I think the XPS line is overpriced for what you get. I’ve had an Inspirion for the last 2 years and it’s been great!!
I really don’t do alot of gaming (not enough time on my hands). I want something small, fits in a backpack so I can take it to class/work. Definately a lap top that will replace my desktop.

buying a dell is a stupid idea. horrible machines.

for a $1500 budget, I’d say get a Lenovo Thinkpad T61.
If you don’t game, then definitely go wth a Thinkpad.
For that money, and your uses of the computer, I would get a Macbook. Its small, it fits in your notebook, its instant on when you open it, has good battery life and has a better OS than windows.

Students get a $100 discount, and you get a free iPod too. Kinda nice.

OSx *is* better than windows….. but if you’re okay with Windows, you get more hardware and a better machine with the Thinkpad.

In this case the free iPod and the $100 discount make a pretty big difference too: Thats like $250 worth of value for him. And the ergonomics/sleekness of the Macbook are really good for pulling in/out of your bag between classes. Its small, no lines on the case to get hung, and the macbooks instant-un-sleep better than any computer I’ve ever used. Macbooks also help with college whores.

I mean, PC/Mac war aside: this particular guy really is a good candidate for a Macbook. For students they start at $999. He will probably want 2GB of RAM (its $90, so I would get it from Apple.com just for the warranty), and a larger HD so that puts it at more like $1200.
Thanks for the help. I’ve considered a mac before (never had one), only thing holding me back is the changing operating systems (had a PC all my life) but I’m sure I can adjust like everyone else.

The thinkpads sound cool too, but which model would you recommend? I’m looking at the lenovo website and should I just pick one of the lower priced ones and add stuff on till I get to around $1500 or pick one that’s near $1500?
Great battery life would be a plus, I like typing my notes during classes and If the laptop could go w/o having to be recharged in between that would be great. 4 classes a day, each one around 1:15 = 5 hours batt life? Anyone had a Lenovo that could shed some light for me?
Most people prefer OS X to Windows once they get used to it. In fact, that is the main reason people switch: OS X lacks most of the recurring problems people have with Windows.
@ $100 discount

I got like 20% off my Dell when I bought it through the Uni. Dell has some remarkable computers and they’re rock solid regardless of what other say.

I almost didn’t buy one because of the Dell hate here. But I’ve had mine for 2 years and it’s still rockin’. Had one prob but they came to my house the next day and fixed it.

Like I said tho, I would stay away from the XPS line and go for the Inspiron line.
[quote=Coottie;102537825] @ $100 discount[quote]

Its actually $100 + Free iPod, which is > 20% value. And its a much better machine than a Dell, and no Windows issues.

I would advise OP to try whatever he’s going to buy before he buys it.

You tried your mac before you bought it and IIRC you had to go without it for like a week before you got it back AND you had to take it to the store??

Where as I made one call, set the appt and BAM, they were on my doorstep the next day with parts in hand ready to fix my comp.

Not only that, I got 3 year warranty covering accidental spills, drops and other damage. It was a total of $50 with no additional charges and certainly no charge for hardware to fix whatever is broken. $50 and that’s it for 3 years. That’s a hell of a good warranty but then you throw in at home service and it’s flat out PIMP!!

I do like the free ipod idea tho. In fact, now that I’m gainfully employed, I’m thinking about picking up a macbook to see what all the fuss is about.

Unrelated to trying it before I bought it – my MBP has been in for service twice. I was without it for a week. It did suck. Macbooks are not exempt from the laws of physics, and do sometimes malfunction. The service is good, though.

If you’re not a student, you aren’t eligible for teh free iPod.

Yeah but let’s go back to the days when I was looking for a computer. You would spout, "Mac just work" or "Macs are teh best cuz the just work, they really do". And you do it at every opportunity…..never once even admitting that people had some serious problems with them.

You constantly gave the impression that they were bulletproof and rock solid machines when in fact, they’re just like any other computer.

Anyways, you’ve changed your tune but you still had to be coaxed into admitting that.

Macs are the most bulletproof computers available, but they are still subject to the laws of physics. They’re just like any other notebook available: but better.

And yes, that means they break and people get mad. Just less so than other brands. Thats why they are taking over the notebook market.

I don’t think I have read any more bullshit on this board in a long time if ever.

I’d recommend a thinkpad.

i have to disagree with this here. i have an Inspiron 1520 and while it is great and all, i would NEVER recommend it for what the OP is asking for. i don’t know why exactly, but the 15" Dell I have feels so much heavier than the 15" MBP i had recently with identical specs. i would never consider this a portable laptop. at around 6.4lbs, it is a full pound heavier than the MBP.

if you were comparing the 13" MB to the 14" Inspiron, you’ll find again that it is .4lbs or more heavier. if you want to bring this into class with you, then smaller and lighter wins.

EDIT: i think you can get a Thinkpad 14" laptop that is under 5lbs. i can’t be certain since i can’t find the actual specs on the lenovo site.

1 lb isn’t going to hurt anyone except the lightest and smallest among us.

I know because I carried around the E1705 for a full year while I was in school. It was only a pain for a week then I got used to it and don’t even notice it.

It’s a portable and very powerful computer and compared with a MBP price, way, way better.

So while YOU may not consider it to be a portable computer, it most certainly IS!

Not hardly….only for someone who isn’t concerned with the processing power, larger battery, bigger HD and all that. Smaller and lighter generally means trimmed down with less features.

Weight is an important consideration but it’s not the sole and only consideration. Price, warranty, components these are all much more important to me than weight. Sure I’d like it if my laptop was lighter but when I got it, it was an awesomely powerful machine.

FYI, the Dell 9 cell batter is what I got with my E1705. I could play games at full graphics and full brightness for almost 2 hours without needing to plug it in. If I turned down the brightness and actually tried to conserve my batteries, I could have gone much longer.
what about a good laptop for music production? I dont really plan on ‘gaming’ with it or getting on the internet or anything i just need a good processor and nice size ram. Which brands should I stay away from? Are toshiba Satellites any good? I really dont feel like blowing over a thousand on this but I hear Macs are the shit for my needs so any suggestions?
So do I look into a lower priced laptop and add on features or just get an expensive one ???????
If you’re carrying it with you you want a quality notebook with a sleek, small design that is light and durable. You also want it to instant-on really fast. I don’t know why, but that turns out to be HUGELY important. Let that guide you.
You go out an research for yourself because everyone is going to recommend what they bought. Having actually had my hands on a few brands myself and purchase on behalf of the company, I will second what Jolly has said, ThinkPads are the corporate standard for a reason.
A thinkpad would also be a good choice. I’m not just recommending what I bought: I don’t own a Macbook and one would NOT work for me.

I would strongly recommend against a Dell as I’ve never seen one that was very good at what he wants.

I work for a fairly large corporation and we’re a 100% Dell shop.

The impression that corporations ONLY buy IBM is one that is not supported by my experience or knowledge…yet it sure is popular on this forum.

Ok, good corporations…

Seriously, a lot corporations used Dell in the 90’s and early 2000’s but support wained from them a few years ago when they quality started to fall, and Lenovo started pricing their equipment at a reasonable price. We stayed away from IBM for latter reason for a number of years until it got to the point where you would be stupid not to spend a couple of hundred extra to get a quality machine. My respect for Dell disappeared when they started to sell in WalMart.

BTW, our parent company that bought us out is also a Dell house. Of the 3 Dells they sent us, 2 failed within a week – one had its processor disconnected from the MB. We are desperately trying to get them to wake up and smell the coffee – the Dell train has run its course
I’ve never seen a Dell laptop that isn’t big, plastic, heavy, hot, loud fan, etc. compared to other brands. Did that change?

The one we got actually looked pretty good – I was actually looking forward to playing around with it. Then I turned it on.

I’m currently working for a school district that issues all of the high school students Dell latitudes.

They’re pieces of shit.
There’s currently like a 40% off Thinkpads thing going on for stockholders. Buy a single share, and then shave off nearly half the price of the laptop.
Thanks again to everyone, so I think I’m gonna look into the thinkpads. I really don’t have much of a problem with windows since it does everything I need it to. The only dowloading I do is the occasional song or video clip, so should I invest in larger internal memory/hard drive or maybe get an external hard drive to keep it all on?
Funny thing is, I was in the OPs place about 2 years ago and I almost completely avoided a Dell because of this forum. I’m SOOO glad I thought about it more.

Here’s the thing, everyone here is telling you what they would do if they were buying another computer. The only reason I suggested only Dells is because everyone runs them down so much but the reality of Dell ownership is much different than the HATE you hear in this forum.

For me, the choice boiled down to a number of things….weight was NOT a huge criteria. Sure I didn’t want to haul around a load of bricks but someone is honestly complaining about 1 pound….one lousy, stinking pound. That is hysterical to me.

So I was more interested in longer battery life, large HD, large amounts of RAM and a kick ass video card. I’m into gaming and want to mobile game. Another HUGE consideration for me was the warranty. Laptops are a big investment and I didn’t want a 1 year warranty. I’ve described my warranty previously so I won’t do so again but that was a huge consideration.

Also another huge consideration, price. I found Dell was a much better value with their Inspiron line. I was able to go through my Universities IT department (something available to all students but you have to look for it on your Universities website. If you can’t find it….call the IT dept). My Uni had deals worked out with IBM, Dell, HP and others. I chose the Dell for the reasons above and because I didn’t like the think pads at all…..they just didn’t look good to me.

The financing options were the best also. I got 1 year NO Interest! NONE….as long as I paid off the computer in that year. Apple was 6 months only and no one else could match the 1 year deal.

So it’s funny to me….2 years ago, I was scared shitless to buy a Dell because of all the hate I read about them here. But then I talked with some real life friends that owned them and their experiences were totally different than I hear here. Not only that….3 years in home warranty and 1 year no interest was pimp!! So I bought a Dell and I’ve been very, very happy with it.

So do your own research and figure out what’s important to you. The applications you’re describing can be easily done on almost ANY computer. If you were a gamer I’d make more specific suggestions about the components you add but right now, pretty much any computer will fit your needs….or so it seems.

Anyways, good luck.
You should also look into a Lenovo Y510 Ideapad while you’re looking at T61s. I just picked one up last month and it’s a pretty sleek machine. Got 1.83 C2D, 4gigs of RAM, 250gig HD, Geforce 2600GT 256meg for $950 off of newegg. It beats the everliving shit out of the Macbook 2.0 C2D that it replaced.

I built a Macbook Pro with similar specs on Apple’s site. Fucking cost $2300.

I do have to warn the OP though: the one shitty thing about Lenovos… The box you get the laptop in is just plain brown cardboard, unlike the pimp looking Mac boxes.

the old ones were plain. the new ones actually look nice. It’s like a black box with colored lines runing at angles across it.

Advantages/disadvantages between having an ideapad or thinkpad? Is one better than the other or more preferred?

thinkpad is decades ahead.

ideapad is not really any diff than a gateway or hp.

thinkpad has magnesium chassis, spill tray/drain hole, aluminum hinges, drop sensor, etc.

well unfortunately the loudest and most opinionated individuals are the ones making sure their voice gets heard (mainly through trolling and whining) on this forum; and the most blatant of these individuals vehemently opposes dell…

yet sack-rides gateway

oh man that’s irony at its finest.
Why in god’s name do they put so many buttons on a thinkpad? They look ok other than that: WHO NEEDS 4 MOUSE BUTTONS? I mean, gimme a break!

Yep and I seem to recall he was also sack riding Asus.

I feel dirty defending Jolly, but the whole reason he does that is because manufacturers’ quality changes from year to year. Dell really was good a number of years ago, Gateway was really shitty, and Asus has fallen from where they started.

In other words, his opinions are based on the most current information collected both professionally and thru experience, not from sackriding one brand with blinders on. Like some of you.

I need a shower.

Thing is…he’s always been down on Dell as have most people in C&P.

So while your post makes it seem like he’s right because he’s current it ignores the empirical evidence that many of us have had and that is, Dell ain’t so bad afterall.

There’s nothing wrong with Dell at all. In fact, there’s a LOT going right with them and even Jolly admitted they’re coming around…..however, he still refuses to give them props. Seriously he sounds like a jilted lover that simply can’t get over the hurt.

But whatever, he’s entitled to his opinion. I’m just thrilled I didn’t listen to him.
For someone that doesn’t care about an extra pound here and there in a computer – there’s nothing wrong with a Dell. I can’t stand them because I carried one around for a year and it was big, heavy, plastic, loud and hot. I.e. a not very good portable.
You’ve been here two years, Dell has been shit for at least that long.

Just out of curiosty, you said your company is a Dell house. For how long have they been like that?

Most likely so you can search ALL the internets more effectively
Go to dell.com and configure one for yourself……..

You’ve always been more rational than Jolly.

Says you…..they haven’t been shit for me nor a lot of other people.

I know…it’s like you’re Al Gore trying to recount votes in Florida that just don’t add up. You just can’t accept that Dells are as bad as you want them to be.

Long time….from what I gather from others, about 10 years or so.

And before you say "That explains it, 10 years ago they were good and you guys just didn’t change" you need to understand the corporate culture where I work. We invest heavily in technology. We’re public and we’ve got lots of money to spend. If Dells weren’t reliable, we’d switch. I have absolutely NO doubt about that.

But like my mom always says, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still" so you’ll likely discount everything said and still run down Dells.
We are an all Dell shop too… I’ve been at my job 6 years and back then we had about 90% Dells. Even our servers are Dells… Sure I’ve had to replace a hard drive here and there and some screen hinges, but zero problems overall. A couple of the machines that were new when I started are still being used.

I have the XPS M1210 and LOVE it…
I have a Sony Vaio SZ58, and I absolutely love everything about it! Pricey, sure, but I fucking love the simple design/ultra lightweight/ultra fast machine.

Can’t go wrong with an SZ

I do . You are most likely still with Dell because they give you a great price, and great service. Your IT group is quite complacent to keep things status quo – and to some degree, I don’t blame them. But it doesn’t mean it’s a better or even a good product.

If you seriously think that Dell has been at the top of the game for 10 years, YOU are deluding yourself. It’s not even possible if you look at it rationally. I run down Dell’s not because I’ve always hated them, I run them down because they’re quality has gone down the tubes.

see, you’ve just listed all the cons i considered when purchasing my dell laptop. it is big and heavy and plastic (all of which make it UGLY), although not very loud and not as hot as i’ve heard people complain about. it gets hot, but not hot enough that it’s going to burn your lap after prolonged use.

however i can say i’ve seen the new XPS laptops as well as inspirons and they have a much nicer form factor and are sleeker. although i think they’re still plastic. but that’s some of the problems fixed along with the nice prices still.

in fact i just helped my friend purchase an inspiron from best buy the other day for $600 even with a core2duo 2ghz, dvd burner, and all the other nice specs you could imagine (other than a crappy video card, although it still ran vista’s aero fine) and i was quite impressed with it. normally i wouldn’t condone buying from best buy but this was a slickdeal.

You do not know the culture and the company where I work nor do you even understand how competitive it is there. You literally have no idea what you’re talking about…..just accept that fact. You can’t know, you aren’t there yet you’re seriously trying to argue that you know what you’re talking about. In regards to the company where I work, it’s culture or what we would or would not do in a given situation…..you don’t….period.

I never said Dells were the best. I have however said they are no where near the worst and they are actually a hell of a lot better than most people say in this forum.

But lets examine this idea of "best". It’s a ridiculous notion that one company is best in some objective sense of the word. It’s totally subjective and what’s best to one person isn’t to another.

Look it’s OK if we disagree. The only reason I keep discussing it is because people sack ride the shit out of hating on Dell. It’s annoying and it’s unfair to Dell and people who visit this forum that don’t know this fact.
i am super happy with my sony

and i abuse the fuck out of it

Don’t try to convince the world that your corporation assesses their current IT needs and suppliers every year with an open mind and manage to come up with Dell as their choice. Every company and government agency who has ever done that has switched over the period of a decade. And I’m not picking on Dell when I say that – it’s simple fact.

Jesus….this shit gets annoying.

Never did I say we analyze your computers ever year and make a decision. Are you seriously incapable of reasoning this out for yourself?

Look if Dells were as shitty as the Dell haters here would like to believe, we’d have machines crapping out left and right. We don’t. If the comps crapped out on a regular basis or even semi-regular basis, we’d switch in a heartbeat. They don’t….so we stay with them.

There…I refuse to lead you around by the hand anymore.
In other words, your company is a de facto Dell house. Kinda what I’ve been saying all along…

like i said, i have a Dell 1520 and it is fine for me, but it is noticeably heavier than my MBP was which had identical specs. 1lb is not a lot on its own, but you are talking a 20% weight increase. i’d probably buy another Dell for what i use it for, but i definitely would not carry it back and forth to work like i did with my MBP or even my older 15" widescreen HP/Compaq laptop (i can’t remember which model, but it was a decent business model). i couldn’t even imagine carrying it around and taking it out regularly, especially when it is unnecessary with lighter laptops out from equally good vendors like Lenovo that are still within his budget.
For your purposes, I’d go with a T61 or MacBook. As a owner of both Leopard and Windows, OSX is not that much better than a well-maintained Windows system (not hard to do) in terms of security and stability. However, it’s visual aesthetics are eons ahead of Windows, even with the uxtheme.dll hacks and explorer.exe shell replacements. For that reason, I use my Mac the most for my work/internet browsing/media, and fire up my Windows box really only for some gaming here and there.

I’d suggest you test out OSX, and if you really like it, I’d get a MacBook.
ford vs chevy huh guys?

I think I can be of some help. I carry my laptop around at college often and I’m a heavy user. A lot of your concerns haven’t been addressed yet, so I’ll try and do that.

And, before I get started, I own a refurb Gateway (1 yr old). My girlfriend a macbook (1 yr old), my roommate a dell XPS 13” (1 yr old) and my suitemate a macbook (2 years old). I’ve used them all. Never used a Lenovo, but have heard good things – you probably won’t go wrong and you’ll have to do your own research when it comes to Lenovo.

I have a 15.4” c2d 2.0gh, 2gb ram, 160gb 5400 rpm hdd for $740 a year ago. it was a G R E A T deal. similar dells were costing me $300 more, and even more with a warranty, which i debated getting. If you’re willing to troubleshoot or do your own repairs (or you know a guy), then warranties aren’t worth it. Anyone who buys a dell warranty for full price is a n00b.

I looked at teh 1520 dell and through my school I also recieved a discount, but their back-to-school sale open to the public was better than the discount I recieved. It was something liek a flat rate off + 12% and my laptop came to be $1500 (with simialr spects to my gateway plus a graphics card, extra battery, bluetooth, some more stuff, it wasn’t bad for the price). And since it got to be that expensive, removing the warranty option made -$100 difference maybe (to $1400 – removing warranty also halved my discount). Then I had to factor in tax + shipping, which bumped it up to < $1700. It would be superior to my $740 gateway, but not enough to justify double the cost.
My Point: you really need to do your research. Shop around. Wait for the perfect deal, ESPECIALLY when looking at dells. It’s SUPER easy to get ripped off by them, but if you wait for a deal you can get good hardware for the best prices around.

Dell overprices liek hell and then gives you "discounts." Only sometimes are their discounts legit. Do your homework with dell.

Also, my roommate has an XPS 13” and my girlfriend a 13” macbook. They’re SO portable and it does make a difference when I go from my 15.4” to their laptops. Theirs are much more convinient to use around the dorms/campus. Also battery life on the macbook especially is SIX hours. The XPS is probably > 4. And screen brightness on the mac at the lowest setting is actually readable, whereas on my gateway the lowest setting is good only in the dark. For portability and battery life and quick startup from suspend mode, the macbook is the way to go. If you’re really into Windows look for the 13” XPS, but wait for a great deal OR look at another brand’s portable laptops.

Another plus of the macbook is that it has garageband, which is great for audio editing/playing around or even using as a guitar amp (great range of effects and what not). You should go try this program out.

The 13” screens a little small, but IMO worth it for portability and battery life, especially since gaming isn’t your think. For web browsing, word processing, audio work, it’s fine. Plus your budget allows for ram/hard drive/whatever else upgrades. Also, you’re guaranteed decent hardware and support for the price you pay. Go buy a laptop from Best Buy, and you might get hardware that was in its prime 4 years ago and pay WAY too much for it. Not to say you can’t get a good PC laptop, just shop around more because there are so many more options. If you’re looking for a simple solution go with the mac.

BTW, I never have, never will own a mac. Just not for me (Windows > Mac), but I think they are perfect for what you’re looking for.
Thats a solid post right there. OP should take note.

No related posts.

My old computer had Windows XP and Ubuntu Fiesty installed
2.8 Ghz Pentium 4
512 mb PC 2600 ram
and a 128mb nVidia 6600 GT video card.

My new laptop has Windows Vista Home installed
AMD Turion 64 Dual Core 2.0 GHz
3 GB DDR2 ram
and an nVidia 7150 integrated card with 1 gb shared ram

But all the programs are still as slow as ever. Crap takes forever to load when I’m using the DVD drive. I don’t know if my expectations were too high for a 64bit processor and 6x the amount of ram, but I had no problem running multiple processes in Ubuntu.

Some people say its the visual effects of Vista that clog it down, and I’m starting to think that it must be because they are so badly coded. I had Compiz Fusion running nonstop in Ubuntu and never had any hangup (and this is with multiple transparencies, physics effects, live previews and other demanding processes).

This has left me with an overwhelming distaste for the quality of this supposed Windows Upgrade. Not to mention the plethora of antivirus and security software that came preinstalled on the computer…. What are everyone else’s thoughts on this Stunning New Windows

edit: Microsoft Smart Quotes messing everything up
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
4gigs of RAM
8800GTS 512
7200rpm drives x2

Vista runs pretty smoothly for me.

you also have a dedicated card that is far superior to mine… does everyone need a high end graphics card just to run vista smoothly?

same computer? huh

Same Compaq V2000 laptop.
my laptop has shared memory and runs vista just fine too? its just cheap gateway laptop. vista has been nice to me
I haven’t experienced many problems but if I was given the option of Windows XP Pro or Vista, I would still take XP Pro.
runs better than my other computer on XP

then again, I have 3 gigs of ram in my vista comp

well I can’t play Counter Strike for some unknown reason. I installed it from the CD too.

I’m blaming vista.
don’t forget that laptop specs do not translate to desktops with respect to performance

(with the same specs, the desktop will perform better)
With one gig of shared video memory for the video card that means vista has available 2gb of memory. It has been said vista runs with 2gb as xp does with 1gb.

An athlon 64 x2 is about 40% (which is probably what an amd turion is closet too) behind compared to a core 2 duo but I think your biggest bottleneck is its a laptop.

If you had a core2 duo desktop or even a phenom desktop with 4gb of ram or so with at least a geforce 8200 onboard or 8500gt or higher you’d have a much better experience. An ati comparable video card would be fine as well.

No reason to get childish just because you don’t believe me. It is my work laptop (I am an SAP consultant) so it gets used more than most. In my experience, people who bitch about like Vista are people who have never used it, Apple fanboys, or ignorant people who feel they know stuff they know nothing about.

Are there shortcomings? Yes. Are there features that you simply don’t need and should turn off? Yes.

If you want to run Vista with full Aero effects and still run smoothly with a bunch of apps open, yeah, it’ll help to have a dedicated GPU.

Our company is still considering the changeover. I’m not looking forward to it from what I have experienced so far.
Only thing I did on my PC was upgrade the RAM to 2GB and I think vista is much better than XP
I’ve had it for about a year now and have no complaints. It loads programs noticably faster than XP on this computer as well.
I have Vista and XP set to dual-boot on my laptop (Core2Duo, 2gb RAM, Radeon x1400), and I haven’t booted into the Vista partition for probably half a year. I timed it once, and I was able to boot into XP and launch word, Opera, and AIM before Vista even made it to the log-in screen. Add to that that for some reason Vista decided to stop talking to my router (it did start talking to it again after about a week), and I was fed up with it.
I have been using Vista Ultimate x64 since August 2007 and I have loved it then as much as I do now. The only issue I had – still have – is finding an internal tv tuner card that is supported for vista x64 and a few other minor drivers.

The pros outweigh the cons. And when you go back and forth between Vista and XP as I do for work, XP seems outdated.

Going to be stuck with Vista for -ANY- new machine now aren’t you?
My home machines are staying with XP Pro up until I decide to run Ubuntu on one. Work machine isn’t up from lease for another year or so I think but I’m afraid I’ll be stuck with Vista once I get a new one. I have a feeling a few more people, including myself, will be dual booting primarily into Ubuntu for our day to day and keeping Vista there for the Adobe Suite programs.
a friend of mine bought an hp desktop that came with vista. it only has 1gb of ram. it runs like crap, it took him almost 20 minutes to install nero. he has about 100mb of ram free. he’s like "well, they should give you the amount of ram you need from the factory"

yeah, hes retarded

i have vista on one of my desktop computers only because the tuner card will only work with vista media center and nothing else. tried linuxmce, mediaportal, winxp media center, mythtv etc, nothing will work except vista media center

Not with enterprise licensing.

I agree with the statement that an IT department which switches to Vista is dumb; unless they have no other option.

Our entire company has gone to vista without a problem.. you just can’t have monkeys running the network. Most IT depts that have problems moving over to vista are related to horseshit Domain Policies that don’t work/break the domain controller.
I say it because there really isn’t a benefit to going to Vista. Why put your users through a transition, and put strain on your help desk, if you don’t have to.

i agree, there’s not much benefit for the transition. i do like vista for personal use though.

Vista will use all the RAM you give it, to cache frequently-used files. No way around it. RAM’s not the issue, though he could use more than 1GB anyway.

I’m running Vista on a Thinkpad R40 with a 1.5GHz P4 Centrino and 2GB of RAM; it does alright. My biggest beef with Vista at this point is that it’s like a fucking nanny; anything I want to change, I have to verify that I’m really the one requesting the change to be made. I can understand doing this for important shit, but for changing the screen resolution or changing the time? Come on, that’s just a waste of everyone’s time.
I think vista is quite good.

You need current-hardware to run it well…. And that’s no diff than when XP first came out. XP didn’t exactly run well on "upgrade" boxes, anyway, if you recall.
Once SP1 came out and I figured out how to turn off the fuckin UAC, I haven’t looked back at my XP disks since. I have a machine that will run it easily though so that probably makes the difference. The only other problem I’ve had with it is finding things that have been moved around to somewhat hide them from the click happy computer illiterate people of the world.
It’s fine apart from the permissions that I vented off about in the thread in C&P
I was running it on a Toshiba laptop.. Core Duo, 1gb ram, onboard graphics.. for day to day stuff it ran fine, but good luck doing anything like Photoshop on it.

It was just a work laptop for checking email and browsing the web though, and I did like it more than XP, but definitely felt it struggle more than a few times.

I’m not fussy though

When I build my new desktop, i’ll be putting vista on it.. but it will be beefy enough to handle it without struggling.
I’ve been running Vista Ultimate 64 at home on my system for about 6 months now and it’s been fine. A few issues here and there, but nothing that I didn’t go through with XP when it came out.
I’ve been using it for about 18 months here at work, and its been great. I’ve got it on one of my machines at home, but don’t have a license for my other machine, so its still running XP. So far, I’ve had absolutely no problems with it. I’ve had some problems with some applications, but you can’t hold MS responsible for other companies’ shitty software development practices.
A relative has a newish PC with Vista on it. It is slow like a 486. What innovation!

that’s funny, mine runs like grease lightning.
Mine is too. But e6600 and 2 gigs ram is plenty of machine for vista. I had it running on my 2ghz 1gig ram laptop for a while and it was running fine with some of the fancy shit turned off.

Thats because you have more money than him. He bought a low-end new PC with Vista and got fucked. Its the slowest ‘new’ computer I have ever used. Slower than Win 3.1

Maybe your relative doesn’t know how to configure a machine properly — like, for example, that magical and esoteric ritual called defragmentation. Woooooo…(waves hands in spooky manner)

well i imagine if it’s a new pc there wouldn’t be much defragmentation…

Its new. It was slow when he got it. They set the Vista limits WAY WAY below anything that is actually reasonable to run Vista. MS lied, behaved horribly and he and millions of other conumers got fucked. A defrag won’t get him out of that.

Well, he got what he paid for. To get the machine to run decent with low-end hardware that just meets the required (not recommended) components he needs to turn off some of the fancy visuals. Also, get rid of the crap that is most likely preloaded on the computer. Should run fine then.
How did they lie? 2gigs ram is a RECOMMENDED spec. Are game developers lying when they put the minimum and recommended specs on the back of a game because you can’t run it smoothly at the minimum specs? No, because all it has to do at the minimum specs is run, not run well.
eh, i could take or leave Vista. it is better for newer computer users in helping them not screw up their PCs, but that’s about it that i have found. i wouldn’t buy it on its own, but i wouldn’t pay extra to put XP on it.

the thing that i find most stupid about Vista is that it can’t run on current hardware. netbooks are the latest big thing in computers and they run Vista like shit.

Quit being a fucking jackass and Microsoft hater, you buy cheap you get cheap. that $500 dell with 1 GB of RAM doesn’t cut it.. even for XP anymore.

Oh. I thought it was an upgrade box.
Its a well known scandal that "Vista Ready" computers were NOT. You guys are such hosers. They under-specified the minimum. His computer would work fine if it were XP. Its Vista and so he is totally screwed.

But saying that obvious fact upsets you little honeybons? OH NO!
Didn’t read much here, but I like Vista… I have it on a dual core 2 gig RAM Shuttle PC.

When I first installed it, it took about the same amount of time to boot as my XPS M1210 on XP did. It’s slowed down some, but not much.
I like it.

networking is way easier with vista than with xp, folder navigation is a MILLION times better than xp, search is more capable but no faster than xp

all good software works on vista fine, so if you’re having trouble with software, you’re using shitty software. my computer starts in like a minute, and nothing ever seems slow (except firefox when it’s bleeding memory)
Vista is fine, but you have to realize it takes more power to run than XP. Just like how when everyone was upgrading from 98 to XP, they needed better machines to run XP.

these days windows has 11ty million services running. what they should do is when you install windows it should have nothing but the bare bones services running and then when a services is needed that’s not enabled it should tell you waht it is and let you enable it. ya you might get a few of those messages to begin with but when you’re done you only have the services running that you need!

right now when you have a service disabled that you need it’s more of a just not work and fail horribly type thing going on.

I agree that should be an option. Unfortunatly, MS has actually made effort to do the opposite — and for 95% of users, MS is right.
"The operation you wish to perform requires the [insert service name] service. This service is not currently running. Starting the [insert service name] service will allow [explanation of consequences]. Do you want continue?"

[Yes, start the service just this once] [Yes, start the service permanently] [No, don't start the service and cancel the operation]

- – -

Oh yeah, that’s totally hopeless.
Just out of curiosity, what would happen if all services were set to Manual startup? Would they still run on demand, when first needed, or would you have to open the Services panel to start them?

i’ve seen that popup before which is what gave me the idea. unfortunately most operations fail if the service is disabled rather than popping up that window.

Are you shitting me? Folder navigation in Vista bugs the living fuck out of me. The folder tree was just fine.
i like vista

i use it on both of my main systems and it would also be on my laptop if it wasnt a bit too old

i do prefer vista over xp personally

Do you still have UAC turned on?

speaking of UAC, that is the only thing that i’ve had cause problems on my own machine. i tried leaving it on, just for the hell of it, and found that a few different programs wouldn’t install correctly with UAC on. turned it off, and had none of the same problems.

not blaming vista for this, i just didn’t think i would have problems like that

So you are still using the horseshit software that came preloaded right? A clean vista install with a real antivirus(not norton or mcafee) and your normal apps works fine with what that machine came with. Our office sells our customers lenovo PCs with quad core CPUs and 2 GB of ram and are so loaded with shit you would never know they were new. Get over it, they come loaded with shit to make them cheaper.
When I first got my hands on Vista, it was pre-SP1 and I had a shitload of problems with my networking, plus dealing with a bunch of third-party programs that couldn’t be used in Vista (wud?). So I dumped it and went back to XP.

A few months ago I tried Vista again, this time with SP1. So far, the only problem I’m having is with Vista not wanting to come back up on standby. And as far as the muscle needed to propel Vista, a fast 7200rpm drive and 4GB of ram pretty much did the trick.

If I was running a business, I would stick to XP since I probably couldn’t be bothered to struggle with the upgrades.
Just installed Vista x64 yesterday, I like it so far.

UAC is a good idea, but they take it too far. It doesn’t need to check if the user wants to add a shortcut to the Start Menu. Delete system files? Yes. Change screen resolution? No.

Microsoft does have a good point* that users shouldn’t be using admin privileges all the time, and software vendors shouldn’t write programs that require them to use those admin privileges all the time. The problem is that there’s no in-between for old software that hasn’t been updated, and may never be updated.

it’s a good idea with a poor implementation. OSX has the same thing and they implemented it much better. when you want to make a change, it prompts you for your password. then, i think it has a certain amount of time where it allows you to make changes without bothering you again. that’s cool because quite often if you are changing one thing that they would flag for admin privs, you are probably doing more than one.

i agree about the other stuff too. UAC should only be flagged for important things that actually matter, not stuff that is just preferences.
running Vista w/ 2 gigs ram and core 2 duo e4400 and ATI 2600pro.

it runs most programs (word, excel, quickbooks, database program, IE7) pretty well. It opens and works pretty well in Adobe CS3 too. Not great but not too bad. I bought this thing for $400 about 6 months ago. Budget PC that still runs pretty well. I only ‘upgraded’ the vid card b/c it used to be onboard.

UAC pisses me off too.

I was reading a discussion about that on another forum; apparently, whereas Linux and Vista lock down the desktop and launch the confirmation window in a completely separate memory space that no other programs have access to, OSX just pops up the confirmation window in the middle of the user’s desktop. That means a two-part malware could keylog your password when the window pops up, then run a virus that needs admin permissions, then "type" your password into the confirmation window and "click" OK before you even know what’s happening. OSX’s implementation might be friendly, but it’s not secure.

that is a level of implementation that i’m not concerned with. microsoft could easily have implemented their own more secure version without harassing you indefinitely with their stupid "are you really sure you want to do that? i mean really sure. come on. are you positive? have you really thought this through? do you really, really, really want to create your own directory in c:program files? and then do you really want to name it something in particular?"

the only security i really want from those things is to make the user think twice about what they are doing, not stop some sort of malware from infecting the system. also, it stops other people from installing shit (which is what always breaks my parents’ and brother’s computers when my young cousins want to install their stupid software).
MS was in a tough spot. They have all those programs out there needing administrative access because of all the hacks required to get windows apps to run across versions over the last couple decades… and yet they were under mucho pressure to improve security. So they just decided to inconvenience the user with admin access warnings until all the software providers updated their software. Its not just about security, its about "This program hasn’t been updated to our new way of doing things, doesn’t this PISS YOU OFF?" Its advertising for updates from vendors.
Maybe they should add a disclaimer to the confirmation window that says "…if you are seeing this message very often, please contact the software vendor to request that they update their software." That would take the heat off Microsoft in an instant.

I find it ironic that the Mac guy is bashing Vista’s UAC, considering how transparent and ultimately more time-consuming Mac’s UAC is.

It’s a level of implementation you should be concerned with, because something that asks the user to confirm they are in control of the machine doesn’t do any good if a machine process can trick the OS into thinking the user is in control when he’s not.

Yes, I agree that Microsoft applied UAC to things that don’t need it; something is wrong with the rule system they cooked up to determine which settings need UAC and which don’t. I made that point a couple of times myself. But it’s all pointless if it isn’t actually secure.

more time consuming? i used OSX for a while, enough not to be a noob, but not enough to be the best, and i had no issues at all with their UAC. i had vista for less than a week and i was about to smash my brand new laptop because of Microsoft’s incredibly intrusive and utterly horrendous implementation. so, you are completely bass ackwards on that one.

Vista’s UAC is not going to stop viruses and malware. This is Windows. Every door they close leaves 4 other windows (pun not intended) open for malware programmers to sneak their code though.

All UAC is going to do is help keep machines running a little better by A) making someone think twice before they make that change and B) by preventing those without access from installing software or making changes that they shouldn’t be making. So, once you acknowledge that you recognize the changes you are going to make are possibly dangerous, it should leave you alone. But, because it doesn’t, so many people shut off their super shitty UAC and break the biggest new security enhancements that their shitty programmers came up with.
Vista’s UAC takes about 30 seconds to turn off.. Mac’s CAN’T be turned off.

it doesn’t need to be turned off. it does what it is supposed to do without being intrusive or problematic. it is a poor comment on a piece of software when people think its best feature is the ability to easily shut it off.

Mac’s continuously gets in my way, but I can’t turn it off. Vista’s took no time at all to turn off.

It’s a poor comment on Mac’s "just works" philosophy.. when it doesn’t.

Type password vs. click ok. Now, type password into a window that runs in user-space, or click ok on a screen that runs in a memory space you’re not allowed to step into. I honestly cannot see how anyone that is remaining completely objective can claim to hate Vista UAC and not claim that Apple’s is just as bad.

Apple geeks are never objective.

Maybe there should be an online computer literacy test that people can take, and if they pass, then they’re allowed to create an admin account for themselves on their machine; otherwise, they’re required to use a normal account and put up with UAC.

until one of the questions asked "do you consider scripting languages to be programming languages?" in which you would fail the test and be stuck with UAC.

Since the test would be written in a scripting language by someone who probably has never worked with anything that actually compiles, chances are you’d be right. However, I could anticipate that, and guess the correct answer.

I find it laughable that you think I was bashing UAC.

As to time consuming… I type my password in once a week or so. OMG so hard!

OSX just doesn’t have the security problems that Windows does. all of the people who fail to recognize this are just ignorant. for years people have been saying that when Apple’s OS has the market share to justify hackers spending time on writing malware for it that everything would come crashing down on them…. but it hasn’t. OSX continues to gain market share and definitely has enough to be worth attacking, but you never hear a peep about anything like you do with Windows.

and again, with the OSX implementation, you put in your password once and it lasts for a while. with Vista, if you were doing the exact same thing, you would be intruded upon god only knows how many times.

2 things… 1) if you are constantly being harassed by OSX’s UAC, you are doing something wrong. what are you changing that often to be bothered? they are so much more intelligent about what you would be bothered about than Microsoft whose UAC was flagged for all kinds of stupid shit. 2) i’m sure that Microsoft made it so easy to turn off because it is a horrible piece of shit. again, the best thing you could say about Vista’s UAC is that it is easy to turn off. lol. how could you possibly argue then that it isn’t a piece of shit? if it didn’t suck, leave it on.

that’s not true, i hear many peeps concerning osx security. probably more than its share considering it only has 10% of the market.

are you hearing that people are having problems or are you stumbling across the various articles talking about how insecure OSX is? when you read about Windows insecurities you are reading about people whose computers have been compromised and are now part of a bot net or about people whose computers are all but dying due to the various malware that is on it. if you read about OSX insecurities, you are generally reading theoretical discussions about possible insecurities that are rarely exploited.

i remember reading an article that was posted on this forum about how OSX is less secure than Windows because the writer counted the number of security reports on some website for Windows and OSX and saw that there were more for OSX. it was the most ignorant article i can remember reading outside of readers digest. if you looked at most of the security reports for OSX, most were either place holders for security problems that weren’t found yet or were security problems with 3rd party applications such as various Adobe products. then, for the Windows side, each security report covered a multitude of issues that were resolved with a single patch. so, to compare the security of the OSs based on numbers was bullshit.
Like, stop raining on the windows parade, man.

Thats not cool, man.

Its not easy being hip-resistive, especially against superior products. You have to get bigotted and hoot and haw a lot… while you defragment, de-spam and virus scan.

i actually don’t use OSX at all anymore and never switched over when i had my MBP for a few months (as a manager many of the tools i used had to run in IE, so i did most of my work in VMWare Fusion). but, there were certainly things about OSX that i liked and there are things that MS ripped off from OSX that they never implemented properly in Vista.
THATS NOT POSSIBLE. YOU MUST BE AN OS X ‘SACK RIDER.’ THAT IS THE ONLY POSSIBILITY.

You want to give them cognitive dissonance and diarrhea, don’t you?

You must not work in a large network oriented environment.

Get back to me when OSX has at least 25% of the market or more, preferably more.
Oh, one of these threads! Fun!

(I like Vista, and use and generally prefer it over my other computers running OSX, XP or Ubuntu… of course it’s on my most powerful computer which is used for some programming, image analysis and photography.)

You mean like the interweb?

He means like an office. Belonging to a company.

Maybe the big companies run their shit on *nix, but that’s because they bought into it back when *nix was the only viable option for huge networks. Nobody who doesn’t already have a *nix infrastructure to maintain is bothering with it anymore. Windows is just too goddamned easy.

are you kidding me? you must have absolutely no clue if you would make that statement. Windows is easy and it certainly has its place in the corporate environment, but it is still light years behind UNIX when it comes to stability and scaleability. anyone who even considers running a multi-terabyte database in Windows should be shot on sight. i’d also much rather run UNIX/Linux web servers than Windows unless we had some dependency on .NET or ASP.

If companies weren’t interested in UNIX, why would Linux have taken off? You would have the big companies running Solaris, HPUX and AIX and no one would’ve considered Linux. Everyone else would’ve just used Windows and these other companies would stop adding to their UNIX footprint and would start migrating everything they could to Windows.

please don’t talk about shit that you just don’t understand because these are the things that make people question your intelligence.

why? SQL Server is quite nice, especially in large database environments.

because it’s free? (other than support licenses)

how is he talking shit? a little passionate are we?

I’m a UNIX admin and have been one for years. I’ve run into ignorance on both the Windows and UNIX side for years. Anyone who thinks the particular OS that they like is the best is always misguided. UNIX is the best for certain tasks. Windows is the best for others. Even OSX is the best in its own space. To not understand that is to live in a world with blinders.

For large databases, Windows can’t compete with UNIX. The amount of CPUs and memory available in a RISC environment is staggering compared to what you can get with the x86/x64 platform.
Windows is great for desktops, email, middle tier application servers and file/print services. It is pretty good at small to medium databases as well. I think MS SQL is much easier than Oracle for smaller databases.

I don’t know so much about Windows for web, but UNIX is a no brainer. It is simple and stable and you can run it on some really cheap hardware with great availability options.

So, he basically said that UNIX is only around because companies are too lazy to switch over from their legacy systems to the much easier Windows. That is ignorance. I’ve also argued the opposite point to some ignorant UNIX admins who think that UNIX is the answer to everything.

well i’ve run both IIS and apache and they both work as i would expect, nicely. so there you go, you both win.

lol. so diplomatic. it still doesn’t address his ignorance which is his comment about how companies that aren’t running UNIX aren’t considering it. like i said, how did Linux become so popular? Linux competes against Windows much more so than it does against other UNIX flavors. people choose it over Windows for whatever reason and quite often they are shops that aren’t running UNIX already.

well if you want my honest answer i think price is the biggest determinant in them choosing linux.

that may be. i didn’t specify any reason.

my point is that depending on the task at hand, there are many "best" choices for your operating system. up until recently, i would’ve said that XP was the best choice for me for home desktop use, but i’m slowly being swayed to the Vista path. i know a few people for which OSX is the best choice and many ignorant people will never grasp that.
ive had vista for about a year and have no problems with it. as long as you have a decently powerful computer you should be able to run it just fine

Linux didn’t take off until it got the backing of wealthy philanthropists, and companies that saw Linux users as a ready and willing beta tester pool. Some would argue it still hasn’t taken off, though it’s certainly more viable than it’s ever been. That said, I don’t know anyone who runs any *nix besides Solaris in their server rooms.

I never denied that *nix has a longer history in server rooms (in fact, I stated it clearly), but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for Windows to catch up. In fact, the Navy is running my company’s products on a multi-terabyte database, running on (gasp) Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.

In general, your posts are pretty good, but this one reeks of fanboyism. *nix can’t do anything Windows can’t do nowadays, and Windows usually does it more easily.
Too many are talking about running databases and running numbers through their computers, but that is just a fraction of the actual work in a corporate environment. Like trouphaz mentioned, windows and *nix have their own place. Many offices would be unproductive without a managed mail server or domain policies and network distribution.

you must have misread my fanaticism. apparently, i am strictly a UNIX fanboy who can’t recognize that Windows has any place on computers. i guess only deus recognizes that.

how "low-end"? i bought a $320 machine off ubid.com and it runs like a champ for normal shit (gaming wasn’t too great, 8400gs ftl). threw in a hd4850 and full settings in orange box doens’t slow it down. that’s all i’ve been playing on it.

No related posts.

integrated works fine
Ok, thanks for the help, I’ll get Vista Ultimate.

My next question is whether or not its worth it to upgrade from the standard Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1 ghz 3mb l2) to the T9300 (2.5 ghz 6mb l2)? Its about an extra $110 (canadian)…
It’s really not. I guarantee you, you won’t be able to tell the difference between the two if they were side by side and you were simply doing your day to day tasks
i won’t go for it then.

thanks for the help
I like Vista, use it on my home workstation with no complaints, but absolutely hated it on both of my T61p. I could never get it to run stable, sleep mode would cause it to lock up, letting the monitor turn off after 10 minutes idle would cause it to lock up, etc etc. It was unstable regardless of whether the Vista install was from Lenovo’s recovery DVD or my own clean install. I have XP on both laptops now, and they are perfectly stable.

that’s quite the difference. i’d do it for $110 bucks, but i guess it depends on what you’re going to be doing with your computer.

i’ve got vista home premium on my laptop and i rarely, if ever, shut it down. i just close it and it goes to sleep. so far vista sleep has been very reliable and it boots up pretty quickly. i haven’t even had a problem when it goes all the way to hibernation.

is it possible to get a discrete card in that laptop? i’d put money in that over a faster CPU.
Again thanks for the help.

Yes, it is possible to get a dedicated card, and its only a $75 difference (you can get an nvidia quadro nvs 140m 128mb). However, I don’t use it for any gaming whatsoever, only for internet, maybe a couple movies here and there, music, and documents, so I’m not sure if its worth it. Same thing goes for the upgrade in the processor. What do you think?

well, discrete graphics help for more than just gaming (and the quadro cards aren’t gaming cards anyway). it can help with vista performance too and you’ll probably notice better help with a discrete card than a slightly faster proc.
ya, if you don’t do gaming don’t worry about dedicated graphics. and as trouphaz says the quadro isn’t for gaming, you’ll be very disappointed if you buy a quadro with the intentions of gaming
Alright, I’ll get the graphics card.

Thanks again for the help.
I’d get XP anyway. I’ve used Vista on a test machine at work, and I’ve made my peace with it, but it still doesn’t offer any features whatsoever that I have any interest in — and most of the controls are rearranged, and the only reason I can come up with is that it’s specifically to make it harder to configure. Whether that’s to keep Joe Idiot from "customizing" his work machine or to make system admins have to take new training courses, I have no idea, but it’s annoying as shit.

I’d rather have those few extra CPU cycles and no Aero Glass than a shiny new OS that annoys me and gives me nothing in return.

No related posts.