# Does it make sense to buy a laptop now, since Vista is coming out soon? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 26, 2006, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130 "2006-02-26T00:16:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/21 "2006-02-26T21:53:47Z")
I’m still happily using Win 2000, and will hopefully never have to install XP, nevermind Vista. 2000 is stable, does everything I need it to, and I don’t have Redmond constantly poking at my computer to make sure that I paid in full for my OS. I predict that every Windows OS afterwords will just include a lot of crap that no one really needs to take up memory and processor cycles. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/22 "2006-02-26T22:02:53Z")
If Vista is really important to you, wait. I’ve been burned by laptop manufacturers who refuse to release updated drivers and software for a new release of Windows on their “old” hardware, where old is defined as anything sold last week or before. ---
**Author:** ![Emerald\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Emerald\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emerald_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/23 "2006-02-27T20:10:48Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > You can always wait. What **Shagnasty** said is 100% correct. However, if you want to be able to play HD DVDs then you would most definitely be well advised to wait. See [http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/early\_hdtv\_adopters\_screwed\_by\_hddisc\_rules.html#more](http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/early_hdtv_adopters_screwed_by_hddisc_rules.html#more) and [www.theinquirer.net](http://www.theinquirer.net) I’m going to second **Frylock** and ask if you can clarify this a bit. What new feature should we be waiting for? I’m not sure what a new laptop will need to play HD DVDs at full resolution, other than the appropriate drive and the software player. I’m pretty sure you don’t mean that it needs Windows Vista, since the articles don’t mention it and that makes no sense. Is it a DVI/HDCP connector? Some other fancy copy protection hardware? ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/24 "2006-02-27T21:55:05Z")
If you want an idea what Vista will look like and how it will behave, download the beta of IE7. I did. And went back to IE6. I’ll use my XP pro for a while longer and let other consumers be beta testers for MS. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/25 "2006-02-27T22:47:19Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#): > > Besides, there’s an unwriten rule to never get the first version of any new OS, especially Windows. Actually, this pertains to almost any program, but Win’s first releases are always so full of bugs and security holes, it’s wise to avoid them until all the patches come out. > > MS seems to believe that their new releases can best be tested by customers. Why waste time on a beta? I bought a computer the week XP was released. I never had one problem with it - it was just as stable as the laptop I later bought in 2004, or the one my father got this year with SP2 preinstalled. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/26 "2006-02-28T03:09:34Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > I bought a computer the week XP was released. I never had one problem with it - it was just as stable as the laptop I later bought in 2004, or the one my father got this year with SP2 preinstalled. I’ve had good results with XP also. But the general sentiment is accurate regarding MS track record. As a person with 25 years IT/Tech experience on various systems, MS ranks high on the list of vendors with lots of bugs. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/27 "2006-02-28T03:51:07Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#): > > Besides, there’s an unwriten rule to never get the first version of any new OS, especially Windows. Actually, this pertains to almost any program, but Win’s first releases are always so full of bugs and security holes, it’s wise to avoid them until all the patches come out. This “rule” is not only unwritten, but so universally ignored I don’t think we can meaningfully characterise it as a rule at all. Perhaps what you mean is “personal recommendation”. Of course if enough people followed this recommendation then all new software would fail to sell and computing progress would come to a complete stop. ---
**Author:** ![flex727](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@flex727](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flex727)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/28 "2006-02-28T11:39:40Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > I’ve had good results with XP also. > > But the general sentiment is accurate regarding MS track record. As a person with 25 years IT/Tech experience on various systems, MS ranks high on the list of vendors with lots of bugs. Not to defend MS, whom I despise, but they are also high on the list of vendors with lots of software. Not to mention that operating systems are hardly ordinary software. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/29 "2006-03-01T01:11:03Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > This “rule” is not only unwritten, but so universally ignored I don’t think we can meaningfully characterise it as a rule at all. Perhaps what you mean is “personal recommendation”. > > Of course if enough people followed this recommendation then all new software would fail to sell and computing progress would come to a complete stop. _nods_ I’ve only been using OS X (Tiger) for a few months, and I’ve seen it crash more for me and my classmates than XP over almost 4 years for me. Many people would claim the opposite - it all depends on how you use the OS. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/30 "2006-03-01T04:57:53Z")
> [@astro](#): > > The issue there is that XP now requires an update applet be installed if you want apply online security and OS patches an updates . The applet will recognize your cracked corporate iXP nstall as bogus and lock out the update function. Well, it recognizes **some** cracked corporate XP installs. I think they just have a blacklist of license keys that aren’t allowed to update. You can, however, generate your own XP license keys using freely available tools and a night’s worth of CPU time, and from what I’ve… er, let’s say guessed without any personal experience whatsoever… they work just fine for downloading patches and security updates. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130/31 "2006-03-01T08:32:13Z")
> [@flex727](#): > > Not to defend MS, whom I despise, but they are also high on the list of vendors with lots of software. Not to mention that operating systems are hardly ordinary software. They do have lots of software. But the number of bugs per application is what I was considering. In addition, my comparison for operating systems was primarily to IBM’s midrange operating systems. I have not encountered a single bug (that I am aware of) in all of the years using IBM midrange computers. Not only is it equally or more complex than MS operating systems, the bug rate’s are not in the same ballpark. As I said before, I have had good results with XP, but continue to find bugs in most MS applications, and again traditionally they are high on the list of bugs per app. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-a-laptop-now-since-vista-is-coming-out-soon/346130.md?page=1)