What to look for in a laptop/tablet PC?

Steven Davis · March 14th, 2007, 06:29 AM

Well somewhere on this board I posted my saga in buying a laptop. I can say that when the dust settled I ended up purchasing a laptop from HP. I've been very happy with it.

My advice is to look at your work/job/project realistically and understand that any laptop you buy now, will probably be outdated in a year or so, so you'll want to get the fasted trusted set of chips you can. I would put your money in RAM, Memory, and would skip on the hard drive capacity, and consider an external drive as an alternative. The larger capacity drives are very expensive for what they are. Maybe consider buying a laptop and putting your own larger drive in later.

Either way, been very happy with my HP, with exception to thier moronic support, but that's another story, most pc manufactures suck at tech support.

Michael Barrette · March 14th, 2007, 08:33 PM

I just bought a quick lap top, the only drawbacks are 1) 2 Slots rather than 3 slots for RAM. I'd like to upgrade to 3GB of RAM since Vista takes up about .6 GB just for running. 2) Hard Drive is 5400 rpm.

On that note, I am having some dropped frames exporting a movie from premiere to my camera. Not sure yet if this is a function of my hard drive. I have not yet had a problem importing video.

I have a question on external hard drives. I am considering purchasing a firewire external drive and I plan on editing HDV on it. Does an external drive work fine for this purpose? Can I hook the camera via firewire into the external drive and the hard drive into the computer via another firewire port simultaneously? If so, is a firewire 800 just as good as having another hard drive in my computer?

Also, if so, if I'm editing HDV is this hard drive as good as any:http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.p...ctID=8631&SID=

Last question, is a firewire 400 drive just as good as an 800 for HDV? Or is an 800 the way to go?

Hopefully, someone or some of you can take up the challenge and answer some of these, would really help me out here.

Cheers,
Michael

Harm Millaard · March 15th, 2007, 02:32 AM

The fastest external drives are eSATA. Transfer rates in the range of 60-75 MB/s, whereas Firewire drives are around 25-35 MB/s and USB2 even slower. And no, you cannot attach an external drive to the firewire connector of your camera and capture. That requires special drives, like a FireStore.

Allan Black · March 15th, 2007, 05:41 AM

I've been running this HP nw8440 for a couple of months, pricey but excellent, I added another gig of RAM. The 15.4 display is smallish, I can't see Vegas running on it, I'll add a bigger screen.

The nature of a laptop says you dis/reconnect the firewire port fairly often. I do it very carefully, otherwise I can see strife down the track.

Product description:
PROC : Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 2.16GHz, 667MHz FSB, 4MB L2 cache
CHIPSET : Mobile Intel 945PM Express
MEM : 1GB (1x 1GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 2 SODIMM slots supporting dual
channel Mem
STORAGE : 100GB 7200rpm SMART SATA drive ; dual layer DVD+/-RW
DISPLAY : 15.4" WUXGA WVA with 1920 x 1200 Res & 16M Col
AUDIO : ADI High Definition CODEC - Intg 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro Compat
audio with Intg stereo speakers & Intg directional Mic
GRAPHICS : ATI Mobility FireGL V5200 graphics controller with 256MB of
video Mem
PORTS : 3 USB 2.0, VGA, audio in/out, Power Conn, RJ-11, RJ-45, S-video
TV out, 1394a, Serial, Docking Conn, Accessory Battery Conn
POWER : 8-cell 69Whr Li-ion battery
EXP SLOTS: 1 Type I/II PC Card supports 32-bit CardBus & 16-bit PC cards
NTWK : 802.11a/b/g Wless LAN & Bluetooth
COMMS : Intg Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Enet PCIe (10/100/1000 NIC) with
HP Smart Power NIC Tech, 56K V.92 modem with digital line guard
SECURITY : HP Protect Tools, Intg Smart Card Reader, TPM Embedded Security
OS : MS Win XP Pro
DIM : 28 x 358 x 259mm
WEIGHT : 2.7kg

March 14th, 2007, 06:29 AM	#16
Steven Davis Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Richmond, VA Posts: 3,065	Well somewhere on this board I posted my saga in buying a laptop. I can say that when the dust settled I ended up purchasing a laptop from HP. I've been very happy with it. My advice is to look at your work/job/project realistically and understand that any laptop you buy now, will probably be outdated in a year or so, so you'll want to get the fasted trusted set of chips you can. I would put your money in RAM, Memory, and would skip on the hard drive capacity, and consider an external drive as an alternative. The larger capacity drives are very expensive for what they are. Maybe consider buying a laptop and putting your own larger drive in later. Either way, been very happy with my HP, with exception to thier moronic support, but that's another story, most pc manufactures suck at tech support. __________________ What happens if I push the 'Red' button?

March 14th, 2007, 08:33 PM	#17
Michael Barrette Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: calgary, Canada Posts: 48	External Hard Drive I just bought a quick lap top, the only drawbacks are 1) 2 Slots rather than 3 slots for RAM. I'd like to upgrade to 3GB of RAM since Vista takes up about .6 GB just for running. 2) Hard Drive is 5400 rpm. On that note, I am having some dropped frames exporting a movie from premiere to my camera. Not sure yet if this is a function of my hard drive. I have not yet had a problem importing video. I have a question on external hard drives. I am considering purchasing a firewire external drive and I plan on editing HDV on it. Does an external drive work fine for this purpose? Can I hook the camera via firewire into the external drive and the hard drive into the computer via another firewire port simultaneously? If so, is a firewire 800 just as good as having another hard drive in my computer? Also, if so, if I'm editing HDV is this hard drive as good as any:http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.p...ctID=8631&SID= Last question, is a firewire 400 drive just as good as an 800 for HDV? Or is an 800 the way to go? Hopefully, someone or some of you can take up the challenge and answer some of these, would really help me out here. Cheers, Michael

March 15th, 2007, 02:32 AM	#18
Harm Millaard Trustee Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands Posts: 1,832	The fastest external drives are eSATA. Transfer rates in the range of 60-75 MB/s, whereas Firewire drives are around 25-35 MB/s and USB2 even slower. And no, you cannot attach an external drive to the firewire connector of your camera and capture. That requires special drives, like a FireStore.

March 15th, 2007, 05:41 AM	#19
Allan Black Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Sydney. Posts: 2,930	I've been running this HP nw8440 for a couple of months, pricey but excellent, I added another gig of RAM. The 15.4 display is smallish, I can't see Vegas running on it, I'll add a bigger screen. The nature of a laptop says you dis/reconnect the firewire port fairly often. I do it very carefully, otherwise I can see strife down the track. Product description: PROC : Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 2.16GHz, 667MHz FSB, 4MB L2 cache CHIPSET : Mobile Intel 945PM Express MEM : 1GB (1x 1GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 2 SODIMM slots supporting dual channel Mem STORAGE : 100GB 7200rpm SMART SATA drive ; dual layer DVD+/-RW DISPLAY : 15.4" WUXGA WVA with 1920 x 1200 Res & 16M Col AUDIO : ADI High Definition CODEC - Intg 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro Compat audio with Intg stereo speakers & Intg directional Mic GRAPHICS : ATI Mobility FireGL V5200 graphics controller with 256MB of video Mem PORTS : 3 USB 2.0, VGA, audio in/out, Power Conn, RJ-11, RJ-45, S-video TV out, 1394a, Serial, Docking Conn, Accessory Battery Conn POWER : 8-cell 69Whr Li-ion battery EXP SLOTS: 1 Type I/II PC Card supports 32-bit CardBus & 16-bit PC cards NTWK : 802.11a/b/g Wless LAN & Bluetooth COMMS : Intg Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Enet PCIe (10/100/1000 NIC) with HP Smart Power NIC Tech, 56K V.92 modem with digital line guard SECURITY : HP Protect Tools, Intg Smart Card Reader, TPM Embedded Security OS : MS Win XP Pro DIM : 28 x 358 x 259mm WEIGHT : 2.7kg