Columns » Gear Geeking » Issue #116

Gear Geeking w/ Andy

My laptop is a mid-2014 Toshiba Portégé Z30t touchscreen "ultrabook" with an Intel Core i7 processor and a 512 GB SSD. It's plenty powerful enough to run Pro Tools and Cubase; but these days, unless I'm certain that I'll be working on a multitrack project, I travel instead with my 2015 Microsoft Surface 3 LTE tablet. The Surface 3 is a 2-in-1 tablet, so I can keep it inside my backpack when I go through airport security, and I can continue to use it even during taxiing, takeoff, and landing.

When I'm on the ground, it's "always" online with its LTE radio (whenever it can pick up a decent cellular signal). Its CPU is a quad-core Intel Atom x7, a fanless, low-power processor that can handle Windows 10, Office 365, and even Photoshop. I never bothered to install Cubase or Pro Tools on my Surface 3, figuring the multitrack mixing experience would be too sluggish (if these DAWs even run on an Atom). But I do find myself having to edit mono or stereo recordings on my Surface 3 often enough, and for that, I rely on Ocenaudio M www.ocenaudio.com.