Question:
Hi there,
I was in tesco a few days and saw some good laptops like the acer at £599 great spec. Well I almost bought it ....but went home to get a review on internet. To be honest not much of a difference between tesco price and online price.
I just got a netgear router from aol and cant get it to work so havent bought the laptop as it would be just a bit of a lame duck without wireless internet connectivity.
This has set me thinking. As regards buying a laptop woudl it be better to hold off until vista arrives as I believe it requires better hardware etc and I might get a better machine. What do you think?
joe
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I just got a netgear router from aol and cant get it to work so havent bought the laptop as it would be just a bit of a lame duck without wireless internet connectivity.
What do you mean, you can't get it to work? If you explain what you have done and what you are having problems with, you will get the help that you require. As for Vista, there is always something around the corner and if you always waited, you would never buy anything!
HTH
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I've been recommending not to get a new system as soon as Vista comes out - firstly, they will sell for a premium, secondly, even though it's been in Beta for ages, you can bet there'll still be a number of holes in the OS (that's also assuming they can keep to the Jan'07 general release date), thirdly XP will still be supported for a few years so you will save money buying an XP system which will keep most users going for a good while. The main selling points of Vista are its looks (hence the increased hardware requirements) and its security, though you can bet it will be no.1 target for malware immediately just because of this. Also, a lot of the basic security can be set up on XP, it's just that Vista does it by default - the main one being not giving Administrator status to users 'out of the box'.
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Last night I was listening to episode #51 of .
They're expecting big security problems
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Bill Gates being the richest man in the world, (isn't he?) has set up Microsoft Corporation and its world famous Windows software as a beacon to all the insects of cyberspace which want to buzz around, bite, sting and generally annoy the software giant. No matter how hard it swipes at these hackers, virus writers etc, it only swats them very slowly, if at all. Windows is the number one target for corrution simply because it is so big and everybody wants to take a pop at it.
It depends what you want your software/laptop to do. Is the laptop for business use, home use, mostly browsing etc?. Firefox internet browser at the moment is one of the more secure internet browsers and Linux although not very popular is still a very good operating system. At the end of the day XP/Vista is still software and it can be installed in the right machine to run it, and the wrong machine to run it. You should be looking at the build quality of the laptop itself I would say.
Windows has transcended consumer association the same way as say Hoover is synonymous with the vacuum cleaner. (can't think of any other examples right now 8-(...) They simply have become part of the computer and most people do not think there is any other way to run a PC. No doubt someone will add further to this. I'm gettin another beer..hic.!
PS I am writing this on an Acer as we speak with XP software and no I don't work for Bill :-)
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i was gonna get a new pc to get vista as soon as, but as sra said there is some scary news coming out out about vista, especially around the networking side (brand new stack? no thanks) if you want details, listen to the security now cast.
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ive been having this debate with myself too, as im in the market for a new lappy/pc (primarily for uni work, surfing and light entertainment)
im thinking of waiting for vista, but then i wouldnt want to buy too soon because of bugs. but there would be free downloads to fix these, no?
i think espresso raises a valid point about the virtues of waiting, but having said that my first pc (which i still have and use as a back up) was bought for me by my mum as a christmas present to do school work. it runs windows 98, and a few months down the line out came ME and then XP. within a matter of months i was very far behind, but could not afford to do anything about it (mum paid way over the odds for pc as it was bought from a catalogue company).
now i am that bit older and (i hope) wiser. i am realistic about what i can get for my money. but i still cant resolve the should i buy now or wait dilema. and as for the laptop vs pc conundrum...
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i think getting vista straight away is just gonna be asking for trouble. If you buy a reasonable pc / laptop now at least you know that it will run xp well and keep you going for a few years until Vista SP1 come out :-) It will always be a matter of months before things are out of date, the Core Duo chips aren't mainstream and yet Core 2 Duo chips are out now, if you wait till things plateau you'll never buy another PC.
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October 2007 is when I think Vista will be released.
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October 2007 is when I think Vista will be released.
The latest date from MS is Jan 2007, but this isn't set in stone. This date has already gone back from late 2006. I wouldn't be surprised to see the date go back to spring 2007. I'll be surprised if they leave it as long as Oct 2007.
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@lee:i was somewhat bemused/confused by your sig until i clocked your av..naughty naughty
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The PC manufacturers need it 6-8 weeks in advance so to get it released by Jan 2007, they need a final version in the next few months.
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I wouldnt hold off buying a laptop just because there is a new OS round the corner. Vista will run on most pc's anyway if it is slightly older it wont run as quick. personally I wouldnt even consider vista untill the first service pack is released and the basic security flaws have been fixed.
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Let the "World" find the "problems with Vista (Longhorn)" get the security sorted out, when the 1st "service pack" (Bug Fix) is out.. leave it 6 Months then think about it,,
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Let the "World" find the "problems with Vista (Longhorn)" get the security sorted out, when the 1st "service pack" (Bug Fix) is out.. leave it 6 Months then think about it,,
Yeah, that's usually the best thing to do, or the most business-like approach.
To be honest though I think a lot of people are kicking up dirt with regards to security fears in Vista. I'm not saying there won't be any holes, but a secure setup goes beyond just the OS. If you've got a decent setup then you'll be fine with Vista when it's released.
I wouldn't wait to buy a laptop either. Now's actually quite a good time given the recent release of the Intel Core.
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If you get the most powerful laptop you can, with at least 1 GB of memory, and perhaps 100 GB of hard disk, then you should be able to run Vista quite well without needing to upgrade ... when it comes out!
Of course, it should run XP like a train, up until then!
John
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To be ready for Vista, you should be thinking wide-screen laptop (to use the sidebar features) with a resolution of at least 1200*800. Then a dedicated video chip and video RAM to run the Vista Aero interface, such as a nVidia GeForce Go 6800. Definitely need a Core 2 Duo CPU (or equivalent from AMD), 1Gb RAM, 100Gb 7200 RPM hard disk.
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To be ready for Vista, you should be thinking wide-screen laptop (to use the sidebar features) with a resolution of at least 1200*800. Then a dedicated video chip and video RAM to run the Vista Aero interface, such as a nVidia GeForce Go 6800. Definitely need a Core 2 Duo CPU (or equivalent from AMD), 1Gb RAM, 100Gb 7200 RPM hard disk.
That's to run "the works". It will run on much less if you disable some of the more heavy features.