10 Best Laptop For Ableton 2022 – Reviews & Guide
As a musician, you need the best laptop for your music production. For those who are into creating electronic music and use Ableton, you’re going to need a laptop that has enough power to run it smoothly. However, there are so many laptops out there that choosing the right one can be hard.
Ableton is a multi-track audio software that allows you to compose, record, edit and mix music. It’s used by both professionals and budding musicians who want to create their own music.
The software is quite demanding on your computer, so it’s important to get a laptop that can handle it properly.
Thankfully we’re here to help you find one.
Ableton is not the most processor hungry application out there, so if you are thinking that you need a top-end laptop to run it then you don’t. Ableton has been well optimized over the years and is capable of running on almost anything!
In this guide, we’ve listed the best laptops that should be perfect for Ableton. We have laptops in various budget ranges, so whether you have a bit more cash to spend or are trying to save some money we’ll have something suitable.
We’ve also included a buying guide with our top tips for buying a laptop for Ableton so you know what specifications and features are important.
Choosing the right laptop can be a difficult task, especially if you want to use the laptop for other tasks besides music production. That’s why we made a list of the best laptops for Ableton. This guide will help you choose a suitable laptop for your needs, budget and preferences.
Can you use Ableton on a laptop?
Yes, you can use Ableton Live on a laptop. It is the most popular software used by DJs around the world, which allows them to play live music in real time.
Ableton is easy to learn, which makes it an excellent choice for people who want to use it on their laptops.
Are MACs good for Ableton?
The Macbook Pro is a very solid choice for Ableton. It has plenty of horsepowers, USB-C with Thunderbolt 3 and super clean audio.
For up to 400 bucks more you can upgrade to the Macbook Pro with Touch Bar. This has four USB-C ports and it’s a slightly faster processor. Personally, I don’t like the touch bar because it’s another thing that can break, but if you’re going to spend this much money on a computer, you may as well get the best one.
However, if you want to save some money and still have a fast computer, get an iPad Pro and use it in conjunction with your laptop. This is actually an excellent solution for Ableton Live because it doesn’t take up any more room in your bag than a laptop does.
1. Dell XPS 13 OLED (2021)
| Series | XPS 13 9310 |
| Brand | Dell |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Business |
| Screen Size | 13.4 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro |
For the past decade or so, Dell XPS laptops have always been something of a darling of the Windows laptop space. A sort of hybrid between established powerhouse brands like Apple and Lenovo, and smaller specialist brands who specialise in form over function, Dell’s XPS beasts are an amiable yet powerful bunch of laptops that occupy a very particular niche of the market.
2. Apple MacBook Pro M1
| Model Name | MacBook Pro |
| Brand | Apple |
| Specific Uses For Product | Personal, Gaming, Business |
| Screen Size | 13.3 Inches |
| Operating System | Mac OS |
If you read the generalist mainstream tech media reviews of the new Apple silicon laptops, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d witnessed a paradigm change. Apple’s new in-house M1 chip does, on paper at least, seem to perform streets ahead of its competition, promising unprecedented boosts in speed, performance and battery life. It does this by combining CPU, GPU and memory into one chip, thus removing a layer of hitherto wasteful chipset design.
3. Apple MacBook Air M1
| Model Name | MacBook Air |
| Brand | Apple |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia |
| Screen Size | 13 Inches |
| Operating System | MacOS 10.14 Mojave |
If you read the generalist mainstream tech media reviews of the new Apple silicon laptops, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d witnessed a paradigm change. Apple’s new in-house M1 chip does, on paper at least, seem to perform streets ahead of its competition, promising unprecedented boosts in speed, performance and battery life. It does this by combining CPU, GPU and memory into one chip, thus removing a layer of hitherto wasteful chipset design.
4. Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition
| Series | Blade 15 |
| Brand | Razer |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Gaming |
| Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
The Razer Blade 15 Studio is certainly not the kind of laptop you’d imagine gamers to use. They tend to be more, well, brash is one way to put it—oversized, garish design flourishes with logos everywhere for all the latest games. Not so here. Razer’s biggest laptop offering has gaming DNA running through its veins, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t be an ideal working tool for creative types.
5. Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch
| Model Name | MacBook Pro |
| Brand | Apple |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Business |
| Screen Size | 16 Inches |
| Operating System | Mac OS |
There’s a lot to be said for the Apple MacBook Pro 13”, with its razor-sharp LED display, ample processing power and svelte, no-nonsense design. With that being said, there are also a few points that prove the 16” variant the superior model in the space. First and foremost, a larger display. What may not be obvious is that this model features a 16:9 aspect ratio in comparison to the more familiar 3:2 which is generally reserved for laptops. This makes it ideal for video editing or rendering your latest opus. And this is coupled with an 8GB Video RAM whilst its clamshell counterpart comes with a maximum of 4GB. In terms of performance,
6. Asus Rog Strix Scar III
| Series | G531GW-DB76 |
| Brand | ASUS |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Personal, Gaming |
| Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
The Asus Rog Strix Scar is a good option for anyone who makes music and wants something that can handle whatever you throw at it. It comes with an i7, 16GB RAM and allows you to add another 16 or 32GB. The processing power of this thing means that I can run almost anything without lagging, which includes Ableton and other plug-ins like the Fabfilter Bundle and Native Instruments Komplete and Maschine and so on. The Scar has a lot of features but after a while, you’ll realize that the sound card isn’t the best, so I recommend using another sound card, otherwise, you will notice some latency when trying to play things back or record.
7. Microsoft Surface Laptop 2
| Series | LQL-00001 |
| Brand | Microsoft |
| Specific Uses For Product | Personal |
| Screen Size | 13.5 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
Microsoft’s second attempt at a pure laptop device is an absolute winner in our view, and while it doesn’t represent a huge overhaul of the original Surface Laptop, it offers improvements in all the areas we were hoping for, including updated hardware that brings serious performance benefits. This is a laptop that finally delivers on what Microsoft set out to do with the original: a pure, premium-quality Windows 10 experience with true multitasking capabilities.
8. MSI GF63 Laptop
| Series | GF63 Thin 9SC-066US |
| Brand | MSI |
| Specific Uses For Product | Multimedia, Gaming, Business |
| Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
MSI is one of the more respected names in gaming PCs, so it figures that their flagship mid-range offer features some decent internals. The MSI GF63 is the ideal blend of performance and aesthetics and would make a superb laptop for anyone using their laptop for live performance or as a portable studio on account of its thin form factor and cooling features. Performance-wise, it’s packing a 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ (Kaby Lake) quad-core processor (with Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz), alongside 16GB DDR4 memory (which can be expanded to 32GB). Each core can manage four threads, resulting in what’s basically eight real cores at your disposal. That’s about
9. Samsung Notebook 9
| Series | Notebook 9 15″ |
| Brand | SAMSUNG |
| Specific Uses For Product | Personal, gaming, business |
| Screen Size | 15 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
Reviews have been pouring in for Samsung’s latest 15-inch Notebook 9, and it looks like it’s going to be the best laptop you can buy. If you’re thinking about picking one up, we definitely recommend checking it out. We just got a review unit ourselves and have spent a few days testing it out. One of our favorite aspects of this device is that despite having a powerful quad-core i7 processor and a GTX 1050 graphics card under the hood, Samsung was able to make the notebook as thin as possible. Also, even though Samsung was able to craft such a thin notebook, they were still able to make room for some decent specs on this PC.
10. Microsoft Surface Pro 7
| Series | Surface Pro |
| Brand | Microsoft |
| Specific Uses For Product | Personal |
| Screen Size | 12.3 Inches |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
Apple’s dominance over the creative industries has been evident for a while now, but this hasn’t prevented other giants from creating their own two-in-ones, such as the Microsoft Surface Pro 7, to rival Apple’s offerings. Over the last few years, Microsoft has rolled out improvements and added new features with each successive version of its Surface Pro hybrid. What we’re looking at today is the most recent incarnation in the Surface Pro family: The Surface Pro 7.