I am considering buying a laptop for my EX1.

I definitley want a PC based laptop - so if anyone is using a PC based latop successfully for their back up etc., can you let me know what you are using and what sort of transfer speed you are getting with the express card slots?

Any info. is much appreciated.

Would I be better in just buying the Sony Express card reader (when it is finally available), and using a laptop with a USB slot (which I can get on a loan)?

I believe the Sony card reader requires household electricity.

Pete

I use a PC laptop Graeme, a Dell Precision Workstation M90 laptop to be precise. It has a built in Express Card slot. I find I can transfer a full 8 Gig S x S card in about the time it takes to down a 7 ounce Tooheys on a hot day. In other words: fast.

OK, later today I shall be transferring clips and I shall time the event and get back to you.

I am using a Toshiba G45 Core 2 Duo at 2.0Ghz. It has a PCMCIA slot and a Expresscard slot. I have just been popping out the SXS card from the camera and poking it in the laptop. It takes about 20-30 seconds to transfer 1GIG to the internal hard drive. I have 2 320GIG Western Digital SATA300 drives not RAID0, I wish they were. Benchmark with Streampix puts the SXS card at about 75MB/sec and the Western Digital hard drive at about 65MB/sec. All in all it works out fine, so far...

I believe the Sony card reader requires household electricity.

Pete

Pete - you're right. it does

Brent

Graeme, as promised: 40 sec a gig. I guess that's two Tooheys :)

Wow John,

THat is fast - I was looking at a smaller Dell the XPS M1330 - which has a very similar processor, but is ultra compact with only a 13.5 inch screen. If I am going to carry it around I don't want it to be too big and heavy.

You might want to check out Sony Vaio AR51M - 2ghz core duo, express 34/54 slot, 320 Gb of hard drives, and a dual layer Blu-ray burner (that's 50Gb) on sale in the UK for £850 ( with 4Gb RAM ) perfect for fast express card transfers and Bluray archive. Maybe a bit large for you, as it's 17".

Just a thought.

Paul

I wouldn't touch a Vaio for video editting with a 10 ft pole.

Buy one that has a xpress card reader built into it.

I have an HP Pavilion tx1000. I didn't buy it with video editing in mind (didn't know I was going to be getting the EX1 when I picked it up), and I haven't even bothered to try video editing, but it works great for field transfer. Similar speeds to what others were posting. I think your main concern is the speed of the hard drive... nothing in the architecture of the Express/34 slot should slow you down. When I get a chance, I want to see what speeds I can attain transferring from SxS to an external USB 2.0 drive. I know it will be slower, but if it's still at least 5x-7x realtime, I can just pick up a large USB 2.0 hard drives for longer shoots.

Here's a related question: Does anyone which is faster: transfer from the USB 2.0 port of the camera OR transfer from Express/34 card slot over Gigabit ethernet to my main editing system?

Dear Bill,

The word is editing, and no one suggested that it was an edit laptop, the primary purpose was for off-loading the express cards, for which the Vaio is perfectly suitable; at least that was my understanding of the needs of the original poster.

I'm sure you have good reason for your sweeping remark, very constructive.


Paul