Which Version of Vista to get?

Hello all. I'm looking at getting a new laptop soon which will no doubt come with Vista on it however I don't mind paying extra to upgrade the OS version. So, for my needs, which Vista variant will suit me best?

The laptop I will likely get is the Samsung Q35 with Intel Core 2 Duo at 1.6Ghz, 128MB shared graphics (Intel GMA 950) and I'll be upgrading to 1.5GB of RAM. I'll mainly be using the OS for office tasks and internet usage with a bit of very low end gaming thrown in (think Final Fantasy 8!). My main concern is connectivity. I will be going on the Universities network often both wired and wireless. I recently heard that Home Premium can't access domains, is this true? I'm a bit uneducated when it comes to anything past home networking!

Any help and advice would be appreciated!

 

You shouldn't need anything past Home Premium. It may not be able to be a member of a domain, but you better not need that at school. It's mostly a business thing. You'll be pushing the GMA950 with FF8, btw.

 

Really? I thought the GMA would be fine for FF8... 0.0 I think the requirements are something like 64MB of RAM and 4MB of VRAM. Surely the GMA would be able to run that if it can supposedly run WoW?

So how would a laptop connect to a school network then if it isn't part of a domain? (this is just curiosity getting the better of me now!)

Thank you for the speedy reply!

 

The GMA isn't good at all, the video RAM isn't really important. The most important part is the GMA just isn't a good graphics card, or barely a graphics card at all.

Almost any laptop can connect to a wireless network, domain-jazz is business related. My XP Home Edition laptop can connect to my wireless network.

As Pitabred said, Vista Home Premium will be good. Vista Home Basic doesn't take advantage of the Vista features like Aero, so I would skip that. You don't need the power of Ultimate (which really is just Home Premium with Business technology and extra features that aren't essential nor important).

 

Yea I agree with the people above. The GMA graphics card is like having no graphics card at all. The purpose of it being there is so that your Windows doesn't look like safe mode all the time. So if you're thinking about running FF8 on it then it is hard ESPECIALLY on Vista.

And as for Vista, I think you should get Home Premium. It has all the Aero effects. Going beyond like business - ultimate editions require more computer power.

 

FF8 should run well enough on the GMA950...it ran fine on my GMA900 in my old M140.

BTW, unless you need one of the following features Home Premium will be fine. Arguably, the backup is a big deal...but $50 for Acronis True Image (I got it since migrating to Vista) is a lot cheaper than a $150 upgrade to Ultimate from MS.
BitLocker
Domain Access (again, business thing)
Texas Hold'Em
Full OS backups that can be automated if you want to (this actually is quite useful)

 

I agree, FF9 should run fine on a GMA950, since it's from 1999 and it's direct x 5! Hell, I played Warcraft 3 (directx 8.1) on a Intel Extreme Graphics (anything but extreme, unless you're talking about suckiness), and it played it just fine.

 

Some universities have domains you can connect to, to access the school's file server. However, I doubt it'd be a necessity and you would need either Vista Business, Vista Enterprise, or Vista Ultimate to have that ability. (Typically, home users will not use this feature, therefore, it is not included in home editions of Vista.)

Matt

 

LOL!:laugh:

Intel Extreme Suckiness Graphics? I've never heard a more accurate description!

 

Yeah, it can't even scale lower resolutions to full screen (which is an unimpressive 1024x768), so if you can't play a game at XGA-resolution and want to lower it, it will play in a smaller part of the screen.

Back to topic
Check with your uni and see how they handle connections, and use what they recomend. At mine the wireless works with any newer OS.