SORTED Good laptop for music production (eg LENOVO Yoga 2 Pro)

robwright · March 2018

I was about to take the plunge on a 4 year old MacBook Pro for £1400(!!) and had a word with myself!

They are undoubtedly great machines but too pricey for me to justify! So after reading lots of threads on here, the Lenovo Yoga 2 Ultrabook seems a good compromise for music production.

Happy to look at anything else but thinking the following specs would be ideal:
- i7 processor
- at least 8GB RAM
- at least 256GB SSD

Is there anything out there?

meltedbuzzbox · March 2018

I have a few Lenovo thingies knocking about.
Are you dead set on a yoga or are you open to Carbons or a w540?

robwright · March 2018

Looking for something for audio production so anything able to cope with that. Ideally i7, 8gb RAM and a 512 SSD. Using a multi input interface so would need to cope with up to 16 simultaneous tracks for recording and maybe 32 tracks playback. Would any of yours fit the bill?

digitalscream · March 2018

You'd probably be better off with the Yoga 2 Pro - the 3 Pro has a much less capable CPU, whereas you can get the 2 Pro with the i7-4510U CPU and the same 3200x1800 screen. Budget £160-odd for a decent SSD upgrade and you're golden.

Sporky · April 2018

To get a step up from the Pro 2 you'd be looking at a 900.

robwright · April 2018

Thanks Sporky - think i’m going to expand the search to any laptop good for music - preferably i7, 8GB RAM, 256SSD - and see what’s out there.

digitalscream · April 2018

robwright said:

Thanks Sporky - think i’m going to expand the search to any laptop good for music - preferably i7, 8GB RAM, 256SSD - and see what’s out there.

Worth looking at the HP x360 range - my wife's got one with an i5 CPU, 1080p screen, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD, cost about £600 from Currys a couple of years ago. Belter of a laptop, almost as quick as my Yoga 2 Pro.

EDIT: Just had a quick look on their site - this looks good (back to Lenovo), if you can stretch to another £50:

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-320s-14-laptop-mineral-grey-10164497-pdt.html

Heartfeltdawn · April 2018

Have a gander at PC Specialist. Their Ultranote IV can be built up with the following for £594.00

1080p screen
i7-8550U
256GB Samsung EVO SSD (alternatively a 256GB Samsung M2 SSD is £3 more)
8GB RAM

No operating system but it's easy enough to stick Windows 10 on a USB stick, install it, then buy a licence key from Ebay for peanuts. If cash is a concern, drop down to the i5 8250U and it's £530. That i5 is a more than capable audio processor.

https://techreport.com/review/32863/intel-core-i5-8250u-cpu-reviewed/15

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/ultraNoteIV-14/

They also offer some good finance options including 12 months interest free.

robwright · April 2018

Thanks Andy - will check it out. Amazing price for that spec.

Heartfeltdawn · April 2018

@robwright I've tried one of these and it's a good quality system. PC Specialist use barebone Clevo laptops, this one is the Clevo N240WU. Schenker in Germany use the same model to form the basis of their Slim 14 laptop, and both Scan and ADK use Clevo laptops.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=12873878&postcount=2

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Schenker-Slim-14-Clevo-N240WU-i5-8250U-UHD-620-Laptop-Review.276838.0.html

The hardest thing to judge is fan noise from a laptop.

Prices have certainly gone up. The Lenovo Ideapad V110 I bought for my mum last April for £330 is now £410. So the PC Specialist prices are pretty good compared to the big name computer companies.

robwright · April 2018

Advice - would this be a good one for music production? There is one on Gumtree for £500 (second link)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-15-6-inch-Processor-Graphics-Windows/dp/B00FSBEXEK

https://www.gumtree.com/p/laptops/lenovo-y510p-i7-4700mq-2x-gt-750m-sli-12gb-ram-full-hd/1293058798

Heartfeltdawn · April 2018

I wouldn’t for several reasons. No SSD is the biggie. The other is fan noise. Two 750 GPUs together with an older processor is going to mean the fan/s are likely to be busy.

Heartfeltdawn · April 2018

That guy in Brislington...if I were going to grab one, I’d do this.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/laptops/clevo-15.6-i7-3630qm-6gb-ram-500gb-hdd-gt-635m-hd4000-win-10-pro/1293049571

upgrade the hd to an ssd, reinstall everything, probably ddr3 memory so could consider upgrade as clevo laptops generally have maintenance hatches underneath meaning tinkering is easy.

250 for the laptop, 140 for a new Samsung SSD...

robwright · April 2018

Thanks Andy - i’m buying a photography light off him today so will check that one out!

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SORTED Good laptop for music production (eg LENOVO Yoga 2 Pro)

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