got my first laptop.

Hi about two weeks ago I ordered my fist laptop, not knowing much about computers, I wanted to get a desktop replacement so I ordered the M1710 xps ,T7200 2.00 GHz, 7950 GTX GPU,and a 100gig 7200 RPM HHD...is this a good mix for a laptop? Also did not do a lot of research on the whole vista thing and got it a week before vista released with xp on it and now I have to worry about the vista update myself. Would it be better to send it back for an exchange for a factory vista replacement? thnxs in advance.

 

Performance wise, the notebook is one of the best. The update to Vista is somehwat pointless at the moment, as it may have some bugs, and some drivers may not be supported. Also, performance wise, Vista brings nothing to the table, except 64-bit, which at the moment is practicaly useless, as no programs use it. However, it will be something that may be desirable in a year or two, when more programs are released.

 

You did good, Zero is right about vista, oder the upgrade, then hold off installing it till you either need it, or its matured enough, I'd say 6 months to a year. I also reccomend you go 32 bit when you install vista, unless there is a major app you run that will be 64 bit only, or hobbled in 32 bit, which I seriously doubt will be the case during the lifespan of your notebook. By the time you need to go 64 bit, I'd say you probably would have moved on to a new machine. Enjoy it.

 

Thnxs guys from what I am reading in the forum....is that it may be a good thing that I have xp and vista might slow down my machine.

 

If you feel the need to have Vista as soon as possible, then you could exchange your machine. But you'd have to be without your laptop during that process.

With regards to drivers and such, I have a hard time believing that Dell would ship out a new machine with a factory installed operating system that did not support its included hardware. But, if you already own other hardware - or software for that matter - that is mission critical to you, then you are probably best to stick with XP for a few more weeks.

I got my system before the switch to Vista exactly for that reason (I bought it in December 06). Even though I'm chomping at the bit to upgrade to the new OS, I am happy with my current setup and confident that everything will work smoothly by the time I get my express upgrade disk.

 

Vista has drivers for just about everything, full performance STABLE drivers, thats what its lacking, overall I'm impressed with the vista launch, I put it on my desktop( my play system) and I'm pleasantly surprised, everything works, not at 100% compared to XP, but I have a feeling it will mature quickly. That said, I wont be putting my upgrade on my laptop anytime soon, that machine has more responsabilities than the desktop , so I'm holding off.