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195 Comments
- deadbaby, on 12/22/2007, -7/+79One of my friends bought a cheap Toshiba laptop from Best Buy running Vista. It's actually a decent laptop but it was dirt slow with Vista. Only had 512MB of RAM being shared for video RAM. It felt like the slowest computer I've used since the 486 days. She asked me if something was wrong with it because it was slower than her 5 year old XP laptop. Upgrading the RAM obviously fixed the problem but realistically you're not going to see 2GB in low end laptops for probably another 1-2 years. I can't believe Microsoft lets OEMs ship Vista /w 512MB of RAM. The minimum specs should be 1GB.
- aznhomig, on 12/22/2007, -2/+62Why is there a picture of a MACBOOK PRO and "Cheap Laptop" as the title? Kind of an oxymoron, don't you think?
- z0mbie2099, on 12/22/2007, -7/+30You missed the whole point of the article because you're too arrogant of a Windows fan-boy.
- gbarberi, on 12/22/2007, -2/+21I thought this looked familiar. This EXACT same article was on the front page three weeks agp.
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Cheap_Laptops_Bad_for_V ... - inactive, on 12/22/2007, -0/+18The issue is that they slap "Vista Ready" on laptops that run it at snail pace
- inactive, on 12/22/2007, -3/+18Not to link spam or anything, but... new egg seems to have a wide varity of low end laptops that have one and two gig... It looks like they only have one or two left on the initial search that have 512MB, and those don't come with AERO.
- gudnbluts, on 12/22/2007, -3/+17I'm exactly the kind of person this (minimalist to the point of being pointless) article's about. I bought this lappy just before Vista was released. It's got 512mb RAM, and had all the "Vista ready" labels (which I knew was bollocks). I've been happily trundling on with XP, but started thinking it'd be nice to wean myself off OSs that can disable your system for arbitrary licensing reasons, and bits of hardware for DRM reasons. Plus it'd be nice to try something new, and good to have an OS that I know will continue to be supported, whatever MS decides they want to do, So here I am, linuxing away. MS lost me, and I'm perfectly happy with that.
- Koskun, on 12/22/2007, -1/+14It is kind of funny when commenter's here say something like "low end laptops on newegg have 1-2 gig of RAM, one or two have 512". Now, go to your parents, aunts and uncles, even grandparents that have a computer and ask them if they have ever even heard of Newegg. Most all of these cheap laptops are going to come from HP (has a sub 500 dollar one available with 512 now), Dell, Compaq. Some will even come from those after Thanksgiving deals you see plastered all over.
The issue isn't so much with Microsoft, it is with these manufacturers. They know they will run slow, they can get money from upgrades when the consumer calls up asking for help because their laptop is running slow. You want to get mad at someone and vent take it up with the manufacturers. - TGDuff, on 12/22/2007, -4/+16I run a fresh install version of Vista on my Dell with 1GB of RAM and it runs just fine with Aero turned on. Anyone who says 2GB is required has either never used Vista or does not know how to uninstall bloatware.
- Koskun, on 12/22/2007, -2/+13You really expect the average computer user to be able to write their own driver? The sheer obnoxiousness of that statement is flooring.
- halfway, on 12/22/2007, -1/+12That is what happened to my friend. He bought a very cheap Vista-based laptop with only 512 of RAM. He spent most of the time waiting for programs and the computer itself to load. I saw him more often using his roommates laptop than his because he didn't want to wait for everything to load. Add in the price of new RAM and getting it installed... he could have bought an even cheaper laptop and installed linux on it to come out with a better running machine.
- iofthestorm, on 12/22/2007, -3/+14Actually, I've seen $600 laptops with 2GB of RAM occasionally, and almost always with 1GB. Vista has driven up stock RAM configurations because if the computer runs slow the average user isn't going to blame Vista (what's a Vista? Is that like a Window?) they're going to blame HP/Dell/etc.
- Shananra, on 12/22/2007, -0/+11Xubuntu runs fine on win98 laptops. Bit slow, yes, but I haven't had any issues with it. managed to get quite a bit more life out of the thing.
XP wouldn't run on it though, but Linux will if you go with a lightweight distro. - ferrariman60, on 12/22/2007, -2/+12I agree about pulling norton, but you'd be a fool to not run any virus protection. Although a computer user with some common sense can avoid most virus issues, even the best get a virus once in a while. Run something that's NOT a resource hog- like an enterprise edition of a virus program, or since most can't get that, AVG free edition. Norton is worse than McAfee security center, but neither one is as good, or as low profile, as the free AVG.
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 12/22/2007, -0/+10For what its worth, I've got an acer laptop that has intel wireless, and it works flawlessly. Intel hardware seems to do quite well on linux in general, and I suspect that intel wireless is a good safe bet for wireless in linux on laptops.
- halfway, on 12/22/2007, -2/+11Just take a little extra time searching around on the internet before installing linux to see if there is a way to get the wireless working. Although some things take some extra work, I believe it is worth it in the end. Plus it's usually free except the cost to burn it to a CD.
- grumpyrain, on 12/22/2007, -0/+9Or for that matter, chuck 98 on a Vista Ready PC and you will boot up in about 5 seconds.
- chenkersthecat, on 12/22/2007, -1/+9I'm running Vista Home Basic on a Dell laptop with 512MB of RAM. I don't mind using it because it's helping me develop my general ability to tolerate frustration and distress. However, my girlfriend outright refuses to use it. Instead, she opts to drive 30 minutes to the university computer lab whenever she needs to do computer based uni work. Microsoft's decision to allow Vista to ship on new computers with less than 1gb of ram is an incredibly poor business decision.
- Soave, on 12/22/2007, -1/+9Definitely. Removing bloatware is the best thing you can possibly do to help your computer.
- Wacer, on 12/22/2007, -3/+11Actually he doesn't, or I should say Microsoft, doesn't hate it that much. Most of these systems are going to really poor areas of the world and they have actually been pushing in this market because they can sell their operating system (XP) for a few bucks. Sure its the XP basic but they figure they can squeeze this market to their advantage.
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 12/22/2007, -0/+7XP has certainly got a long time left for most most hardware, but what about cheap hardware being put into windows vista computers?
AFAIK, Vista's driver model is different enough that often the drivers aren't interchangable with those made for XP. When those low-end OEMs start shaving pennies off the cost of the hardware by not making XP/2000 versions of their drivers, it's going to get a bit more complicated. - Brennan, on 12/22/2007, -9/+16If these so called too cheap to use systems just came with more ram they would run Vista without a problem. RAM is so cheap now..but I guess people want the lowest price possible, no matter what the cost.
And the crappy video card isn't a problem, a GMA950 runs aero just fine... If these cheap system just came with a minimum of a gig of ram... - nosretap, on 12/22/2007, -5/+12They don't get it. UNIX is mature. The code is tight, and it is written by PROGRAMMERS. M$ is not mature. It is re-invented with each iteration. With bloat ware in mind to accelerate the hardware race.
Tight code does not need as much memory or CPU. M$ bloat-where ;) just needs more memory and CPU cycles. I don't think anyone can argue that.
I am happy with cheap laptops running 'NIX's/'NUX's. If you upgrade to M$, add memory and a license ($).
'NIX's/'NUX's will win in the end.
Funny, wine can get "most" M$ stuff running, and pretty much all of the 'N?X's can compile across all distributions any open source app. Make it easy for the end user and ... Tune in soon.
Spending money on a "M$ drug fix" or going cold turkey and using something that works,,, Expensive or,
My $0.02 worth.
I know my wallet has more money in it ;)
PS, I still have a server running (old)BSD on a 166MHz/1GB HD/64MB RAM. Smokes! I guess the chip(s) will die someday... - willfe, on 12/22/2007, -0/+7...or if they could just run an OS that doesn't require a friggin' GIGABYTE of RAM to run reasonably well. Oh wait! They can! Yay Linux! :)
- willfe, on 12/22/2007, -0/+7Nonsense. It has a similar learning curve to Windows. If you are first exposed to a computer running Unix, it will tend to be easier to use than a seemingly "foreign" Windows box (or a Mac). Whereas if you grew up working with Windows boxen, they make more sense than a Unix machine would.
Windows is *losing* the market. It is slipping, rapidly. It is now fairly common folklore that the best "upgrade" you can make for Vista is to replace it with XP. That's *not* good news for the Microsoft flagship.
Whether it's written entirely by hired professionals or not, Windows is getting bigger, slower, and uglier, and it's causing greater and greater discomfort to the people Microsoft depends on for its bottom line. Fewer and fewer of them each month are buying into it. - willfe, on 12/22/2007, -0/+7Heh. Such a funny troll :) Have some food. Om nom nom.
I'm one of those professionals you described, btw, and no, I didn't piss away two grand on the absolute fastest notebook I could buy. I bought what I *needed* and put the right OS on it (Linux runs on most anything; Vista whines, thrashes, and vomits bile on anything with less than a gig of memory).
And to address the rest of your rant -- Linux ain't about the money, never has been, never will be. If your sole solution to "make it go faster" is "throw more money at it to buy more hardware to force it to go faster," you'll likely never understand *why* money isn't an issue most Linux developers/contributors are concerned with. - andyakadum, on 12/22/2007, -1/+7Just stick Linux on there, thats more than happy with 512mb ram, and it wont cost you anything.
- drag, on 12/22/2007, -1/+7""Linux has its place and Windows has its place. It takes intelligence to recognise the right hardware and software for the right application. The guy who wrote the original article may be a computer writer but he has never worked in the dog eat dog commercial profit making world otherwise he would not be blowing hot air out of his ass.""
Yawn.
I don't know what world you live in but the average person has a mortgage, is making medical payments on something, kids, makes around 30-40K a year. Going out and dropping 5-10% of their yearly income on a mobile computer isn't realy a option for most people. Even people who are wealthier would rather spend their money on something more important,like car payments or eating at a nice place, rather then drop $2K down on some huge gaming laptop. - jameshighmore, on 12/22/2007, -1/+7I thought I'd just add my opinion to the whole Windows/Linux discussion.
I've only ever used Windows operating systems throughout my life, but last night I tested out a Ubuntu live CD I found somewhere and was pretty impressed with what I saw. What impressed me most was the fact that it didn't once hang or slow down. After using Vista on my laptop for several months now, I can tell you that this was a welcome change. Rarely a day goes by without Vista crashing and having a fit over something minor, causing me to restart the system which sometimes results in explorer not even bothering to load (anyone else get this occasionally? It's quite funny seeing an error message stating that Windows cannot load). Don't get me wrong, I think Vista is a great OS. and you may say that crashes and slowdowns are to be expected on a below-par laptop.
However, the laptop I own is a 17" $4000 beast. THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING!
I can't actually remember where I was going with this, but I think my point was meant to be that Linux is also a good choice for high-end laptops as well as less expensive ones. - init100, on 12/22/2007, -0/+6I agree with TeacherOfHeroes, Intel wireless works great in Linux. My Dell Latitude D810 has no driver problems in Linux, both wireless, 3D graphics and power management work fine.
- inactive, on 12/22/2007, -4/+10Oh really? I have Ubuntu 7.10 running on my Think Pad and the wireless worked right from the install.
- mjPayne, on 12/22/2007, -0/+6Man, I run Linux for over 10 years and I haven't wrote any drivers myself. I can easily configure and compile the kernel but writing a driver is beyond me - or I believe most Linux users. Answers like this will only piss-off people that heard of Linux and want to try it.
- stupidbrowner, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5I don't think you need to know how to install RAM to use linux.
Heck, my mom doesn't even know what RAM is and I gave her my laptop to work on with no problems.
Linux is to the point now that if you get a user-friendly distro installed and setup by someone who knows what they're doing, the user needs to know LESS about computer than they did to use XP. - init100, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5I ran Windows XP on my P2 450 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 8 GB HDD a couple of years ago. It was slow, but not that slow.
- sqrt7744, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5I don't know why you're getting dug down, you're right. Steve Ballmer is the new object of scorn and mascot of evil. Too many people are still living in the 90s Gates heyday.
- Koskun, on 12/22/2007, -2/+7Over the dozens and dozens of laptops I have seen installing more/upgrading the RAM is a simple matter of taking out one (small) screw, removing a panel, putting in a new piece/upgrading the old one, and put the panel back on and screw it back in. About the same, maybe a little simpler than desktops (especially those small form-factor bastards).
- vertexoflife, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5You can get tablet PC's running linux from www.emperorlinux.com
- Wacer, on 12/22/2007, -0/+4Your either drunk or don't write English very well.
- scbysnx, on 12/22/2007, -7/+11"and getting it installed..." seriously? if he can't install his own ram he'd probably have some trouble using linux
- Elranzer, on 12/22/2007, -11/+15For *****'s sake, Bill Gates is not Microsoft anymore! He's too busy dealing with billions of dollars for charity, and at this point probably uses a Mac and doesn't give a ***** about Microsoft's competitors. Direct your fanboyish hatred toward the real CEO, the chair-throwing monkey Steve Ballmer.
- grumpyrain, on 12/22/2007, -1/+5What the hell are you talking about. For a start, you must realise that your desktop will have a faster hard drive than your laptop. Besides that, what do you think 64 or 128 bit computing will bring you? You can get Vista 64 bit and it works flawlessly providing your peripherals offer 64 bit drivers, but this has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with addressing a larger amount of memory.
- mjPayne, on 12/22/2007, -0/+4"A Linux or Windows professional on $150K per annum is going to buy the fastest laptop available". Yeah, right. People buy Ferraris (or Porches) because they need to service their clients effectively and efficiently. "Engage brain before putting mouth into gear" please.
- smacksaw, on 12/22/2007, -0/+3No - not anymore. It's all for Kubuntu, baby!!!
- inactive, on 12/22/2007, -1/+4Yes.
- smacksaw, on 12/22/2007, -1/+4True. And smoking to the point of lung cancer is fine because hey - I can live with one lung that has diminished capacity while the other one is removed.
Quality of life? We're just talking about breathing, not if it's painful or difficult to breathe.
1GB of RAM for Vista. ***** brilliant. Brilliant like losing a lung. - victorh86, on 12/22/2007, -0/+3The average user will eventually blame Vista when their "computer guy" friend tells them Vista is to blame. I'm just surprised all these companies got away with stocking their computers with so little RAM for so long.
- andycr512, on 12/22/2007, -0/+3I used it for 6 months. It may "run" fine, but it just feels slow, especially if you open a few programs to even use the computer for something useful. There are inexplicable delays at random times, and it feels like working underwater. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to speed differences than most, but it was incredibly frustrating and I could not stand it. I ended up switching back to XP, and later Linux.
- andycr512, on 12/22/2007, -1/+4Why the heck would my OS need 2GB of ram for doing nothing? Linux is -perfectly- happy with 256MB, and the only reason I need 1GB is because Eclipse is much more comfortable with that much...
- TheWindBlows, on 12/22/2007, -1/+4even 1GB of RAM is bad
My friend hates Vista she's see's us using Linux and it seems decent and wants me to get Vista off there when she gets her laptop back dead keyboard or something...
The comp that the HDD died on processed everything as fast or faster as it with '256MB' RAM on windows XP -
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