Hi people,
i’ m looking for a solid new windows laptop for the next years. Currently i am working on a bootcamp partition to create visuals in vvvv and sending them over to resolume. Therefore i got pretty much zero experience with windows devices and which hardware is most suitable for vj stuff. So i would like to hear your opinions on the best options in 2020 to run vvvv. There is no price limit at the moment, just looking for a really nice performing/ long lasting laptop, which isn’ t too much overkill for my purposes.
Hopefully this is enough information and every reply is much appreciated :)
the Dell XPS 15" are quite popular among vvvv professionals. Its a good compromise of performance vs. weight and battery life. Its quite powerful and has good balanced components.
i use an older version for 4 years now and its still a fast machine with enough GPU power. running vvvv, unity and adobe stuff.
the most recent edition is worth the money and doesn’t look gamer style.
looks like there is a new one coming out soonish with a even nicer screen. i’m tempted to update.
The new AMD Ryzen 4000 CPU’ s are looking pretty awesome and the new 2020 XPS 15’’ which was leaked on the Dell website by mistake seems also like a solid machine. But the new Asus Zephyrus G14 is catching my interest the most. I think it would easily perform better than a XPS or am i wrong? What do you guys think of this laptop?
the G14 specs sound really good and the weight is also surprisingly low. 14" would be too small for my taste, i’m happy Dell added a bit more space to their 15" bezel -less design. the G14 design is a bit too gamer style for me. but that’s just personal preference. :)
just one note, i would rather buy an intel i7-10000 based laptop, because they generally offer better single thread performance, which vvvv beta is. the superior multithread performance of the 8-16 cores of a ryzen CPU wont help you that much with vvvv beta…
I currently own an Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 with a 1080 GPU, bought it in November 2018. I was very excited when I got it and spend a hefty amount of money on it thinking it was just what I needed for work, but to be honest after a year+ with the machine I have many complaints.
Battery life is now under 20 min without anything open, sound quality is crap and one of the speakers blew out a cuple of months after buying it, the mic is also pretty bad. The screen had a problem from day 1 and ended up going up in smoke (literally). Took them over a month and a half to fix the machine and they returned it with a few bumps and scratches. It’s also very very loud when you are actually using it.
I have a work partner that has a new razer with a 2080 GPU and seems quite happy with it for Unreal/Unity stuff. Anyone with experience in that front?
Much appreciation for sharing your knowledge and experience guys :)
Hmmm… so the ASUS is not the best choise CPU wise and i am also a bit concerned about the battery life of the ASUS (as @ravazquez had some bad experience) According to the “Passmark Software” website a laptop based on the i7-10750H would be a solid option for single thread performance. Therefore i found that the Gigabyte Aero or the new 2020 Dell XPS 15’’ could be the system i am looking for…
Are there even better options out there? How well is your XPS aging @u7angel? Anyone else with experience on the XPS and Aero?
I just wanted to point out how great a touchscreen is as a feature on a laptop. Teamviewer can forward windows multitouch Input in remote sessions. Ive been able to remotely check VVVV Multi-Touchscreen applications in separate Teamviewer windows with touch Input. In my case it was a surfacebook on my old job, but this should work for every touchscreen device. Its really nice to have if you create touch applications.
Also consider vendors service options. I remember dell once shipped replacement RAM without much trouble or questions to ireland ( was on vacation ) - this was part of the xps support, but this was years ago. Im not sure how good there service is now, but it was great. They even replaced my battery once ( usually only 3 Month varranty ) because ive argued overheating caused the damage.
If you go for dell, buy as business customer (with extended guarantee and on-site service). Their private customer service sucks big time. I had a lot of problems with a XPS I bought in 2017. Flickering screen and a really loud and annoying coil-whine. Had the mobo replaced two times and two new power supplies and then a completely new machine afterwards which unfortunately had the same problems. Couldn’t really use the Laptop for 2 Month after buying it, so I decided to return it and get my money back, which only worked because I was a business customer.
mine is still running fine after 4 years. the only trouble i had was the Killer wlan card, killer stuff is crap. i replaced it with an intel one. apart from that, battery life is still good,all components work. the built quality is very good. its my teaching laptop for vvvv and unity.
Thanks for the nice tips guys :) i will consider them in my selection process.
For now i decide to wait until the end of this month, as there should be some upcoming releases from Lenovo and Dell in may. Would be nice to get a XPS or ThinkPad P53 with a new 10th generation intel CPU. Other present options like the Gigabyte Aero, Razer Blade or Msi GS66 doesn’ t feel as solid and long lasting as i would prefer…
The Razer ones are very high build quality, it’s full CNC aluminum and they seem to offer a new silver model now, that looks quite nice… but they are quite expensive.
Hi,
I’m using dell xps15 since 7 years. I now use my third model. All the past ones are still working very well. They just ended up keeping attached to projects.
I find these models really great laptops. Not the most powerfull you can get, not the cheapest, but they are light, compact, super well designed. Battery life is pretty good. Also you get decent performances without having a " big gamer laptop ", that can be nice in some situations, like meetings with clients etc…
The screens are great. I use actually the 4k OLED model, I really like it.
If you buy as a pro client and get the 3 years on site 24h guaranty, you have a very good customer service.
I allready had to call them for reparations, it went super well, having a tech person showing up in the next day at any place you tell them to fix the laptop.
I’m sure some people might have had bad experiences too…
Mehdi
Another one for the XPS pack here, mine (a 13 inches which I used only for mild patching and web work) withstood the worst, that is me, really nicely built machines, CNCed alu, loved it then one day while riding my motorbike it flew off the backpack and a car run over it, now I ve got a “tablet” AND a keyboard… you won’t believe but the maimed motherboard is still booting. Really want to get another one.
Me also not very fond of ASUS and MSI gaming laps, I ve seen too many falling apart. I got a HP Omen now, 15,6", RTX2060 and 8750H, for just 900 euros, the laptop is horrible with that gaming style but the build quality is fine, can get some hours of battery life, screen and keyboard are ok, and it is not too heavy.
Also got some Mountain/Schenker/Clevo you name it, only the power supply is a couple of Kgs, but it s been running for over 10 years and still kicking, was even able to upgrade the GPU.
using the same XPS 15 since 2014 here : still working great! only drawback I see is its glossy screen that makes it horrible to work in high light environments, but I saw the new ones have mate screens now. also, i could not go without a touch screen now, super useful when developing touch based applications.
we’ve also bought gamer laptopts at work (MSI and ASUS) and after a few years going out on projects, they all ended up with mechanical problems (screen hard to close), or even flickering screen when touching it.
now i’m finding my 15 inch laptop is a bit too big and was thinking about switching to 13/14 inches … would anyone have some feedback about patching on such screen sizes? is it viable? if I switch, I’ll probably move to a smaller XPS.
@sebescudie
The new xps 15" are much smaller than a couple of years ago.
They improved a lot the chassis, and have super thin bezel.
Since 2-3 years, the XPS15" are about the size of most 14" around.
