9 Best Laptops For Ableton: Buyers’ guide in 2020

(Last Updated On: February 3, 2020)

Are you looking for the best laptop for Ableton Live 10? Then you are in the right place. Please continue reading. Ableton is a professional quality music production software that is used by a lot of professionals who are best in the world of music production. So if you are a professional or moving into that direction, Ableton will help you achieve your dream

Ableton have features that will help a professional as well as an armature. But making sure getting a laptop that can run the software with all its bells and whistles is paramount. So you don’t have to worry about your slow and unresponsive Laptop and start working on your music production work in Ableton.

So let’s dive in and find out the best laptop that can Ableton with the top-level performance. These laptops can be also used for podcasting as well(best laptop for podcasting).

If you are in a hurry, I have listed the 8 best laptops for Ableton below.

These are the best Laptops for Ableton

• 1 Acer Predator Helios 300 (2019 – 9th gen i7) 
• 2. Acer Predator Helios 300 2
• 3. ASUS ROG Strix GL704GM-EV001T Scar II
• 4. LG Gram 2019 Edition’
• 5. Asus Vivobook Pro laptop
• 6. Asus vivobook pro 17 
• 7 Dell XPS 15  laptop
• 8. Apple MacBook pro 15
• 9 Macbook pro 15 with core i9 Laptop

To get a more in-depth review, please continue reading:

Best Laptop for Ableton Live 10 – 2019

This is the list of best laptop for Ableton. You can select any one of them and you can’t go wrong. If you need more details information, please see more information and details reviews below the table for the Top 6 Best Laptop for Ableton and other music production applications.

Best Laptop for Ableton

 But before moving onto reviewing laptops, there are few things you need to understand that will help you in choosing the best laptop for Ableton. Lets first check out the official hardware requirements from the Ableton.

Ableton 10 System Requirements

Ableton 10 Requirements Windows

• Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8 or Windows 10 (64-bit)
• 64-bit Intel® Core™ or AMD multi-core processor (Intel® Core™ processor or faster recommended)
• 4 GB RAM (8 GB or more recommended)
• 1366×768 display resolution
• ASIO compatible audio hardware for Link support (also recommended for optimal audio performance)
• USB port (USB 2.0 or better) for program installation
• Access to an internet connection for authorizing Live (for downloading additional content and updating Live, a fast internet connection is recommended)
• Approximately 3 GB disk space on the system drive for the basic installation (8 GB free disk space recommended)
• Up to 76 GB disk space for additionally available sound content
  

Ableton 10 requirements for Mac

• OS X 10.11.6 or later
• Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor (Intel® Core™ i5 processor or faster recommended)
• 4 GB RAM (8 GB or more recommended)
• 1280×800 display resolution
• Core Audio compliant audio interface recommended
• A USB port (USB 2.0 or better) for program installation
• Access to an internet connection for authorizing Live (for downloading additional content and updating Live, a fast internet connection is recommended)

Ableton Live 10 is the latest music production software from the company and below are the system requirements from the official site itself:

So as from the official system requirements, you can see that we need to select a laptop with at least an Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB RAM for the best performance. And SSD harddrive or a Hybrid SSD and HDD is only selected for best performance

Note: Remember this is the system requirement for just running Ableton, so when you actually start to use the system, you will be needing aftermarket plugins to get the most out of Ableton live 10.

. So I will make sure that we will select the best laptop keeping this point in mind to make sure that your work will be stress-free.

CPU or Processor:

• 

CPU /Processor is the heart of the system making sure that all the calculations requested by Ableton live 10 software is delivered on time making sure that the system performs smoothly. Music production and rendering are very CPU intensive and Ableton is in fact very CPU intensive software.

The processor is the most critical component to consider when choosing the best laptop for Ableton. Even though the official minimum recommendation is an i5, we will be considering only the i5 and bove to make sure that you won’t be out of pocket making a system upgrade when trying to get an aftermarket must-have plugin. 

RAM/memory

• 

Just like the CPU, RAM is the second most important specification we need to consider as RAM is used in the laptop to store the temporary enormous amount of data that is churned out by Ableton live 10. So having a good amount of fast RAM will make sure that the processor can make use of all that CPU power to the fullest.

 Even though in the official recommendation, the RAM recommended is 8GB, I will be covering laptops with at least 12 GB of RAM and a maximum of 16GB. 

You can select a version according to your budget.

Hard Disk

• 

Hard disk where all your data is stored and retrieved. As a lot amount of data is written and read by Ableton, a traditional spinning hard drive is not an option at all. So I will be considering only laptops with SSD.

Having an SSD will improve the overall performance of your laptop making sure that the system loads up quickly and making sure you get a frustration-free experience.So the laptops we review here are all comes with only SSD or a combination of SSD and HDD.

Graphics Card

Ableton is not a graphic card intensive software so there no point in spending a lot of money on a high-end graphics card. All the laptops I have selected for running Ableton have a more than good enough graphics card so you don’t have to worry about that.
And the graphics card in the laptops I selected are good enough for video and audio editing, running any high-end software that you normally use 

Screen Size

• 

As the size of the screen increases, the weight of the laptop increases. The smaller sized screen makes the laptop weigh less and makes it more portable. As the main reason for getting the laptop is smooth using of Ableton, we will concentrate on a good size screen as you need the screen real-estate to make sure you can work with all the features of Ableton smoothly. 

Operating System :

Ableton is available in both Mac OS and  Windows 10. So if you are confused between the two, I will try to make your decision making easier.

Hardware and build quality of Apple laptops are top-notch but normally much pricier than windows based laptop
Do you have a large budget? Do you keep your laptops for long? 

go for Apple-based laptop

Do you like to upgrade the laptop after say 2 years? Don’t want to spend too much now? 

go for Windows-based laptop

As we have gone through the basics, these are the best laptops for Ableton

• 1 Acer Predator Helios 300 (2019 – 9th gen i7) 
• 2. Acer Predator Helios 300 2
• 3. ASUS ROG Strix GL704GM-EV001T Scar II
• 4. LG Gram 2019 Edition’
• 5. Asus Vivobook Pro
• 6. Asus vivobook pro 17 
• 7 Dell XPS 15 
• 8. Apple MacBook pro 15
• 9 Macbook pro 15 with core i9

1 Acer Predator Helios 300 (2019 – 9th gen i7) 

Specifications:

• 9th Generation Intel Core i7-9750H 6-Core Processor (Up to 4.5GHz) with Windows 10 Home 64 Bit
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Graphics with 6GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM
• 15.6″ Full HD (1920 x 1080) Widescreen LED-backlit IPS Display (144Hz Refresh Rate, 3ms Overdrive Response Time, 300nit Brightness & 72% NTSC)
• 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Memory, 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD (2 x PCIe M.2 Slots | 1 Slot Open for Easy Upgrades) & 1 – Available Hard Drive Bay
• Backlit Keyboard | LAN: Killer Ethernet E2500 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN | Wireless: Killer DoubleShot Pro Wireless-AC 1550 802. 11ac | 4th Gen All-Metal AeroBlade 3D Fan

This is not just a gamer’s laptop. This high-end laptop is a mix of beauty and the beast. This laptop can run Ableton with all its bells and whistles. 

This is one of the best laptops from Acer. Not just for Ableton, it is powerful enough to run any high-end software  that you have in addition to Ableton

It is 15.6″ Full HD (1920 x 1080) widescreen beautiful LED-backlit IPS display. And it has Acer’s MAXXAudio technology deliver immersive sound effects. 

It has a backlit full-size keyboard for easy use even in low light situations. And the whole casing is made with good quality metal. 

And this laptop can keep the heat down with the 4th Gen AeroBlade 3D Fan Technology as you are working with CPU intensive Ableton, cooling is important to make sure that Ableton runs without getting stuck or crashed. This Fan is 3D, that means it improves airflow in all direction, rather than only in one direction

It has the latest and fast PCIe M.2 SSD hard drive. And the one notable feature is that it has got an additional SSD slot, so you can easily purchase and install 1 more NvMe SSD if you need to do so in the future. 

The CPU is the latest,  9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H. It has 6 cores and 12 threads and can smoothly run Ableton making sure that it runs smoothly and not waiting for the CPU to finish the processing.

check here for 2-in-1 gaming laptop

The fastest CPU along with the 16 GB DDR4 RAM and latest M.2 NvMe RAM will make sure that the system will run Ableton Smoothly

2. Acer Predator Helios 300 2

Additional features include USB 3.1 (Type-C), USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0, and preinstalled Windows 10 OS.

And what are the Cons?

-It weighs 5 pounds and a bit thicker

3. ASUS ROG Strix GL704GM-EV001T Scar II

Specifications

• Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 8GB GDDR6
• Intel Core i7-8750H Hexa-Core Processor
• 144Hz 3ms 17.3” FHD (1920×1080) IPS Type Display
• 16GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM
• 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD + 1TB FireCuda HDD
• Windows 10 Home 802.11AC Wave 2 Gigabit Wi-Fi
• Hypercool Pro thermal system with dual 12V fans

Asus has a very good job on the looks and performance on this laptop. This laptop has the 8th generation intel core i7 processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, this is a massive help in processing those music files when Ableton is running in the background. And this i7-8750H processor has a maximum turbo frequency of 4.1Ghz and it is all under a thermal design power(TDP) of only 35W(so you can expect a good battery life as well as power).

This laptop comes with a 256GB PCI-e SSD in combination with a 1TB Firecuda SSHD(hybrid drive). So this will help you to boot the laptop and load all the apps in the blazing fast SSD and help you store all those massive files that are created by Ableton in a Separate massive 1TB hybrid drive. This combination makes sense as you can achieve speed and high storage capacity at the same time without having to have a massive single SSD drive that could be really expensive.

This laptop comes with Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card. This is a real help as GPU processing is faster and better when it comes to rendering audio or video than CPU processing(here is a good article from Nvidia about GPU and CPU processing). This will help you massively speed up the rendering process when you are using Ableton for your music production on this laptop. The main reason is that GPUs are created only for one purpose in mind and that is for processing and rendering audio, video and graphics, but CPU is a bit more general in their process they can do a lot more of different types of general processing.

In this particular model have 16GB RAM, which is very well recommended for running Ableton as Ableton uses a lot of RAM during the audio processing.

The keyboard feels very nice and easy to type in and also have backlit support. You can select the color of the backlit keyboard as per your mood from the Aura control panel. Also, it is possible to turn the lights off completely if you are not a fan of a backlit keyboard or are in a situation where the backlit keyboard is not appropriate.

And we have an extended cooling plate on the laptop to spread the heat evenly and there are two powerful 12 V fans that can make sure that the right airflow. This will make sure the laptop remains cool and stable during the intensive music production sessions with Ableton.

Pros

• Very powerful CPU and GPU
• Remains cool even and extended high-performance sessions
• Very cool and flashy looks with the backlights on
• Very good and durable Build quality with a metallic shell

Cons

• A bit heavy at 6 pounds (2.7kg)

4. LG Gram 2019 Edition’

It is a fantastic laptop from LG with 18.5 hours of boasted battery life and the latest 8th gen intel core i7 processor. And the other main thing is that it is lightweight (only 2.4 lbs), that makes it one of the best laptops if you like portability as well as performance.

Normally when you think of lightweight and sleek laptop, you think about apple laptops, But LG has managed to do the same in a windows based laptop. So if you are looking for a stylish, powerful, portable and sturdy laptop, this is definitely the one to go for.

It comes with the intel latest 8th gen core i7 -8565U which has got 4 cores and 8 threads, with a base frequency of 1.8GHz and Turbo of 4.60 GHz. And this processor got Intel’s 8MB smart cache, which makes the processor perform really fast. This is a processor that can handle anything Ableton can throw at it without a hick. And at a TDP of only 15W, this is highly power-efficient, that is how LG gram is manged you provide you with a battery life of up to 19 hours. This is very useful as the processor can run at its fastest power longer before you have to connect the laptop to the power supply.

And it has got a very good intel inbuilt graphic card –Intel HD Graphics 620- that can help the processor with crunching all the multimedia data.

LG gram comes with 16GB of the latest DDR4 ram and super-fast 1TB! blazing speed SSD drives, which makes using Ableton smooth and blazing fast. And the thunderbolt will help you transfer your backups to external storage solution pretty quick. As you start working with Ableton, you will quickly notice that the files will start to use more and more data filling up your internal storage. So this is a good add on feature.

And the screen is 1080p full HD and is touch screen IPS display 

You will get impressed with the Full HD IPS Touch Screen Display that offers a wide viewing angle and an excellent color gamut that will help you differentiate between different shades of similar colors while using Ableton. The IPS display is really good at color reproduction, so it will give you a crisp and vivid high-quality display which is a pleasure to look at and work with.

So Lets summerise the details

The pros of LG Gram

• 8th Gen powerful i7 processor
• Really long battery life of up to 19 hours and Ultraportable
• Study metallic, long-lasting metallic build
• Whopping 1TB of superfast storage using SSDs
• Thunderbolt 3 port for connecting to external storage devices.

The cons

• you could say it is on the pricy side 

-could have gone with a higher resolution screen, eventhough that could drastically reduce the battery life

5. Asus Vivobook Pro

Asus Vivobook is a bit cheaper option if you are willing to go with a combination of HDD and SSD. Here the SSD will be used for booting and windows and the traditional hard drive for all your storages. 

It comes with an Intel Core i7-8550U processor, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD Internal Storage along with a powerful Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU at almost half the price of LG Gram.

It has got a beautiful 15.6-inch 4k display which can support resolutions up to  3840×2160 (4k). This makes it a pleasure to look at and work with this laptop. The 7th generation intel 77HQ processor I quite powerful which can make working Ableton a bliss as it can go up to 3.8GHz when needed. This laptop comes with graphics card GTX1050 from Nvidia, which is a great addition to the processing power of i7 77HQ. 

This laptop comes with a combination of SSD and HDD to get the most out the superfast m.2 SSD and also keep it cost-effective by running all other storage in a superfast HDD. So this helps to keep the cost down, without having to have much of a compromise on performance. The superfast m.2 SSD is used for storing system files, which will help with faster booting and faster running of the system.

Here the laptop comes with 16GB of 4th gen DDR4 RAM as a single 16GB stick, so it will be easier for you to buy another one if you need an update in the future. And the best thing about this laptop is that it only weighs 5 pounds, it makes it a bit heavier than the one we reviewed earlier. But definitely, this is a portable laptop if you need to work while you are on the road.

And it has got a good lithium-ion battery which can charge pretty quickly, it can charge from empty to 60% in just under an hour, which helps you keep it portable for longer without having to keep looking for a charging point. 

Pros

• Beautiful 4k display
• Superfast charging 

Con

-SSD /HDD combo is a bit slower than full SSD.

6. Asus vivobook pro 17 

This laptop has exactly the same feature of the one we explained above with a bit more larger screen. Personally I like working with 17inch screen, but it can make it less portable than the 15 inch version

7 Dell XPS 15 

Dell has been making great laptops for a long time and this is one that is tested the time and great laptop for you to install and work with Ableton. This laptop has the 8th generation core i5 processor which have 4 cores and 8threads which can go up to a Turbo frequency of 4GHz. This is powerful enough when you are working with Ableton.

This laptop has a beautiful 15.6 inch LED dell infinity display which can support a resolution up to 3840 x 2160.

This laptop as well got a 16GB of RAM which can be of good help when running with resource-intensive software like Ableton.

It also comes with an inbuilt graphics card GTX 1050 just like the laptop we reviewed earlier.  This laptop is a tad heavier at 7 pounds compared to the laptops we revied so far. Because of the large 15.6 display, the battery can get drained a bit quicker than normal HD laptops, but this will give you a very beautiful display with crisp and beautiful colors in images and video

Pro 

• All SSD no HDD

Con

-a tad heavier

8. Apple MacBook pro 15

There is no argument that Apple makes the most elegant and powerful computer systems and is favored by many famous among the music and video production industry. This is a laptop you can buy and keep it running for years without worrying about needing an update. This laptop comes with the 8th gen core i9 processor, which can take pretty much any kind of load Ableton can throw at it. 

This laptop has a beautiful and sturdy metallic build with a touch bar that will help you control the features of the laptop like volume screen brightness with touch. This is really helpful when working with Ableton as you don’t have to use the touchpad at all to change these setting which helps you save time as you will doing it most of the time. 

Spec

9th-generation 8-Core Intel Core i9 Processor

Brilliant Retina Display with True Tone technology

Touch Bar and Touch ID

Radeon Pro 560x Graphics with 4GB of video Memory

Ultra-fast SSD

Intel UHD Graphics 630

Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports

9 Macbook pro 15 with core i9

This Macbook Pro comes with the latest Intel 9th generation core i9 processor, which has got a mind-blowing 8 core processor, which can handle Ableton without an issue. This is the laptop you buy and keep for another 7 – 10 years and still use it without any issues. And the 15inch model only weighs 4 pounds, can you believe that? It has all the power and matching beauty.

This mac has high-speed SSD (512MB). This laptop will last you 10 hours on a single full charge. Considering that it has a beautiful retina display with truetone, this is really good. The 15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Retina display with IPS technology; 2880-by-1800 native resolution at 220 pixels per inch with support for millions of colors and has an aspect ratio of  16:10.

The laptop has a Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching, Intel UHD Graphics 630. So this will make running Ableton an easy task with all its bells and whistles. 

Pro

• World-class build quality
• Super smooth performance 

Con

-it can take a bit longer to get used to Mac OS if you are new to it 

If you are ok with an i7 processor, you can get the following version, which is a tad bit slower but cheaper than the latest with i9

-9th-generation 6-Core Intel Core i7 Processor

-Brilliant Retina Display with True Tone technology

-Touch Bar and Touch ID

-Radeon Pro 555x Graphics with 4GB of video Memory

-Ultrafast SSD

-Intel UHD Graphics 630

Conclusion

We have gone through the best list of laptops that can run Ableton without any issues for the coming years. If you are confused with Windows vs Mac, the simple answer is to go with the one you are familiar with as you will get more time doing your music production work rather than fiddling with options in an operating system you are not familiar with. Please let me know if you have any questions in the comments below. I will make sure to update this list as new versions of Ableton are out or when there is a better laptop is available in the market.

Good luck with your journey with Ableton. Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments. But my suggestion is to select a laptop and start working rather than wasting too much time selecting , as any of the laptop i mentioned above can run Ableton absolutely fine.

FAQ

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