Questions on Vista and XP Pro and laptops

longdog

longdog

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I am going to be buying a laptop soon. I want it to be all things to all men really. It's primary purpose will be a desk-top replacement and I will be using it for business, (MS Office, etc.). I would also like to use it for entertainment purposes, i.e. watching DVDs and playing some games to pass the time. I want a 17" screen and a reasonably high-end graphics card too. Battery life is not a high priority. I also think I prefer XP Pro to Vista, comments and suggestions please.

I have considered high-end Dell and Evesham, but I'm not too fussy on the light show! Alienware and Toshiba are on my list too.

What are your collective recommendations?

Next question, in my local PCWorld, I started to ask about their laptops. They told me that my current MS Office 2000 will not run on Vista. Is this true? I can't see any issues, but I stand to be corrected on this, not having any experience of Vista.
 
Reports seem to say that Vista is 2-3 times slower than XP SP2 on similar hardware.

Vista SP1 seems to have slowed down USB2 transfer speeds even further.

PB
 
You might want to reconsider the 17" option unless there is a new lighter weight type out there.
 
Pondboy said:
Reports seem to say that Vista is 2-3 times slower than XP SP2 on similar hardware.

Vista SP1 seems to have slowed down USB2 transfer speeds even further.

PB
Click to expand...
+1
Word on the street in my business is that although vista has lots of goodies it is much much much slower than xp. It runs alot more stuff in the back ground and is designed specifically for ultra modern latest generation duel core (or more) systems. For a decent laptop I would definitely go for Xp Pro. If I was getting a wizzbang new ultra desktop then I'd consider Vista. Also bug/service pack wise it's like waiting for the new 1200 model to have all the faults ironed out before buying. Better off with a later model 1150 :D
 
i bought a lappie with vista installed, biggest pile of shite going is vista. Doesn't like usb hard drives, refuses to let me tell it which monitor is the primary display and generally cocks stuff up on a regular basis.:mad: stick with xp for now. If you want the look of vista its possible to make xp look the same :thumb
 
Thanks, XP Pro is my personal favourite flavour of Window$, so that is one of my requirements.

Anyone got any experience of the makes of laptops that I mentioned or suggestions of their own? Alienware have a nice new 15.4" screen version with a powerful graphics card too, so that may be high on my list.
 
Just got myself a new laptop at work as my ageing acer running XP was getting ever slower, whatever we did to it. It was a centrino 1.4 (or 1.7??) with 512mb ram. My new HP with 2.0ghz dual core, 1gb ram is only a fraction faster and when it wakes up after a snooze the screen flickers on and off for a bit and everything has to be restarted for it to work 100%. If you do go for Vista cram in as much Ram as you possibly can would be my advice. when it's running well it's great, when it's not you wonder why the hell you bothered.
 
Zepto is Europe's largest local manufacturer of notebooks, based in Denmark. Big on the continent, not so big over here.

Zepto Notebooks

They offer very high-end notebooks with the latest notebook graphics cards, but without the Alienware prices. Very configurable so you get to choose all the components that matter to you (even the OS!). I've been down the Alienware route in the past, and they are certainly desktops squeezed into a laptop chassis. The Zeptos are produced as high-performance laptops.

Anyhoo, have a look at these forums, which covers all the manufacturers. They even have a 'recommend me a laptop' thread.

If you already fancy Alienware, go for either Sager or Clevo, they are the OEM of Alienware machines and go for much less cash, and much less teenage-boy bling.
 
I'm not a techie, but here goes........

For the last 8 years or so I've used IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpads instead of a desktop at work. One did have a VERY big screen (17" I think) but was a bit heavy to lug around. But, all have been brilliant machines and have coped with every thing from games to databases to terminal type activities to regular and abusive travelling, flying somewhere virtually every week, and in between that being stuffed into a topbox. Brilliant machines.

At home, can't afford decent spec Thinkpads so have had an Evesham laptop as a main machine with a 15.4" widescreen. Very good, not as good as the Thinkpad.

Recently bought a Fujitsu-Siemens laptop for my son, great spec for £400 BUT....it runs Vista and this has been a right f*%king pain in the @r5e!:spitfire

The default settings won't let you run or download anything, the support has been crap and I've had to try disabling most of the protection to get things to run that have been running under XP on the old machine for three years.

If you can get XP Pro, get it. Vista is still in the "running-in" stage IMHO.

Oh......and if you want a laptop for portability, but want a big screen for home I'd go for a nice light compact machine with the right spec and get a docking station and 19" screen for home. Best of both worlds.:thumb2
 
i bought an HP pavillion 9008 - not shown here - but its brilliant.

has XP and media player loaded.

dual core, 2 gig ram and an nvidia graphics card with HDMI output.

top machine :thumb

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/ho/WF02a/21675-38187-38191.html


PS vista questions answered here ....

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor can help you determine which features of Windows Vista will run on your computer. To download the tool, visit http://www.windowsvista.com/upgradeadvisor.


* Not all Windows Vista™ features are available for use on all Windows Vista Capable PCs. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run the core experiences of Windows Vista, such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security, and reliability.

Some features available in premium editions of Windows Vista -- like the new Windows® Aero™ user interface -- require advanced or additional hardware. Check http://www.windowsvista.com/getready for details.
 
I have tried Vista on two laptops and one tower, all well over the Vista spec. They are all back running XP.

Unless your main requirement for a laptop is a pretty desktop with lots of eye candy and silly gimmicks stick to XP. The compurer runs faster, it does not spend half its life double checking every time you want to do something and it does not die with last year's application software.

It's a job to buy one with XP these days but you can pick up a legal OEM XP disk at a computer fair for less than a tenner.
 
andyclift said:
I have tried Vista on two laptops and one tower, all well over the Vista spec. They are all back running XP.

Unless your main requirement for a laptop is a pretty desktop with lots of eye candy and silly gimmicks stick to XP. The compurer runs faster, it does not spend half its life double checking every time you want to do something and it does not die with last year's application software.

It's a job to buy one with XP these days but you can pick up a legal OEM XP disk at a computer fair for less than a tenner.
Click to expand...

Hi Andy, no way do I want Vista. I have used XP Pro for several years and it is Industry Standard now, so that says it all for me :thumb
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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