No Vista in Our Future
I’ve run the Microsoft Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor on all the PC’s here, and found that only of them is fully compatible with the new operating system. Two of the computers that won’t run Vista are laptops that are less than two years old! Problems listed range from drivers (minor) to video card upgrade requirements on the laptops (an impossibility!). Additionally, several peripheral devices will, according to the Advisor software, never work under Vista. One machine wouldn’t even run the Advisor!
With the requirement for pretty much all new hardware, when it does become time to upgrade, I’ll be switching to a Mac!
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February 12th, 2007 in
Geek Log
“…switching to a Mac.”
Hmmm… now where have I heard that before?
You’re right. And, I should have bitten the bullet and done it then!
Unfortunately, the move to Intel CoreDuo guts hasn’t resulted in any change in pricing. I still think $3K isn’t a desktop, it’s a small server.
However, so long as Apple’s satisfied with being a prestige brand…
The Compaq laptops are okey-dokey with Vista (they, admittedly, have dedicated video hardware and memory, not the Intel PGA), and the desktops should be all right. I’m still not looking to upgrade. There’s just no compelling reason.
We saw some interesting functionality for digital photographers, which is what caused me to be interested. Unfortunately, some of that functionality requires the “Aero user experience,” which the Compaq laptops will not support due to the video hardware.
I wasn’t surprised that the test on the old Athlon beast failed miserably. What could I expect for a 750MHz PIII-class machine? I was surprised, however, that both of the new Dells failed on several counts. Ah, well, it’s no biggie.
As for the price of the Apple, for all of our uses here, the 24″ iMac fully configured is completely suitable. It supports 100% of the software and hardware we want to use, and costs about $2400. To build the same in a PC would actually be more — we just built a comparable Windows box at TVLand, and it came to just a hair under $3100 by the time we got the big monitor and what-not. So, the price really isn’t all that much different. (No this isn’t the dual-processor scenario I was asking you about the other day).
Anyway, I’m not doing anything at the moment. The PCs are working okay on the versions of XP that they’re running.
The disparity in price isn’t as wide as I thought once you include an equivalent display.
2.16GHz CoreDuo 24″ iMac, MacOS X, 1GB RAM, 500MB hard drive, nVidia 7600GT video (256MB), 8xDVD+/-RW… $2383.
2.13GHz CoreDuo Compaq Presario (ATO), Vista Business edition, 1GB RAM, 2×250MB hard drives, nVidia 7600GT video card (ASUS, 256MB), 16xDVD+/-RW, 24″ 16:9 HP LCD, multi-card reader… $2177 (after LCD rebate).
Still, Vista’s no reason to upgrade.
I’ll agree with that. It was the kind of thing where, if our existing machines would all support Vista, then I’d consider going ahead and upgrading.Machine upgrades will be because it’s time for machine upgrades. And, since everything is functioning very nicely at the moment, there’s no reason to be spending money on new machines. Especially when there’s camera and audio gear to buy.