Okay... so I caved
TECHIE POST... if you're not one, give this post a pass... unless you're looking for a late-night sleep aid.
After ranting and raving against it for the last two weeks, I went and did an about-face today... I bought a laptop... with Vista.
Okay, before the hecklers start in with "FLIP-FLOPPER!!!", let point out a few things which finally tipped the scales...
1) I bought it for "research"... after all my ranting the other week, I ended up doing some more support calls for another doctor's office... my name seems to have gotten around to the local medical community as a decent IT guy, so I've been getting calls lately. Anyway, to make a long story short, one of them has a laptop with Vista... and I don't have a clue about Vista, so I can't help him out too much. Since I'm going to start getting asked to support systems with it, I figure I should figure it out myself.
2) Future Shop had a deal I couldn't refuse... $599 for an HP 15.4" laptop with an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core TL-60 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD (only 5400RPM), an NVIDIA graphics chipset and a nice bunch of other goodies. Considering that I was looking at a 1.8Ghz Dell with only a 80GB HDD and 1GB of RAM with XP Home for only $50 less, it seemed to be a good value for money.
3) I have a good line on another really cheap used laptop, a P3, with XP on it that I can use in case my security scanning software doesn't work on Vista.
4) I spent some time talking with another local Tory techie, and he was telling me how he's been using Vista for a year now... and has been able to work through most of the glitches and now is happy with its performance. This system meets the criteria of one that ought to run Vista pretty decently.
5) For all the Linux fans reading this, I've been playing with a really nice mini-distro, NimbleX... also thinking about dual-booting this thing with Ubuntu.
So, having said all that, hopefully I've managed to molify some of those who are going to roast me. As for the rest of you... roast away in the comments!
After ranting and raving against it for the last two weeks, I went and did an about-face today... I bought a laptop... with Vista.
Okay, before the hecklers start in with "FLIP-FLOPPER!!!", let point out a few things which finally tipped the scales...
1) I bought it for "research"... after all my ranting the other week, I ended up doing some more support calls for another doctor's office... my name seems to have gotten around to the local medical community as a decent IT guy, so I've been getting calls lately. Anyway, to make a long story short, one of them has a laptop with Vista... and I don't have a clue about Vista, so I can't help him out too much. Since I'm going to start getting asked to support systems with it, I figure I should figure it out myself.
2) Future Shop had a deal I couldn't refuse... $599 for an HP 15.4" laptop with an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core TL-60 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD (only 5400RPM), an NVIDIA graphics chipset and a nice bunch of other goodies. Considering that I was looking at a 1.8Ghz Dell with only a 80GB HDD and 1GB of RAM with XP Home for only $50 less, it seemed to be a good value for money.
3) I have a good line on another really cheap used laptop, a P3, with XP on it that I can use in case my security scanning software doesn't work on Vista.
4) I spent some time talking with another local Tory techie, and he was telling me how he's been using Vista for a year now... and has been able to work through most of the glitches and now is happy with its performance. This system meets the criteria of one that ought to run Vista pretty decently.
5) For all the Linux fans reading this, I've been playing with a really nice mini-distro, NimbleX... also thinking about dual-booting this thing with Ubuntu.
So, having said all that, hopefully I've managed to molify some of those who are going to roast me. As for the rest of you... roast away in the comments!
posted by Christian Conservative @ 9:03 p.m.
8 Comments:
At Sun Dec 09, 10:56:00 p.m. EST,
Unknown said…
Quad core for $1,000...
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX18396(ME).aspx
At Sun Dec 09, 11:59:00 p.m. EST,
Paul MacPhail said…
I finished reading Jean Chretien's new book about three weeks ago.
( It's based on a true story. )
It was well worth the $30+ that I paid for it, as I was able to come away with a better understanding of him.
If you can better understand Vista for $50 more than you were able to obtain something that you already have knowledge about, I would say that it's a good return on investment.
Those who would scorn you for changing your opinion about something of this nature would do well to remember that an open mind is the seed of understanding.
At Mon Dec 10, 07:48:00 a.m. EST,
me dere robert said…
Flip Flopper!
Just kidding.. as I also end up being the support guy for everyone, I unfortunately might have to do the same.
Otherwise I would buy a Mac.
At Mon Dec 10, 10:01:00 a.m. EST,
John M Reynolds said…
My experiences with Vista so far have been with three computers. One that has the home version which terrible for networking with an XP pro system. I ended up using the sneaker method. Administering that system was rather difficult since it woul dnot let me create users. I had to use parental controls, which does not create extra admin accounts. Once I was not logging in as the admin, I found all the constant 'You must be an admin to do this, please enter the admin password' type of messages annoying. It is not like YAST that allows me to enter the root password once and then I can do anything I like as long as I stay in the system admin section.
I got my work system to dual boot to vista and xp. I killed my debian partition to get Vista on. I used it for a week and never even bothered to activate it. I didn't even bother to figure out how to get the Internet going. I never boot to it anymore. If I need it again to test something else, then I will reinstall.
And yesterday, I had to reformat a system that would not let the sole administrator log in due to a "The User Profile Service service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded" error.
Just after last Christmas, I finally bought XP and am now running that. I will not touch Vista on my home system until at least after SP1 has been out for a while.
Oh, yeah! I almost forgot ... Flip flopper!
At Mon Dec 10, 01:31:00 p.m. EST,
Anonymous said…
CC,
Does it matter that it is a refurbished laptop?
The warranty is only for 90 days.
Would you recommend a refurb for a guy with average technology experience?
H.
At Mon Dec 10, 01:50:00 p.m. EST,
Christian Conservative said…
Hey H,
I've had a lot of success with referbs and off-lease equipment... I hardly ever buy anything new anymore.
90 days is decent for warrenty, if something's going to go wrong, it typically will early on.
At Tue Dec 11, 10:24:00 a.m. EST,
Saskboy said…
Lenovo is still selling XP on "best seller" computers. Fortunately the better of the Windows will be around for many years to come :-)
At Tue Dec 11, 10:27:00 a.m. EST,
Drew Costen said…
All I can say is I love that I can connect my MacBook to my work network. I haven't had to touch Windows in weeks. :D
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