New laptop with Vista or XP??

Hi,
I am about to buy an XPS m1710 and can't decide whether to get it with XP or Vista. A lot of threads on here seem to be complaining about Vista however they generally seem to be people who have upgraded an old XP laptop to Vista and there has been compatibility issues. I would much prefer Vista, however I won't bother if it is going to make life harder than XP will be. I assume Vista will work with my wireless network etc as that is the most important thing? I have checked and my favourite games are supposedly compatible so thats ok.
I will be running an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7600 Processor (2.33GHz,667MHz,4MB L2 cache) with 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM.

Thanks,
James

 

dell machines = stick with xp (due very much to dell's laziness of updating their device drivers to vista - hopefully by vista sp1??)

cheers ...

 

But surely if it comes with Vista, all the driver's will be compatible?

 

I think you'll be fine with Vista. Your computer sounds like it will run very smoothly on it. Plus, as you mentioned, your computer will come with all drivers installed fine. If you have the need to reformat, and do not want to use the recovery partition or discs, you should be able to find the drivers you need. Just make sure to keep track of your device manufacturers and models.

If you like Vista, don't be afraid to go for it.

 

Vista is fine for most users, and eventually Microsoft won't give you a choice to stay with XP ... Vista is the future whether we like it or not.

The only real problem with Vista (for now) is that you have to work with some driver and other software incompatibility issues until Vista becomes the new standard and XP becomes just a thing of the past.

The only people who "need" to stick with XP (for know) are IT people who are managing huge resources for a business and have to make sure that hundreds of PCs are running without any glitches TODAY. Everyone will move to Vista once it goes through a few more updates and drivers and other software is updated.

 

I have read that Vista actually slows down computers due to all the resources it requires just to run, would XP run faster on my laptop? I am not so worried about compatibility issues anymore, I just want to get the most out of my laptop. If I get XP I assume it is easy to upgrade to Vista at a later date however downgrading from Vista to XP will not be so easy.

 

There is a lot of mixed information going around about Vista being a resource hog. It completely depends on the machine. Vista is better at memory management, so it will "use" more at idle than XP. It will then release memory that other software needs. Many people say that Vista runs faster, as in... locks up much less.

Like I said, it really depends on the computer, but your potential new computer should honestly have no problems with speed. I say, get what you feel comfortable with. If you have too many reservations, just stick with XP. You can upgrade later, but you may want to get out and try it more first.

 

I really can't decide, it seems for every person who has something bad to say about it there is someone else who has no problems with it. I can't help but feel lots of the people saying how bad it is do not even have it. I think I will take the dive and try it out. Thanks for all the help everyone!

 

I've used Vista Home Premium since February. I've been very pleased.

Bill

 

JC17, I'm in the same position: buying new laptop and cant decide Vista or XP. All the info on performance is mixed. The other replies I think are largely correct in assuming drivers etc will after some time adjust to the new standard, vista.

I guess in the end its a matter of principle, check this out (found it whilst trying to make my mind up ): http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

 

HA HA HA HA ------ Don't believe that for one second. I know someone who just bought a new Acer w/vista and she is having problems with the built-in cam and built-in bluetooth. And my neighbor took his new Dell w/vista back because of some audio drivers (he didn't explain in detail).

And not to mention all the threads in NBR that I see about this.

 

What is the performance hit like in Vista when it comes to gaming?

I remember when Vista first came out, a lot of people complained of decreased frame rates. Is that still the standard? Are Windows used locked into a new OS that can't deliver compared to XP, when it comes to gaming performance that is?

I haven't heard to many success stories that start out along the lines of:

"Yay! My games finally run just as fast, if not faster, on Vista now!"

 

Well, Vista seems to cause a performance hit in gaming due to the current generation of graphic drivers. Hopefully this will be a non-issue for the GeForce 8 series, as it will be the first platform designed with Vista in mind (instead of jury-rigging XP hardware to run Vista).

As for running XP on a new lappy, I guess it would depend on the mfgr. HP seems to be very "Vista-exclusive" anymore, as XP driver releases are few and far between on their current models.