops, assuming that's where I'd find better sound cards and performance, but wouldn't mind finding something with a) less weight and b) better battery life. I wondered if anyone had any recommendations for solid Sonar friendly laptops.

I use an Asus NV56VZ with an i7 3630QM and 8 gb of ram, I use Sonar X3 mainly for rock and some electro. It stands up to the task pretty well; running Addictive Drums 2, several amp sims (TH2, Scuffham, Amplitube) and serveral vocal tracks, all with effects without breaking a sweat. I would go with a desktop next time, but as a portable solution, I can't knock it.

Thanks. I've been looking at Asus - I like a lot of their peripherals. That and Alienware are on my short list.

I've been using Sonar on a laptop for several years much for the same reason as described. I don't want to be locked into one place to work on it. The experience has been great for me. I get a lot more done. I'm able to jump into something I'm working on anywhere I feel like. Since I can get to it more often and easier I get more done.

Regardless of which laptop you get, I would recommend you investigate whether you can ultimately set it up with two internal hard drives. I swapped out my DVD drive (which I didn't need regularly, I now have an external DVD for that). Two internal hard drives helps a lot for audio production. To top it off, matter what hard drive(s) you start with, the ideal place to get to is two internal SSD drives. You'll fly once there.

Also, you need to budget for an external sound card, also known as an audio interface (sound blaster won't cut it).  The sound cards in laptops (and desktops) will frustrate you to no end trying to run a professional music app like Sonar X3.
 
Also, there will be a number of things that you need to do on your laptop to make it perform better with respect t real time audio, including turning off wifi, setting power management settings, etc.
 
 

Forget Alienware. They are overpriced junk. Look more towards workhorse computers. If you have the money for an Alienware, put it towards an ADK Pro Audio laptop or something that is designed for audio work. The other option I would look at is a Lenovo Thinkpad.
 
As stated above, you will need an audio interface. There are plenty of small ones available that are portable.

I can see I have some more homework to do. I'd never heard of ADK Pro Audio, but just checked out their site - looks doable. Oddly enough, I pretty much live on Lenovo's at work - never thought of them as a possibility.

I forgot to say I use a Focusrite Scarlet 2i4 interface with my Asus, it allows me to run asio at 2ms and playback/recording buffers at 64 samples. I have not used the sound card in the laptop for audio production.

Gaming computers tend to put a lot of muscle into the graphics, which is not really where the needs of Sonar are.  Sonar needs memory, CPU, and if available - multiple disk drives, more than a super powerful graphics capability.
 
I would look for an i5 or i7 processor, with 8 GB or more of memory, and at least space for a 2nd disk drive.  (if otherwise unavailable, look for an eSata port, where you could hook in another drive that way).  In addition, many audio interfaces that connect using USB don't handle being plugged into a USB 3 port, so you may need to make sure at least 1 USB 2 port is available.  
 
I repeat that a monster gaming graphics adapter is not needed for Sonar use.  I routinely run Sonar just fine using the on-board graphics - not even having a graphics expansion card installed on my desktop.
 
You will also likely run into DPC Latency issues with most laptops, due to the drivers for the WI-Fi adapters.  The fix is to turn off or disable the Wi-Fi adapter just prior to launching Sonar, and when finished with your Sonar session, simply turn the Wi-Fi adapter back on or enable it.
 
Bob Bone

While it's true that gaming machines put muscle into graphics, that is only one piece of the puzzle. Most high end gaming machines also come with high end processors and RAM. RAM timing can be extremely important in gaming and not all RAM is the same. You can have 32GB of RAM, but if it's timing is low, it's worthless. Especially when you have tons of high end samples loading into RAM, you need it to be quick. Gaming computers typically knock it out of the park with this one because they know to look at this where as most people I've known who have made their own music computers typically had no idea this spec existed and just shove a bunch of cheap RAM into the system.
 
That said, Alienware is Dell and Dell is crap therefore Alienware is expensive high-end crap. :P
Seriously though, a lot of the hardware inside Alienware is junk. You're essentially paying for a pretty case.