XP or Vista on Laptop (XP June 16 deadline) - advice without Fanboys

I'm looking to suggest a laptop for a friend's daughter, the laptop will be a lower end ($500-600) laptop and be mainly an email/surfing PC with some word processing. As Dell and Lenovo are publishing June 16 (Monday) on their sites as the last day for selling XP, I feel a little pressed for time on the decision of what OS to put on the machine.

To answer the standard "use the search button" response: I've read a number of the XP vs. Vista threads on this site and feel my eyes are bleeding from all the bantering and useless posts, just trying to get some distilled info here

For a high school senior with average computer skills what are your thoughts on whether my friend leap and buy XP before it ceases to be an option or buy Vista?

Listed below are pro's for OS taken from reading threads here:

• Vista Pro: Boots up, shuts down quicker than XP
• Vista Pro: Has nicer looking user interface
• XP Pro: Overall, uses less battery than Vista
• XP Pro: Without tweaking either OS, XP consumes less system resources
• XP Pro: More stable with less bugs (FYI - not so concerned about supporting legacy applications)
• ...Please correct me if any of this is inaccurate.

The questions that I haven't been able to get clear in my mind are:

• Real world experience of Vista on a lower cost laptop, am I setting her up for a painful experience she could bypass by getting XP or are the gripes online overstated?
• For those that have downgraded to XP, other than stability, was the performance THAT noticeable?
• Since I won't be around for support, she'll most likely get it from friends around her. Is Vista then a better idea since as people buy their kids new laptops it will most likely have Vista on it?

Thanks for any help

 

Believe it or not, more often than not, Vista has been shown to have slightly better battery life than XP, because of it's better power management.
Likewise, I've experienced slower bootups with Vista.
Vista is the future, and with the improvements SP1 brought to it, I think it will only continue to get better.
As time goes on, support for XP (drivers and apps), will cease.
If you want a laptop that will last a long time, and be supported, and if battery life is important, it might be better to consider Vista.
Also a thing to consider is, if your friend needs support, said company will (usually) provide it, but quality of support varies across the board with different companies.
It's a tough choice for some I know. Vista has been actually less buggy for me out of the box than XP, but I know everyone's case is different.
Also another thing you might want to consider is, with SP1 vista's performance is more or less the same to XP, so I wouldn't consider that a factor in my decision if I had to make it again.
Hope this helps.

 

For a 500-600$ laptop, XP should perform better.
If you have a decent 2.0 core duo CPU and 2Gb of RAM though, Vista will be better.
With Service Pack 1 , Vista is quite nice and fast.

 

If the machine has the right parts (double CPU, 2GB of RAM), get Vista. Although Vista requires a much faster computer and file transfers are slower, there's many small usability improvements including the new look.

 

Actually SP1 takes care of the file transfer problems.
SP1 pretty much transforms Vista into a decent OS, that looks good too

 

Go with Vista. Better security (out of the box), built-in search, extra bundled programs (photo, calendar, contacts), nicer-looking UI, automated maintenance tasks.

Sure you can get most of that stuff with XP with a lot of free downloads and tweaking, but... why?

Now I haven't run Vista on lower-end hardware, but... I don't see why it would need tons of CPU or anything. You just need some decent RAM. And even the cheapest machines now have plenty of disk space. Needing good specs was a serious issue a year ago. Now... just upgrade the RAM to at least 1.5 gb and you'll be fine.

 

As long as the machine has 2gb of ram it will fly on vista. Plus a girl will care more about the pretty looks of the laptop anyways...

 

If she is running on a lower cost laptop, I would recommend XP unless the machine will have these specs:

- dual-core CPU
- 2GB of RAM
- at least an Intel X3100 GPU

These really are the minimum specs needed to run Vista; anything less powerful is probably not enough to run the OS smoothly.

Some of this is not true; Vista has very slow boot up and shutdown times relative to XP. Second, XP doesn't always use less battery life than Vista, the latter of which in fact has superior power management services. It depends on the computer.

 

That is definitely relative to the setup. By design Vista is supposed to boot and shutdown quicker. I find that to be the case, some may not. It also depends on startup items.

Vista's RAM management is much better than XP's. As others have said, 2gb is kind of the sweet spot. Even if the user does not follow resource usage much, Superfetch will help with memory management better than the standard Prefetch did in XP. Of course, dissenting opinions are always out there, as you can see in another recent thread.

 

Honestly, a high school senior, to put it nicely "won't give a ****". Nor will it matter. Case-in-Point:

1. Office works the same on both.
2. Facebook works the same on both.
3. Myspace works the same on both (though if she's on Myspace, shoot her).

Give her a coin. Heads - Vista, Tails - XP. Now hurry up, you're running out of time.

 

XP due to the specs,

If you like vista then dual boot XP/Vista. Best of both worlds.

 

I have just downgraded from Vista to XP and I'm very happy about it! System is much faster now and more responsive!

Vista gives me nothing better but looks IMO which aren't worth all the slowness.

XP Pro FTW!

Look at my specs in my sig....Vista still runs slow for my likings

 

it said no fanboys on the thread topic.

 

Thanks for the quick and multiple responses.

Looking at a core 2 duo and 2 gb of ram right now (link: Dell Vostro 14"). Not fixed on anything. This laptop is only meant to last up to 2 years, to be upgraded in college to a heavy duty laptop.

I'm starting to lean towards Vista right now based on the comments posted. What I really wanted to hear, and I think I have, is that either route is mostly ok now after SP1... could see some benefits from XP but I'm not making a bonehead move if I go with Vista.

And, going Vista has the benefit of giving us the flexibility of waiting to see if a deals that are more smoking come around.

Thanks again for the feedback, appreciate it.

 

As long as the system in question has the components necessary to run _Vista, and given that the system is intended to be replaced in 2 years or so, the best option is to go with the cheapest alternative. In these circumstances, the differences between _Vista and XP in terms of performance are really only going to be noticeable to so-called powerusers, which category the person you described does not seem to fit. In terms of security support, that runs out for _Vista home editions in 2012 and for XP (all editions) in 2014; since you expect to replace the system in 2010 or 2011, this factor is irrelevant (also, since the system will come with a so-called OEM version of Windows, you won't be able to move the OS on that system to any other system, whether it be _Vista or XP).

The only issue that really matters, I would think, is that since XP is now on extended support, it generally won't get the neat new bells and whistles updates that _Vista will get from MS - most of these "updates" don't matter to powerusers, but they might matter to someone like the user you described, so this might be a reason in favor of _Vista.

To go back to my first point, I think that the biggest issue here is cost - go with whatever OS option is cheaper.

 

Simply put, Windows Vista is the future. Soon, all traces of XP (sales and support) will cease.

This was hilarious.:laugh: It's so true too.

 

For an average computer user first of all you wouldn't have to worry about XP/ Vista. Vista will be perfect for that.

 

that's impossible on this forum.

 

How do you know that? You just got here.

 

been reading for months. since my notebook is on its way i decided to finally register.

i have an XP system at work, a vista system at home, and a Mac at my girlfriends house. i love them all equally.

 

Gowith vista. I have a friend (high school female senior) With a vista computer and she loves it. Its like xp but prettier so she loves it.

 

well then, that settles it. lmao.

 

There is no reason not to go with Vista unless you're purchasing a very cheap laptop with low specs.

 

Vista if you value visual candy.

XP if you value maximum performance.

 

I would recommend Vista for her needs. The Aero interface is great and power management tends to be slightly better. The main drawbacks I find with Vista are that some of the older programs and hardware may not be compatible. However, I doubt that's something she'll need to worry about.

That's not to say XP is bad though. There's hardly any programs or hardware that exclusively require Vista (for at least the ones she may use) and I doubt much of that will change in the next 2 years. Also, XP security updates aren't set to expire until 2014 (I think) so that should be plenty.

 

Hmmm . . . OK.

 

You really cant go wrong with either. Both OS's are good. I think XP would be easier to use out of the box than Vista. There are several tweaks needed for Vista.

And as alot of have been saying, don't get Vista if you aren't going to have at least 2GB of ram and Duo Core Processor. For basic use this is a big factor. If you don't meet these requirements there will be a performance issue in Vista.

You can afford a cheaper notebook if you run XP.

 

Vista is a more featured OS, and it takes care of many flaws in XP, and it brings increased security and a seamless networking setup process as well.

 

I wouldn't say they're needed . . . those of us who are enthusiasts and pay close attention to performance and all that want to tweak. Others, like my roommates, could care less. They plug and go.

You're absolutely right, though, both OSes are good, and I don't think that you can go wrong with either of them.

 

The only tweak you really need with Vista is to install SP1. And if you buy the computer now, it probably comes with SP1 on it anyway.

Sure, there are plenty of other tweaks you can do if you want to... just like with XP... but they're really not necessary.

And it takes a lot of downloads to get XP close to where Vista is out of the box in terms of features... antispyware software, desktop sidebar/gadgets, desktop search, IE 7, WMP 11, photo program. And then more tweaking for XP to get Cleartype font rendering and non-annoying system sounds, etc.

 

Just wanted to say thanks again. I also wanted to mention that it was refreshing to have responses on topic and that helped me quickly.

I've been getting burned out on the level of noise/junk postings on a lot of sites I run across when looking into things, very happy with the responses here.