its a sham... its just a regular laptop computer... there's not even a high quality music I/O built in, let alone faders or controllers. I could use any number of notebooks to achieve the exact same thing, and I'd have to shell out less for most of them, leaving me more money to buy the actual musician's goodies you need to make this do anything :P I'm flabbergasted at this brazen attempt at selling us the emperor's new clothes...

there are no music specific features, unless you buy other stuff, which will then make for extra little boxes and extra power cables. Make a laptop with some audio I/O and built in faders, phantom power for our microphones, so we can actually carry less crap around... Why would I buy an ugly no-name product that has nothing over any Apple, Sony or HP notebook???

Ease of use... for musicians: none for the same reasons stated above.

just a middle of the road no-name OEM notebook. You can probably find the exact same thing in 30 different adds in computer shopper from companies like Sager etc. Lame...

where IS the special value to a musician? I can sell you some snake oil to make your fingers play faster too.

no idea, didn't use

a bit lacking in the design department for any "I want it" factor... maybe if it came with a Luis Vuitton handbag for my girlfriend :P

Recording Engineer

various / world music

While it's difficult to judge a laptop DAW for sound as your monitors and soundcard are what provide that, I can say that the on-board speakers provide a nice sound quality for watching the occasional DVD, playing back MP3's etc. This laptop is also fairly quiet which is really nice as fan noise can be a problem on most laptops- not with the LiveBook though.

The LiveBook comes with a few nice accessories. One really useful one is the separate FireWire card which helped when I discovered my Presonus Firebox doesn't always play so well with certain cards. It did work great with the LiveBook though.

It was very easy to get started recording and making beats. I opted for audio integration which meant that all of my software and interface was set up and ready to go when it arrived. Very nice touch.

It is very well constructed. Feels real sturdy and the picture quality of the screen is very impressive. I have had several laptops from many companies like Dell and HP and can honestly say this is a breath of fresh air. It's a LOT more stable for recording music!!

So far so good. I really like this laptop DAW and am getting a lot of great use out of it. It feels solid and run very well.

Rain's support has been very helpful though I have only contacted them a few times with set-up questions mostly, they were always friendly and provided great answers quickly.

Hard to comment on se appeal of a laptop, I have had some ugly laptops, but this certainly isn't if that says anything. Overall, I think it's a great DAW.

Active Musician and Engineer

Rock and others