Asonda -Gaming PC Custom Computers and Computer Support in Cornwall

Independent review on Vista

After selling numerous amounts of laptops and PCs with Vista it’s about time we accept that it’s not going anywhere. So, we have just bought a shiny new laptop for the office. We wanted something we could use with Vista, day in and day out. Following our own recommendations we bought a HP DV9665ea. AMD Dual Core 2.0GHZ, Dedicated Nvidia Graphics, 2GB of Ram and 2 x 160GB Hard Drives. This is one powerful Laptop.The laptop came with Vista Home Premium and as this is what will be the ‘norm’ for Vista users, we’re sticking with it until we finish this review and upgrade to Vista Ultimate later on.Vista is a resource hog, even the Basic version will turn a PC what would run XP fine, into a slow old oil tanker. Make sure you read our recommendations page that specifies what you really need to run Vista as well as our laptop does.

Begin the review already!!

OK, the first thing you notice when setting up Vista is, it’s just so easy! Nobody is going to have any problems in that respect. Once it’s done configuring, you’re presented with one of the most beautiful looking computer desktops (Notice I said ‘one of’ Mr n Mrs Linux and Mac users). It’s quite clear a lot of time was spent designing the GUI (Graphical User Interface) for Vista. It’s not a bad thing, yes it uses up resources, but it’s beautiful...right? The desktop is now a frenzy of additional items and funky little bits that should help anybody's experience. Everything from the Windows Flip, Gadget Bar, Pop-Up Task Bar Item info, Slim-Line Start Menu and the all new groovy icons. Let’s not forget all the transparency effects.

 

Screenshot of the Vista Home Premium desktop:

 

Notice the gadget bar with the clock, weather, CPU meter and the pop up info box coming from the task bar item and the revised task bar itself.

 

Windows Flip, press that little flip button in the quick start section of the task bar next to the new Start button, and something rather wonderful takes place:

 

 

 

 

All your currently open windows, flip up and display like so. Ready for you to cycle through them using the arrow keys or by simply clicking on the one you want to use. This is perfect when you have multiple windows open, on average when using this laptop; I have around 14 items open. Flip really comes in handy when you want to see what you currently have open but don’t want go clicking through everything to get to what you need.

 

Revised Start Menu

The start menu has changed a little too. Whether this gets on your goat or not is down to personal preference. It takes some getting used to as you expect all you installed programs to pop out the side like in XP. Not so in Vista, take a look at this:

 

As you can see from the image, clicking on 'All Programs' now brings up a scrolling menu. I can’t personally help but feel it’s a little cramped compared to the old menu in XP but..once you get used to it, it does make things appear neat and civilised. If you really get cheesed with it, you do have the option to change it to the ‘classic’ menu.

Gadget Bar

The last item to mention on the desktop area would be the Gadget Bar. Some say this is a complete load of useless tosh. We however think otherwise. Yep sure, why do you need the clock?, you have one in the bottom corner anyway, why do you need the weather? why, why, why? missing the point all together here folks. You can download MANY different items for that Gadget Bar, A Calculator, Ebay watcher, Currency convertor, Power buttons and much much more. You can really make this part your own by adding items that will speed up your use of the computer, hopefully saving you time and becoming more efficient.
Bread Crumbs

Vista does boast an impressive new system that will almost definately help the generic ‘Home User’. This wonderful marvel is called ‘The Bread Crumb System’. This allows you to back track whilst looking at the files on your computer, the following image shows how you are able to jump around folders anywhere in the current directory. Useful when you have lots of files. Of course the old simple ‘Path’ can be used instead by changing some settings.

No more pressing up or back to find your in the wrong folder anymore, we like Bread Crumbs. There are many revised features on Vista, so much so, unless we wrote a 500 page detailed analysis, we can’t cover it all. At the end of the review we’ll include more screenshots so that you can have a gander at how Vista looks and is set out.

 

The way you show files in your folders has also had a good going over. Before you had, Tiles, Icons, List and details. Well now you have a whole host of options, as shown in the screenshot below:

 

Tiles, Details, List, Small Icons, Medium Icons, Large Icons and Extra Large Icons

 

Windows Media Centre

Vista home premium comes with Media Centre. Which used to only be available as ‘Windows Media Centre Edition’ during the XP era. This doesn’t come with Vista Basic or Business but does with Home Premium and Ultimate Edition. We’re happy as our laptop came with a free DVB-T tuner, Aerial and Remote! So when on the road, I bet there will be plenty of time spent at laybyes whilst eating lunch watching recorded programs like Family Guy. This is what is perfect about WMC. Once set up, and if you have it hooked up to your TV (our laptop has HDMI out, but a standard S-Video out would suffice) you can pause, record live digital TV. WMC also keeps track of all your photos, music and movies. Perfect for when you have friends and family around, you can use it to display your digi-cam pics on the TV.

Windows Media Centre

 

 

The personalisation has also had a huge work over. Now when you right click and select 'personalise' you get presented with this screen..

 

 

Personalise your background, screen saver, colours, fonts, icons, themes, mouse pointers and if you have Ultimate Edition, you'll have a neat little added extra called DreamScene that plays HD videos as your desktop background!

Everything is just layed out so much better in Vista then previous versions of Windows. You’ll find yourself zipping through features and settings like never before.

 

The further you get into Vista the more we think you’ll like it. Better access to certain functions is what wins with us. It’s a shame that Vista isn’t suitable for older/cheaper systems as it could have been the successor to XP instead of ‘Oh no, Vista’. Look on the bright side of that, you’ve got an excuse to buy a new, high spec machine and we’re pretty sure the next version of Windows, won’t needs as much power as Vista does, so you’ll be future proofing your new purchase.The transparancy effects are lovely and do look the part, great for making things look clean and simple and to show off to your friends. Microsoft got criticised for copying Mac. We don’t think they did but if so, all the better for us as Aero looks great! Get a nice PC and you’ll love it.

Windows SP1 is just around the corner and we have reason to believe it’s going to be mega. Reports say it’ll be about the size of a DVD! Imagine that! Reports have said lots of compatibility issues have been fixed, security fixes and one we’re looking forward to is that it’s supposed to reduce hard drive ‘thrashing’ as Vista really does give it a good beating on start up and occasional points when using it.

We think that if you’re going to buy a new PC or laptop, that you buy one with Vista. Just make sure you spend those extra pennies for better hardware, down to the point that XP is now old and not the ‘current’ product to have. Although support will remain available for years to come for current XP users plus XP SP3 is due to be released soon.

If you are going to buy a budget PC make sure it comes with XP otherwise it’ll spoil the whole experience for you. Steer clear of Vista Basic, its as slow as the rest of them on a lower end machine without any of the added cool stuff...what's the point?

Now for some eye candy:

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