!@$*&%$(+)~?<>_ VISTA

It's certainly worth a phone call to see if you can get XP instead.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Nov 6 2007, 04:43 PM) [snapback]535729[/snapback]</div>

I'm betting that they won't. Primarily because their license with Microsoft probably won't support XP on new computers. The problem with proprietary systems is that they usually partition a small section of the hard drive to accommodate their own crapware so if I was stuck with a Dell, I'd wipe the drive, repartition it to remove Dell's little partition, buy a copy of XP and install it on to the computer. This is why I won't buy proprietary, they infect it with their own brand of stupidity.

 

I wouldn't place 100% of the blame on Vista, but I would be mad at Dell. They have a nasty habit of using the cheapest components in their computers and not caring if everything plays nice together. I had a flawless upgrade from XP home to Vista on my 3 year old Sony. Vista upgrades are very dependent on the PC getting the upgrade.
I also built my own Vista desktop back in April, and the thing didn't work right until October. The reason? Bad ram. The Microsoft support people were useless and have the worst phone connection ever. Thankfully, Newegg.com (where I bought the RAM) was nice and replaced the ram for free. Now the desktop works perfectly (not one crash since the new ram).
My advice to you would be to back up all of your files and send the laptop dack to Dell and have them replace the network card and video card/motherboard. Dell isn't exactly known for their quality anymore.

 

Go XP Pro. It is my understanding that it is available on new machines until mid-08. Tell Dell you want it instead because of the problems or you will be sending the machine back. I'd wait until Vista SP1 (or 2) as others have advised. Mac or Linux might be an option too, depending on your requirements.

As for Dell - I have never understood their popularity. Every time I have priced their machines they seem more expensive than the competition for comparable or lesser configurations and IMO they are not great on tech support (at least that was my past experience from a few years ago).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hycamguy07 @ Nov 7 2007, 11:31 AM) [snapback]536170[/snapback]</div>

Sure, don't buy a Mac. Why would you want something that actually works? For a brand new system, it sure needs a lot of fixin'. Reminds me of my last GM car.

 

I've had Vista on a machine since February and have had no problems at all. It used to have XP on it too. XP used to give me problems from time to time.

I select parts carefully and put together computers myself so perhaps my better choice in hardware accounts for my good fortune. I have the 64 bit version of Vista on a machine with a dual core 64 bit processor. XP (32 bit) couldn't utilize the dual core as well as Vista does. It's much zippier now. Plus XP looks crappy compared to Vista, so I'm quite happy.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hycamguy07 @ Nov 7 2007, 12:10 PM) [snapback]536189[/snapback]</div>

I understand, believe me. I just wonder if all the time you're spending talking to some disagreeable punjab woman isn't nullifying the cost savings. People who use WinTels exclusively don't know how hard they have to work.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hycamguy07 @ Nov 7 2007, 08:31 AM) [snapback]536170[/snapback]</div>

So this great new OS requires that you use a notoriously buggy and unsafe browser!

The lady would have been reading from a computer screen. An interactive program that lets her pick your question from a list, and then tells her what to say.

Let's see: $790 for a computer that does not work, vs. $1,200 for one that does. Hmmm... Which would I choose? I guess I'll pay $790 for one that does not work, because I've saved $410, and after I throw away the non-functioning computer I'll have a lot of free time that I used to waste on the computer. It's a win-win.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 7 2007, 11:36 AM) [snapback]536277[/snapback]</div>

Clearly she gave the gentleman bad advice. I've always used Firefox and Thunderbird on my Vista machine. Again, no problems.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fibb222 @ Nov 7 2007, 03:11 PM) [snapback]536292[/snapback]</div>

I have Vista Home Premium on two machines, and don't have any problems with Firefox.

As I posted earlier, I had problems with Vista in July, but it seems to be stable now - no crashes or problems that required me to reboot in the last 3 months.

I'm surprised that it took so long for DELL to do a full diagnostic on your system! When I was having problems on my newly purchased HP system in July, that was one of the first things they did.

If I were you, I'd also run the disk-checking utilities on your hard drive - I'd think it's more likely you have/had a glitchy spot on the drive that caused files to get corrupted, rather than thinking Firefox corrupted your operating system.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeannie @ Nov 7 2007, 03:56 PM) [snapback]536355[/snapback]</div>

Good idea! Vista runs the disk defragmenter in what they call lo priority I/O, which means you can set it to run at any time of the day (through scheduling) and it will not interfere with your work, out of the box, it's set to run at 1:00AM, so you might want to change the time to when your are sure the PC will be turned on...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fibb222 @ Nov 7 2007, 04:11 PM) [snapback]536292[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, I am using FireFox on my VISTA, with no problems. Heck, I'm even using Safari for Vista with no problems.

 

I'd have to agree there. Don't forget tech support you can go talk to face to face (if you have an apple store in your town). I've gotten really spoiled by that.

Also, to clarify the macbooks on refurb can often be found through Apple direct for as cheap as $799 and are more equivalent to a mid-to high end Dell. Apple just doesn't bother to make a crappy machine just so they can say they have a $500 laptop.
http://dealmac.com/Refurbished-Apple-Mac-B...ped/193037.html
Interesting that the Dell XPS M1330, which is most similar to the macbook is considerably more expensive.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...stab&~ck=mn

To each his/her own I guess, but it frustrates me that a lot of people write off an option that would probably work a lot better for them based on misinformation (more expensive, less software, less powerful, etc). Kind of like the Prius I guess

An interesting, if unscientific data point. Most Inspirons on Amazon are rate 2-3 stars by customers. Macbooks are rated 4-4.5 stars.

Rob

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Nov 5 2007, 12:33 PM) [snapback]535010[/snapback]</div>

I find it interesting that you hate Vista so much. I did an upgrade from XP Home to Vista Home Premium and my PC runs much better and faster than it ever did with XP. I have an HP Pavilion m7100y. It's a media ctr. PC and I had to wipe the HD almost monthly before installing Vista. That was 7 months ago and to this day I have never had to wipe my HD or call tech support for some idiotic thing gone wrong with XP.

I love Vista & will never go back to XP. That upgrade disc was the best $69.00 I ever spent on software.

 

I guess I won't buy Vista.

I've had my HP laptop for 2 years without any problem. My last HP laptop lasted nearly 5 years when I decided to buy the current one because I also run my research work applications on it and needed a faster computer.

Out of the three friends I have who uses Macs, one had to format his laptop after using it for a year because it is so slow (and crashes everytime he opens Word or anything else basically), one has the print of the keyboard permanently imprinted on the laptop screen (squares on the screen that don't go away - plus it is really slow), and the other's laptop recently started crashing once he opens an application plus he had to repair it few months ago for some hardware problem. And no, my laptop doesn't crash (ok, may be twice a month).

I wanted to install Vista, I guess I won't do that after reading this thread.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Michgal007 @ Nov 7 2007, 09:25 PM) [snapback]536487[/snapback]</div>

I spent a month screaming about how much I hated Vista, but now that it's 'settled down' for me, I would recommend it for most people wanting a Windows machine.

But you have some work applications that might not run on Vista - you'd want to find out if they're Vista compatible.

I had a couple of 'consumer'-type applications where I had to purchase upgrades to make them Vista-compatible, but they're fairly specialized ones - one is disk imaging software, and another is a utility for copying DVD movies. But dozens of other application packages work fine with Vista, even my Office 2000 suite.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hycamguy07 @ Nov 7 2007, 11:10 AM) [snapback]536189[/snapback]</div>

You are NOT comparing COMPARABLE machines.

1st - you were comparing a laptop to a desktop?? :blink:
2nd - you were comparing a consumer notebook to a refurb professional notebook.

Your confusion is that Apple chooses not to compete in the low end market.


Kinda like comparing a Hyundai Sonata to your (& my) hybrid Camry... It costs less - you get less!!!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rob Smith @ Nov 7 2007, 04:27 PM) [snapback]536441[/snapback]</div>

Excellent point. Any old question. It doesn't have to be a crash or something that doesn't work. I can stop in at the Macintosh store and chat with the guys. That is a very valuable service and it's free.