Comments on: Rain Diablo Audio Quad Laptop: Powerful Enough to Be Kind of Ridiculous

By: ian

ian — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:26:36 +0000

looks awesome – but why no dedicated audio? i understand it’s probably easier and cheaper in the long run to get an external interface… but for a truly dedicated audio powerhouse machine, i would expect there to be at least some decent onboard audio going on (onboard audio/video is killing me on my laptop but it was a cheap fix when my desktop died, before i could start building another desktop).

By: runagate

runagate — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:31:25 +0000

I am peering greedily at an overclocked i7 920 and thinking, “Will this damned thing finally be powerful enough for the realtime automated physical modeling synthesis and chains of controller-expressed effects I compose with?” I doubt it. I’m always amused at the people who think processors are too powerful. There’s no way I’d pay 2 grand for a laptop when a tower is a small thing to lug to a stage when you think of what poor drummers go through.

Plus, to get decent latency throughput (live input mics and such through effects and back out to sound) you have to play at a high sample rate, thus taxing your processor more. I find it quite hard to believe I’m the only impecunious person that would dearly love more processor power than is currently economically reasonable. Computer musicians are exactly the people who want it all “in the box” and not have to deal with any external gear (except control surface or midi instruments).

By: pat

pat — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 08:19:29 +0000

And get smoked by this laptop.

By: Jobs

Jobs — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:46:01 +0000

If you’re serious with your music, you get Mac.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:15:34 +0000

Um, SkyRon, just for the record, this machine should run Linux quite nicely. ;)

How will the $200 laptop run audio? Very, very badly.

If you really want a cheap machine, reuse and recycle. I’ve seen some really incredible machines down at J&R that are just a few years old. But if you’re buying new, I’d go up to a full laptop over a netbook unless I was planning to mainly do MIDI sequencing of other hardware (for that, a little netbook would be great).

By: SkyRon

SkyRon — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:03:19 +0000

I want to hear more about that $200 Linux laptop touted in the NYTimes last Sunday! ( I am too lazy to find your link for NYT article. ) So, what about audio capabilities on that web machine? (And sorry to hear about the deth of kapitalizm! oops, sorry, topic drift)

And, also, I for one welcome our new Vista overlords. User-friendliness, elegance, design, Unix core, lack of virus vulnerability and money saved on service are all so effing overrated. I want to sweat blood and labour like MIlton or Beethoven on anything dealing with computers!

Just glad the PC/Mac holy wars are over!

By: Niall

Niall — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:53:42 +0000

These look pretty swell. I’d like to run Mac Oh-Sex on one, theoretically.

By: dan26

dan26 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:30:10 +0000

Glad not too much macboy fanism being flung here (minus Steve’s post). Its not just the fact that it is a Quad core that would make this baby impressive, a 12MB cache and a FSB of 1066 MHz, is desktop level, and to pack it into something you can carry around with you is amazing.

While my gamer side still stays away from ATI (since most games aren’t natively optimized for them these days) the new ATI cards are extreamly impressive, and this unit has the top card.

The price tag isn’t too bad for the “latest and greatist” which (to not deviate to far from topic) is what kills me on the new MBP, most of the features it comes with are already dated (Mid-grade asus computers for half the price has the same hardware), and for me, paying double for a computer that is half a year out of date when you buy it just isn’t worth it.

The bottom line is though, does it play W0W?

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:47:32 +0000

See, you know your site is healthy and growing, that traffic is expanding nicely, that readership and interaction are reaching a special level, when you get ridiculously stupid comments like Steve’s there.

It’s a connection to a greater continuum of history. It could be 1994 right now. It could be any age. Sadly, the kneejerk PC response has largely expired, a victim of Vista and the addition of a UNIX command line, but the meaningless Mac comment lives on.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:48:15 +0000

Buy a Mac.