Shopping for new laptop - should I go Vista?

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DarkSideA8

Gawd
Joined
Apr 13, 2005
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I'm looking for a good 15.4 inch widescreen laptop for @ $1k.

Thinking about Sony VAIO or Dell or HP.

I'm willing to upgrade my video card to about a mid-grade mobile card and RAM to @ 2gigs. (Which is why I need to keep base price to less than $1k).

The question is - how much of a premium am I paying to get Vista - and can I get a better laptop in this pricerange by sticking to XP?

Also - if you have recommendations about various laptops -I'd appreciate your thoughts

Thanks!
 
vista not worth even installing. youd be better off with xp. while vistas newer MS hasnt been selling it like xp. most companies and people rather run xp for its ease of use and functionality

Vista is the new ME and they will shove it anyway they can

dells are great . and complete care is the best warranty you can get
 
Vista is the new ME in WHAT regard? Please explain....Vista is built off the same robust core that runs Windows Server 2003, so your argument falls flat on principle alone.

If youre going with a new machine DEFINITELY look at Vista. XP is only going to be here for another few years at best. No reason not to look ahead. And most new hardware is ready and powerful enough for the OS.

The hysteria (as seen above) is around in every new OS generation for Microsoft. Look back on the XP release in 2001 and youll find the very same garbage.

I've been running Vista Business for the last three months and I work in IT Consulting and am also a full time student at a University in Chicago, IL.

Let's get over it already.
 
I have used Vista business on my desktop and it is great. On the laptop not so great. My experience may not be like others but I was not happy with the performance and It was buggy also. I have a Toshiba A135-S2276 and it came with 512 MB of ram and I added another 1 gig . That did not help the laggy feel and then there was the crashing of the video driver while viewing DVDs. I tried getting the latest driver from ATI and that did not help.

So after a lot of frustration I tried to format and install XP Pro and voila problem fixed!! Only Toshiba says no drivers for XP because the laptop is a Vista only model. So I scoured the internet looking for drivers and found a forum where people had the same idea and already found the drivers. This laptop is very fast and the video works flawlessly. Vista is so new the drivers are lacking. I would wait a while to let them mature before jumping on the Vista band wagon. On the desktop with 2 gigs of ram and a fast processor and dedicated video card it runs pretty well only I have no printer driver (Lexmark hasn't made a driver for my model and they say they don't have plans to make any either).

I'm sure if you buy a laptop with a powerful enough processor and enough ram and a dedicated video card with 256MB of ram it will run fine. But that could cost a lot more than what you would like to spend. Remember the laptop I bought came with Vista Basic installed and you would think it would work for normal web surfing and video playback. May be later they will have some updates to fix the problems but why is XP soo much faster than the new Vista which is over due by 2 years??
 
I've been using vista on my laptop for about 2 months now, and've only had a single problem with an app trying to use a location in program files as a download area. Mirc's practically the posterchild for doggy app design though, and otherwise I haven't had any problems with it.
 
Please don't listen to people who say Vista is slow and buggy, it's simply not.

However, just yesterday I figured out why people think this. In the past, I have always built my own computers and installed operating systems myself. Vista runs extremely well on all of my custom computers and it's truly a great operating system. However, last week I ordered a cheap $600 Dell 1501 laptop.

It arrived yesterday with Vista preinstalled of course. When I turned the computer on and started to use it, I realized that it was the slowest computer I had worked on in probably 8 years. There were error messages popping up left and right. I would click programs and not see them for like 5 minutes. So I opened up the task manager and OMG there were 77 processes running, about 40 of which were installed by Dell! Most people probably think this is Vista's fault and never consider all the crap the vender has installed on the system.

I knew it wasn't Vista's fault, so I immediately formatted and installed a REAL version of Vista, NOT the crappy restore version of Vista that Dell gives you. Sure enough, when it booted up after install it was quick as lightning. With the 37 default Vista processes, everything was speedy and instant, and not a single error message graced my glossy screen.

So the moral of the story? Buy a REAL copy of Vista and don't use that CRAP you get preinstalled on any popular system vendor.
 
I've had a lot of gaming and compatibility issues with Vista. I could not get any video drivers that ran smoothly on my XT5000T and also kept getting BSOD's with I used MacDrive 7 (which is Vista compatible) to access my HFS+ external Firewire drive.

The NVidia driver situation is mainly what is keeping me away from Vista right now. Supposedly the performance drop in games from XP to Vista should be minimal but Half-Life 2 was basically unplayable under Vista while it ran smooth as butter on XP. I don't see much of an incentive to use Vista when the only real change (as far as my usage is concerned) is Aero, but I don't even like how it looks. I think it looks flashy and garish, not elegant like OSX (though a HUGE improvement over Luna!). Flip3D is pretty worthless as well--it's just a slower, better looking version of alt-tab rather than a truly useful window management tool like Expose. Also, Aero takes up a huge amount of screen space with its oversized window borders, menu bars, title bars, gigantic icons, etc.

Overall the GUI actually feels more responsive than XP in many cases because Aero doesn't need to re-draw windows like XP so you don't get those annoying "streaks" when you drag one window across another. Vista is more modern in its RAM usage too. It doesn't leave huge chunks of memory sitting idle like past Windows versions, and instead uses it to cache applications and such.

My non-techie friends have all liked Vista since they don't pay attention to drivers, performance, bloat, etc. All they really see is that Aero > Luna therefore Vista > XP. I guess if you're not a gamer or power user then Vista would be a good improvement, but otherwise XP is still the best IMO. When NVidia releases some real drivers then I might reinstall my copy of Vista.
 
Dell must use bloatier processes than Acer does. I'm not sure what percent of the 74 I'e got running are thiers (I never did a full presure sweap, just stopped with the cruft in the tray) and which're mine but for the nongaming use I bought it it runs fine even with boinc keeping the CPU at 100% load.
 
Just a word of advice... Vista really shines on 2GB of RAM. Yea, 1GB runs fine but its just so much snappier and lively on 2gb. Waking from sleep is like a 2 second affair.

This is just a repeat of XP's release back in 2001... when 512MB was the KING over 256MB :) Cmon, we all remember those days!
 
who am I - I ask said:
vista not worth even installing. youd be better off with xp. while vistas newer MS hasnt been selling it like xp. most companies and people rather run xp for its ease of use and functionality

Vista is the new ME and they will shove it anyway they can
Click to expand...

This is the kind of FUD that always makes me laugh.

Why on earth would you purchase a new laptop and handicap it with XP? Besides the plethora of security problems and issues with XP, Vista provides a treasure trove of support for features that new and next-gen laptops will be using, which XP will be unable to use - or use to its fullest. The SSD disks come right to mind.

For the OP, there is no question about it. Go with Vista and don't look back.
 
I installed Vista on the system in my sig....and damn is it fast...i havent had a problem that was vistas fault....i love vista and would recomend it to anyone....so yes OP get Vista and u wont be sorry....
 
minc3d said:
Vista is the new ME in WHAT regard? Please explain....Vista is built off the same robust core that runs Windows Server 2003, so your argument falls flat on principle alone.

If youre going with a new machine DEFINITELY look at Vista. XP is only going to be here for another few years at best. No reason not to look ahead. And most new hardware is ready and powerful enough for the OS.

The hysteria (as seen above) is around in every new OS generation for Microsoft. Look back on the XP release in 2001 and youll find the very same garbage.

I've been running Vista Business for the last three months and I work in IT Consulting and am also a full time student at a University in Chicago, IL.

Let's get over it already.
Click to expand...

I find it hard to believe you work in IT.....why do you tout the fact that it is 2k3 server based? 2k3 broke alot of backwards compatibility... you should also know that XP's relatively long life-span compared to other Windows versions would set it apart.its been what 6 years of XP? 6 years of applications, drivers, code tuned to the operating system?

in the 6 years before xp we went thru 95a/b,98/se, ME, 2000, NT 4,5,6

The longer lifespan alone ensures that XP will be around alot longer than a few years from now on. People will want to use their old machines and software.

Add that to the fact that Vista is still practically in beta/unstable and also that there's almost no benefit whatsoever to 'upgrading'.....
 
Thanks for the responses!

If I decide to go Vista, is there any reason to wait - like an anticipated update or version 1.1 or second edition?

Also, I'm concerned about the Dell preloads. Anyone have familiarity with the other comp's I'm thinking about - or have recommendations in general?

This will not be a dedicated gaming platform. I need it to do the usual work / internet stuff, play DVDs and play the occasional game. Good performance at medium to high settings should be acceptable. (If I need to game in an FPS intensive on-line way, I'll use my home-built desktop)

Thanks again.
 
Eragon Dragonslayer said:
I installed Vista on the system in my sig....and damn is it fast...i havent had a problem that was vistas fault....i love vista and would recomend it to anyone....so yes OP get Vista and u wont be sorry....
Click to expand...

I'm trying to figure out if you're serious or not. Vista on the rig in your sig will run like a pig (sweet rhyme!) Hell, Vista uses 500+ MB of RAM even with the Classic UI. I have a few laptops like that at work and they are worthless as vista boxes without upping them to 1GB min, 2 GB if the user is a multi-tasker.

To the OP, Vista, while still suffering driver problems, is actually pretty neat. Unfortunately, drivers for some of our hardware (large format printers & plotters) don't exist and certain in-house applications that don't play nice with .NET 3.0. This has caused me to spend many hours rolling back new machines to XP. So, like anything, look before you leap.
 
osalcido said:
Add that to the fact that Vista is still practically in beta/unstable and also that there's almost no benefit whatsoever to 'upgrading'.....
Click to expand...

Please, take your FUD somewhere else. Vista is not in beta, Vista is not unstable.

The amount of trolling vis-a-vi Vista has reached epic proportions.
 
the laptop in my sig cost under 1k :)


Personally Im very pleased with vista on my laptop, it runs very smooth with the exception of the high processor usage when It comes out of sleep. But then again if your running a dual core, it shouldnt be a problem. My poopy celeron struggles :/

If it comes down to it you could always dual boot XP and vista. I still use XP for gaming on my laptop since its slightly faster, and with a slow processor I need every boost I can get. As it is my laptop plays most games fairly well at native res without AA.

Tho Ill be upgrading to a T7200 C2D soon :D
 
Rube said:
I'm trying to figure out if you're serious or not. Vista on the rig in your sig will run like a pig (sweet rhyme!) Hell, Vista uses 500+ MB of RAM even with the Classic UI. I have a few laptops like that at work and they are worthless as vista boxes without upping them to 1GB min, 2 GB if the user is a multi-tasker.
Click to expand...

No...im dead serious it works perfectly fine and i use aero with transparency....i use alot of Photoshop CS3 on it, Play the occasional Guild Wars and CSS,and i do alot of MultiTasking...Like playing iTunes,While playing Guild Wars with some very light video encoding in the background...I can pretty much do just about anything on that system...Hence why its called the Ultimate Gaming Machine =P and only 384mb of ram is usable....128 goes to my 200m...So i can definitly say that vista rocks...if anyone has any more questions regarding vista on my sweet lappy feel free to contact me =D
 
Eragon Dragonslayer said:
I installed Vista on the system in my sig....and damn is it fast...i havent had a problem that was vistas fault....i love vista and would recomend it to anyone....so yes OP get Vista and u wont be sorry....
Click to expand...

Did you install a Vista upgrade or did you format and do a clean install?

You said you haven't had a problem that was Vistas fault.....what problems have you had with that model?
 
The only problem i had was finding the right soundcard driver because everytime i plugged in headphones the wound would just shut off but when i found the right driver at toshibas site everything worked great....and yes i did upgrade and so far vista has been good...
 
vista is so unstable its like saying george bush is a good president and the servicemen are dying for a good cause.

ME ran good on some pcs the same way vista does. but 80% it doesnt.

stick with xp theres no reason to spend so much just to get it to work with the upgrades.

dont support MS's screwup
 
who am I - I ask said:
vista is so unstable its like saying george bush is a good president and the servicemen are dying for a good cause.

ME ran good on some pcs the same way vista does. but 80% it doesnt.

stick with xp theres no reason to spend so much just to get it to work with the upgrades.

dont support MS's screwup
Click to expand...

Dude...on every thread asking about vista u always go and crap on the thread by saying it sucks and is unstable....mayb you should try it out for 30 days and then come back and say it sucks...
 
some of us have tried vista allready its a joke get over it. now come to redmond so we can have lunch in front of my microsoft sign.

man i bet if i sold my acreage on the moon someone would buy it
 
Honestly when I was building my PC all I heard were all these complaints about Vista and the unending bitching about how many problems there are and how pointless it is.

But, I also did here many people saying "just do it - I didn't regret it", so without even checking my configured parts for compatability I installed Vista.

Not one problem whatsoever, my MSI mobo came with Vista drivers, and hardware that didn't come with Vista drivers, the XP drivers worked fine. All my software is Vista capable, even if that means running it in "XP" compatability mode.

Vista is cleaner, more efficient, hell it's easier. Everything is redesigned and extremely easy to navigate and I couldn't be happier with the new design. I'm having a wonderful time on my new OS.

Unless you have some special programs that no matter what can't function in Vista or you have some sort of game that won't play in Vista that you can't part without (which is funny because over on the PCG forums just about every game known to man except like 5 or something either works on Vista out of box or has a quick fix, like 2142 - I was shocked to see that just about every game that I would ever want to play would work in Vista).

I guess some people just want to be extremely critical of Vista, but I went in unbiased and am extremely satisfied as just about everyone who has this OS (that gave it a shot or isn't judging it by the beta Vista they used in 06).
 
HopePoisoned said:
Honestly when I was building my PC all I heard were all these complaints about Vista and the unending bitching about how many problems there are and how pointless it is.

But, I also did here many people saying "just do it - I didn't regret it", so without even checking my configured parts for compatability I installed Vista.

Not one problem whatsoever, my MSI mobo came with Vista drivers, and hardware that didn't come with Vista drivers, the XP drivers worked fine. All my software is Vista capable, even if that means running it in "XP" compatability mode.

Vista is cleaner, more efficient, hell it's easier. Everything is redesigned and extremely easy to navigate and I couldn't be happier with the new design. I'm having a wonderful time on my new OS.

Unless you have some special programs that no matter what can't function in Vista or you have some sort of game that won't play in Vista that you can't part without (which is funny because over on the PCG forums just about every game known to man except like 5 or something either works on Vista out of box or has a quick fix, like 2142 - I was shocked to see that just about every game that I would ever want to play would work in Vista).

I guess some people just want to be extremely critical of Vista, but I went in unbiased and am extremely satisfied as just about everyone who has this OS (that gave it a shot or isn't judging it by the beta Vista they used in 06).
Click to expand...

The system in your sig is a great one and with the new components it should work just fine but that is not what average America has for a PC. My home system works great with Vista but not the printer which is only a couple of years old. Not Vistas fault that Lexmark hasn't and won't make a driver so I can keep using my slightly used printer.

The OS was delayed and it gave everyone more time to get the drivers ready but unfortunately for Microsoft hardware manufacturers are not up to speed. No what about the new computers which are under powered and are being sold with Vista installed. The people buying these machines are likely to curse Vista because it is soo slow on their new computers. Like the laptop I bought and learned the hard way that Vista needed more ram, which was ok because I could pop in some more if needed. And then there was the problem with the video driver and no fix could be found with Toshiba or ATI.

Imagine you get some advice and then after you buy it turns out to be real slow and crashes when you view DVDs. If Vista is soo great then why does the old XP run soo fast on the same computer that crawls with Vista? Easy Vista is new and hasn't matured yet. Plus the hardware vendors are behind on driver support. Given time I am sure without a doubt that Vista will be the one to beat. But for now people want an OS that is not going to cost them a new computer to run it. We use XP at work and I remember when they were afraid to upgrade to XP because it was new and had bugs. They couldn't afford to have the network shutdown for a fix every couple of weeks.

The OP was looking for a laptop not a desktop system so if you have had experience with Vista on a laptop then chime in. But to exclaim that Vista is great on your system is not helping the OP make a decision.
(Above comment not directed at anyone in specific)
 
fx10000 said:
The system in your sig is a great one and with the new components it should work just fine but that is not what average America has for a PC. My home system works great with Vista but not the printer which is only a couple of years old. Not Vistas fault that Lexmark hasn't and won't make a driver so I can keep using my slightly used printer.

The OS was delayed and it gave everyone more time to get the drivers ready but unfortunately for Microsoft hardware manufacturers are not up to speed. No what about the new computers which are under powered and are being sold with Vista installed. The people buying these machines are likely to curse Vista because it is soo slow on their new computers. Like the laptop I bought and learned the hard way that Vista needed more ram, which was ok because I could pop in some more if needed. And then there was the problem with the video driver and no fix could be found with Toshiba or ATI.

Imagine you get some advice and then after you buy it turns out to be real slow and crashes when you view DVDs. If Vista is soo great then why does the old XP run soo fast on the same computer that crawls with Vista? Easy Vista is new and hasn't matured yet. Plus the hardware vendors are behind on driver support. Given time I am sure without a doubt that Vista will be the one to beat. But for now people want an OS that is not going to cost them a new computer to run it. We use XP at work and I remember when they were afraid to upgrade to XP because it was new and had bugs. They couldn't afford to have the network shutdown for a fix every couple of weeks.

The OP was looking for a laptop not a desktop system so if you have had experience with Vista on a laptop then chime in. But to exclaim that Vista is great on your system is not helping the OP make a decision.
(Above comment not directed at anyone in specific)
Click to expand...

To tell you the truth...Vista seems to run faster on my laptop than XP but thats just me...
 
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