Will Bucknum, Voice To Game
The laptop has made my life about 1000 times easier. I am able to easily edit and record audio on the road, so I'm no longer tethered to my home studio as much as before. The processing speed and graphics card are quite good, so playing games or builds of things I'm working on isn't a problem - nor is running multiple audio programs packed with tons of audio plug-ins. The RAM doesn't crash, the graphics don't crash and the machine is very stable. My home PC actually crashed semi-regularly using Pro Tools, and this laptop hasn't crashed at all using Pro Tools. It seems the operating system and drivers work together better in this laptop.
As I work as a contractor mostly for indie developers, anything that may seem small to help us tangibly move forward in our careers can make a bigger difference than many might think. We're not raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars (usually), so we have to be smart about expenditures. A new laptop is something I'd eventually need to get, but couldn't responsibly budget for taking into account all of the other things I'm trying to do to grow my business. In a real way, the laptop served as an accelerator for me, allowing me to travel more, participate in more fully in game jams (and make better connections and the potential of starting new projects from these jams leading to commercially marketed games) and expand the way I use my software professionally to be more efficient and do more things, sometimes in surprising ways.
For instance, our band, Gravity Nocturne, founded during the Make-A-Band event in Eugene by myself and other game audio producers, will be performing at Indie Game Con. I'll be on the stage playing through the laptop using a MIDI controller keyboard on multiple virtual instruments and live sax through plug-in effects in Pro Tools. This serves as great marketing for myself and for the game audio community in Eugene, and it wouldn't have been at all possible on my old laptop.
So far, I have used the laptop on two commercially marketable games, one that has been released on BETA - Flying Tigers and another unannounced game that I probably won't be able to talk about for quite a while.
I stopped by the Intel booth briefly at PAX and have seen some events that Intel has put on lately, and I am really impressed with how much Intel is trying to help the game development community. Every time I meet people who are trying to increase their presence in game development and are looking for places to check out, I send them to check out Intel because they're always doing things for game developers, esp. indies. Since Intel puts out quality products and is so supportive of the work I, and so many others do in making games, I basically consider myself Team Intel now.