What laptop do you edit on?

Al MacLeod

Al MacLeod

Well-known member
My tecra is history...weeping weeping. Time for Win 7, i7 and all that. I might consider a Mac (shudder) just cause a new laptop means all new software anyhow.
Any body want to share what works for them?
 
I'd be interested in this as well.
I would like to have a good laptop available to me for editing on the go.
 
What keeps me from buying an Aliewnware, is the $4000 Alienware lap-top I have in a box, in my closet, that stopped working exactly 18 months after I bought it(only 1 yr warranty). The motherboard overheated and needed to be replace-out of warranty. And, the sad thing was, the motherboard was no longer in stock.
This was before Dell bought Alienware, and, from the reviews I've read, they haven't gotten any better. The problem is heat dissipation with speedy processors. Eventually, the motherboard dies.........YMMV, buyer beware.
 
Editing on a MacBook Pro 15.4" with 2.66GHz Core i7 Brain. Runs FCP, Avid and Premiere without a hitch. If you're seriously considering a Mac laptop, check out the refurbished models at the online Apple Store.
 
havasuphoto said:
What keeps me from buying an Aliewnware, is the $4000 Alienware lap-top I have in a box, in my closet, that stopped working exactly 18 months after I bought it(only 1 yr warranty). The motherboard overheated and needed to be replace-out of warranty. And, the sad thing was, the motherboard was no longer in stock.
This was before Dell bought Alienware, and, from the reviews I've read, they haven't gotten any better. The problem is heat dissipation with speedy processors. Eventually, the motherboard dies.........YMMV, buyer beware.
Click to expand...

Are you a rich hardcore gamer, who plays graphically demanding games every night, every weekend, many hours a week? The high-priced Alienware are really intentionally built for rich hardcore gamers, who typically know a lot about computer software (at least games) and hardware (at least very tech savvy). Motherboard overheated? The problem was probably not really serious to a hardcore gamer.... Actually, with $4000 to spend, if you only need a computer for business or for military or for any type of paid job that demands high reliability (in addition to raw power/speed), the right choice would be a high-end workstation-grade computer. Almost all Alienware computers are no more than consumer computers, regardless how fast they are. As a result, they die just like all other consumer computers on the market. That being said, they are by no means less reliable than any other brand consumer computers on the market either....

For $4000, you could have bought 3-4 regular consumer laptops even a few years ago. When you spent $4000 for just one consumer-grade laptop, you were really paying at least $2000 for the extra speed/joy it delivers, not for a bit of extra reliability. In fact, if you chose to have your laptop overclocked, you were further sacrificing reliability for speed.... The value of most consumer computers diminishes in just about 2 years. And you enjoyed the rock-solid performance from your Alienware for 1.5 years - was that really bad at all?! Surely, there may be some one on the earth who is probably still using a 10-year-old ThinkPad or Toshiba. Would you trade your super fast Alienware (as fast as technology allows) for a laptop that would last several years but is way too slow to run most programs (esp. FPS/strategy/3D games) that you happily enjoy on your Alineware?

If someone can name a laptop model on today's market that is both more portable and more powerful than Alienware M14x, I'm all ears! As far as I know, it does not exist - yet. And even Apply doesn't have one that matches M14x in terms of both portability and raw power (perhaps after more than doubling the price, they could?). Also, M14x are by no means less reliable than any other non-workstation-grade computers on the earth. The truth is: all computers are much more reliable than just a few years ago. That's how technology evolves.


BTW, I buy a new computer every 1.5 - 2 years. At the time, I'm owning 3 laptops and 1 desktop (quad-core i7-basd, custom built in 2009 for only $1008, running all latest FPS/strategy/RPG games and Adobe stuff just fine) with 2 big LCD, and I'm the only user most time. I am looking to buy another one in a few months (likely, Alienware M17x with 3D support, as none of my computers supports 3D). That's why I know how good M14x is. It's a really beautiful laptop that money can buy, not just a super fast one (and is no less reliable than any other consumer-grade computer on the earth). Seeing is believing. Just go to their website and take a look. Disclaimer: I don't work for Dell, and it's fine with me whatever laptop you buy.
 
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you are correct; i was rich and big into gaming. i bought the alienware custom built, back in 2005. it had the pentium iv 3.4ghz, 8gb ram, dual raid drives, and a large 17" monitor. it was not my primary computer. i was working 7 days on and 7 days off, away from home, so i need something portable to take with me to play games. to replace the dead alienware, i bought an HP pavillion something or other-the caveat that it had a 17" screen, the rest didn't matter, as i was not so interested in games, and knew that if i replaced the alienware with something just as fast, the same thing would probably happen.

i build my own desktop pc's-water cooled...yada..yada..yada.....i save a ton of money by custom building my own system for gaming-and conveniently it works great for editing as well.

i'd love to find a laptop to replace my almost 6 year old hp that i'm typing on now. don't need to edit with it-but that would be nice.
what amazes me, is that this $800 best buy hp pavillion, is still working well, after all this time. it still runs almost 2 hours on the original battery-i can't kill this thing!!!
seriously though, i'm following this thread because my aging laptop is sooo sloooow, even for surfing the internet. oh, and i can't use the cap button to much, or it locks on cap lock, and i have to re-boot to get back to normal.
still really want/need the 17" screen(1600x1200 minimum).

edit; i will never own another alienware/dell. the ordeal I went through trying to get my "door stop" repaired was a nightmare. i've read several reviews on the "new' alienware laptops, and i'm not impressed with the reliability. and, i'm "mac-challenged", so I won't be going that route.
 
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2011 15" Macbook Pro 2.2Ghz 8Gb RAM with OWC Data Doubler and 500 Gigs in Optical Bay. I love not needing an external drive. It does drain the battery a tad more but with the right settings and pre transcoded footage I can get 5 hours of editing in FCP7. I have FCPX but have no editing for 5 hours straight yet.
 
No matter how you do it to get what you want seems to put you over 3 grand with a Mac and around 2 grand for a PC.
Mac doesn't seem to have Cuda in its corner, but the product is very seductive. I can see a lot of usb 3 stuff coming
down the pipeline and Mac isn't going that route. Choices are a curse.
 
Hmm... ATI cards, Sandy Bridge - not exactly what the good doctor recommends.

Intel i7, 8 gig of RAM and a Cuda card with at least 1 gig of RAM to run Premiere like a like a bat out of hell.

Don´t know the specs for Vegas and AVID though, but I heard they are less demanding on hardware.

Frank
 
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