Laptop for HDV? - Lenovo vs Dell

NickHope wrote on 12/10/2007, 3:52 AM

I'm researching a laptop for editing HDV in Vegas Pro 8.0a. I live in Thailand but will probably buy from the UK in the new year as the Thailand models are behind in their specs. These 2 seem to be topping my list:

Lenovo T61P
Core 2 Duo T7500
15.4" 1920x1200 LCD
2 x 1GB RAM
100GB 7200RPM HDD
XP Pro
£1570 inc VAT

Dell Precision M6300
Core 2 Duo T7700
17" 1920 x 1200 LCD
2 x 1GB RAM
160GB 7200RPM HDD
XP Pro
£1296 inc VAT

Any opinions on which one would be better?

Any other suggestions?

15.4" on the Lenovo seems a bit small for 1920x1200, and it's more expensive, and the processor is a bit slower.

But Lenovo seems to have a better reputation for reliability than Dell. Right? Reliability is critical to me as this will be going to some very remote locations.

Comments

farss wrote on 12/10/2007, 4:16 AM

We just bought a M6300, so far so good. It sure seems dang fast. I've got our SI-2K camera hung off it with the Dell running the DVR software. It hasn't broke so far but it's very early days.
One thing that did bug me, we ordered it with a 200GB drive and it came with the whole of that drive as one partition. Ended up re-installing XP to get a more sensible partition. This could have been my own fault though, I think Dell have an option to specify drive partitioning.

One final tip with Dell, configure online and ring, amazing what a little Bob BSing did in getting $500 off the price. Delivery took 3 weeks though.

I ordered an extra battery for our M6300, another minor gripe, Dell don't seem to offer and external battery charger, given that we'll be using this away from mains supply for extended periods a separate battery charger would be very handy.

As for reliability, the most fragile bits aren't made by Dell anyway although how they mount and cool them would be a factor. The M6300 does run pretty cool although that's probably more to do with the new Intel CPU than anything. Needless to say in your environment a Storm or Pelican case would be a good investment. If you're really going tropo there are companies that do ruggedised laptops but it's probably cheaper to buy two Dells.

Bob.

NickHope wrote on 12/10/2007, 4:50 AM

Thanks Bob. Is yours Core 2 Duo T7700? There are faster and slower options on the site.

Also do you know if it's possible to put a 2nd HDD in there? Perhaps in the DVD drive slot?

Finally, does anyone know what the best eSATA cardbus card is? I seem to remember there was one that was better. Perhaps it was the only SATA-300 one.

Laurence wrote on 12/10/2007, 5:14 AM

I've been looking to buy an HD editing laptop too. So far, I like the http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Usage&v1=Entertainment&series_name=dv9500t_seriesHP Pavillion[/link] better than the Dells.

A little configuring and you can get four gig of ram, two 7200 RPM hard drives, decent graphics etc.

farss wrote on 12/10/2007, 5:24 AM

We ordered ours with the T7800 CPU and 2GB of RAM.

I've added the Addonics GigE card as we needed the Marvel Yukon chip for the camera.
Addonics do a number of Expressbus eSATA cards:
http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/adexc34-2e.asp

Bob.

Edit: Sorry, as far as I could tell no option for second HDD which was a bit of a pain but for our needs a USB disk is plenty fast enough.

Jeff9329 wrote on 12/10/2007, 6:51 AM

Any laptop that supports a second internal HD would be ideal.

Even my old HP ZD 7260 P4 3.4 laptop is pretty fast on 8a editing HDV. All the new duo processors smoke the P4s.

I would also go with the 17" screen so the aspect ratio is close to HD.

MH_Stevens wrote on 12/10/2007, 6:56 AM

The best laptops now come with Quad so no reason not to go that route. Fast card like a Qudro is highlt desirable as is RAID 0. Do eiter Dell or lenovo offer this?

Mike

MH_Stevens wrote on 12/10/2007, 6:56 AM

The best laptops now come with Quad so no reason not to go that route. Fast card like a Qudro is highlty desirable as is RAID 0. Do eiter Dell or lenovo offer this?

Mike

Cliff Etzel wrote on 12/10/2007, 8:03 AM

Nick - there are 3 Dell Laptops in the house and each can accept a second hard drive in the removable tray that you order from Dell. Knowing what you do, I personally would lean towards the small computer purely out of size and weight restrictions for flying - especially with all the other dive gear you're going to be dealing with.

I'd opt for a machine that will allow for a max of 4GB RAM - trust me, you'll want it as you well know with your recent desktop thread. Are you looking at this laptop purely for ingesting footage over to a separate hard drive or is this going to be for field editing? If the latter, then I would up the specs.

Cliff Etzel - Immersive Video Journalist
bluprojekt

Terje wrote on 12/10/2007, 9:14 PM

One other thing that is important to me, but it may not be important to you. If you are working a lot on the keyboard, get one with a good keyboard. The best laptop keyboards, IMHO are on the Lenovos (nee IBM Thinkpad) laptops. I spend a lot of time on the keyboard, and have been doing that for 20 year or so. At this point in time there is only one laptop maker for me and that is IBM/Lenovo. Sadly they tend to be a little later to the game with the fastest CPUs etc.

NickHope wrote on 12/13/2007, 1:25 AM

Thanks for all the help.

Bob, thanks for the Addonics link. I have also found Firmtek. Is there any reason why laptop vendors aren't offering built-in eSATA inputs yet? The eSATA ExpressCards are quite expensive and difficult to get hold of. For example www.dabs.com don't carry them.

Bob, can you explain what you meant about needing the Marvel Yukon chip for the camera? Your camera connects to your laptop via a network socket?

apit34356 wrote on 12/13/2007, 1:58 AM

Nick, for durable in the less that ideal conditions, go with the IBM/Lenovo, then look at acer or ALienware. But Dell, compaq, Toshiba laptops has always been a loser, HP not much better. Sony probability more stable than HP, Compaq, Toshiba and Dell but slower per $$$. If the laptop is to make money in the field, go for durability over looks and speed.

NickHope wrote on 1/30/2008, 9:21 PM

Well I still didn't get my laptop because I've been bogged down in office work but I will shortly.

I'm pretty much decided on the Dell Precision M6300 with WUXGA 17" screen running XP 32bit.

1920 x 1200 is just too cramped on the Lenovo's 15.4" screen and Dell gear has been very good to me over the years.

I'm thinking of splashing out on the X7900 Extreme processor as Vegas is so CPU-dependent.

Now... I have a question about the RAM. Should I get the extra 2Gb RAM (for something like USD 150) to bring it up to 4Gb total or would it just be a waste because I'll only be running a 32-bit OS? I have read that 32-bit XP can be made to "see" 3Gb with some trickery. Will Vegas be able to use all that 3Gb? Or will other programs be able to use the extra RAM while Vegas uses 2Gb? Confused!

farss wrote on 1/30/2008, 9:42 PM

Good choice of laptops, we bought the M6300 and it sure is a screamer. We got an extra battery for it though. I wish Dell did a separate battery charger, it seems the only way to charge the spare battery is in the laptop.

XP should be fine with 4GB of RAM, you'll only be able to use 3GB of it under XP but as far as I know no tricks required. Seems Vegas will only use 2GB for preview anyway but that still leaves you another 1GB for programs to run in.

See if you can get Dell to partition the disk if you only get one. Ours came with all the disk as C:. I reformatted and partitioned it which wasn't such as bad thing anyway as I got a lot of the crud Dell like to install off of it.

Bob.

NickHope wrote on 1/30/2008, 10:22 PM

Thanks Bob. I'll probably go with it all as one big C drive and keep non-video data in My Documents. My Vegas assets will mostly be on an external drive anyway.

How long does your battery last on a full charge?

farss wrote on 1/30/2008, 11:55 PM

"How long does your battery last on a full charge?"

Silliest thing of all, haven't needed to run it off a battery to find out as yet. Let's just say a rather expensive project is on hold pending the arrival of a matte box.

Bob.