Okay, I’m in the market for a new laptop, and it’s dawning on me that I’ve put things off so long that getting another Windows XP system isn’t going to be as easy as it would have a year ago. So I’m wondering now if it’s worth the trouble of staying with XP, or if I should go ahead and switch to Vista.
Oh, I’m certain someone is going to think it’s clever to tell me to switch to Mac instead, but I don’t want to hear it. This thread is for opinions about Windows Vista, and Mac vs. PC arguments belong elsewhere.
I heard a lot of awful things about Vista when it was first released, but a fair amount of it seemed to be because of computers that weren’t up to running Vista rather than the operating system in and of itself. If I got a new computer that could handle Vista, would I as a longtime XP user be likely to have many problems with it? I really dislike having to get used to a new operating system even under the best of circumstances, but if it’s running properly is Vista actually inferior to XP or just different?
Or to put it another way, should I avoid Vista at all cost or suck it up and learn to deal with it? I don’t even know anyone who’s using Vista now, so anything anyone here can tell me would be appreciated. I’ve been reading reviews online but I haven’t found this very helpful.
A little more about my specific situation:
My current laptop is a circa 2002 HP Pavilion. I am not a power user by any means. I’m not concerned about being able to play the latest computer games. I use my home computer primarily for Web surfing (browser of choice is Firefox), word processing, financial spreadsheets, and photo editing. The main things I want that I don’t have now are a wireless card, the ability to run whatever the latest version of Adobe Photoshop is, and the ability to have both Photoshop and iTunes running at the same time without my system freezing up. I also figure I might as well get as much hard drive space as I can, because I’ve been around long enough to know that what seems like a lot of space when the computer is new will seem barely adequate after a few years.
I work at a university that has a contract with Dell, and offers better-than-basic Latitude 6500 laptops to faculty for about $400 off the retail price. If I purchase through the university I’d also be able to participate in a no-interest payment plan, which would be nice. The only drawback is that they tell me they probably can’t get me a Latitude with an XP downgrade, it would have to be Vista Business.
My other option is to get an Inspiron 1525 with XP directly from Dell. I wouldn’t be able to get a special discount on this, but they are on sale now. I could get an Inspiron for less than even the discounted Latitude at work, but to get more memory and a bigger hard drive like I want then the price would be about the same. I also wouldn’t be able to get the no-interest payment plan, but I can afford to pay for the whole thing up-front so this isn’t a dealbreaker.
It is my preference to get a Dell, because if I needed to have it serviced I could do so on campus. I live in a small town, so taking my computer elsewhere for service would be a hassle.