My new Laptop and my first Vista Experience

Published on January 29, 2008 By CharlesCS In Personal Computing

Believe it or not this is not another "Vista sucks" rant. Sure, my experience with Vista, so far, has not been perfect but not to that point. I am, so far, actually quite pleased with Vista. I have had a couple of issues with some games that won't work but I'm sure I will find a version that does. It just a matter of doing the research online.

So, down to business. This is my baby, an HP Pavillion dv9740us. Here are the specs;

PC Wizard 2008 Version 1.82

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Owner: *****

Organization: Hewlett-Packard

User: *****

Operating System: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium Home Edition 6.00.6000

Report Date: Tuesday 29 January 2008 at 18:45

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<<< System Summary >>>

> Mainboard : Quanta 30CB

> Chipset : Intel GM965

> Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile T5500 @ 1666 MHz

> Physical Memory : 3072 MB

> Video Card : Nvidia Corp GeForce 8600M GS

> Hard Disk : TOSHIBA (160 GB)

> DVD-Rom Drive : Optiarc BD ROM BC-5500A ATA Device (this baby plays Bluray)

> Monitor Type : LGPhilipsLCD - 17 inches

> Network Card : Intel Corporation Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN

> Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC

> Operating System : Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium Home Edition 6.00.6000

> DirectX : Version 10.00

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I don't know about you but I think that's a pretty sweet setup. I have waited 10 years to get myself a laptop and I figured I get a decent one. As you can see it has Windows Vista Home Premium. While I would have preferred Ultimate, I'm ok with this for now. So far my experience with Vista has been pretty good. A few game problems as I have mentioned but nothing I can't eventually solve. I do, however, hate that constant screen that comes up everytime I install or run a program asking permission to run it. I can understand the security point of it, but this is ridiculous. Microsoft really killed it here.

The large screen is awesome; everything looks great including movies and games. Considering how much I was gonna pay for a 15.4 inch Dell XPS with similar components, I got a great deal and saved on shipping time and price. At first I was unable to play a bluray movie I bought; I had to update the Quickplay feature this HP PC came with in order to play the Bluray disk. It's similar to the Windows Media Center and I like it somewhat. I can listen to my MP3's, watch DVD's and other movie formats, I can listen to local FM stations, internet stations and it even came with a TV Tuner card and a nice remote control so I can watch TV anywhere.

I bought myself a copy of Call of Duty 4 and, while this still being a laptop it does lag from time to time but works great none the less. It's a great game though it's very short. I beat it in 2 days. I figure it was more designed for the online experience than anything else. So far most of my programs have worked flawlessly so I think Vista is a keeper. My wife is also happy; she got herself her own laptop, a n HP dv9000 series like mine, just not as powerful and with a few less features.

I'm a happy camper. This Pc will keep me busy for a while. What do you fellas think?

Comments (Page 2)

va1dyr

on Jan 31, 2008

I bought a Toshiba lappy last year around June. It of course was loaded with Vista. I have to say, I prefer XP for compatibility. My main problem however stems from Vista disliking my games. For one, I can't even load Diablo 2 onto it. The main problem though, lies in the fact that the games I can load, only work for a few minutes before freezing. I didn't get all the bells and whistles, just what came with the lappy. Basically a Dual Core Intel processor (I would have preferred AMD), 110GB HD and over a gig of RAM. Now I run XP Pro on my desktop and all of my games run perfectly fine on it. It's a Gateway from 2004 (I know, Gateway sucks, I didn't pick it out) with 256MB RAM and a Pentium 4 Processor. My question is, why is my crappy pc able to play these games without fault, yet my lappy with much better specs is unable to run them for more than few minutes before freezing outright?

CharlesCS

on Jan 31, 2008

I have very few issues but nothing to make me move to xp. I'm OK for now and I'm sure it will only get better. Just look at what this site is offering for the upcoming months.

shawnjam

on Feb 02, 2008

Welcome to the dark side!!! haha Before I bought my laptop from newegg I read all the vista bashing reviews but like you I'm complete pleased with it. The only thing I would recommend is that you don't try and run vista with 1 gig of ram. I think 2 gigs is needed for smoother operation.

AnneMarie

on Feb 03, 2008

not totally.. My system ran Home Premuim just Great on 1 gig of RAM...

Now this doesn't mean that I don't think MORE RaM the Better... I ran 1 gig for a while and when I upgraded my Video then I upgraded to 2 gigs of Ram..

windoe

on Feb 03, 2008

Laptops have done huge progress since 4 or 5 years.
I recently bought a killer : DELL M1730, with a WUXGA widescreen 1920x1200 resolution, a Core Duo T7500 2.20GHz processor, 2048 RAM and 2x256 Nvidia 8700GT video card. Hard disk has got 250GB storage.
Incredible performance for game, videos, and photos.
Some goodies, too , like the small LCD screen displaying main infos when playing in fullscreen.
Vista ? great look, but most of my old programs are no more compatible...Have to wait for updates...

Congrats for your new machine !

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