I just purchased a 1505 laptop - here is the important items I upgraded to.
Inspiron E1505, Intel Core Duoprocessor T2250 (2MB/1.73GHz/533MHz)
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2GB, DDR2, 533MHz 2 Dimm for Inspiron 6400/E1505 ,
256MB Ge Force 7300 Graphics card for Inspiron 6400/E1505
120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 6400/E1505
Normally I wait about 6 months before using a new Microsoft operatoring system but since need another laptop now. I have heard both good and bad things about Vista- mainly graphic problems due to not enough memory in the graphic card. I am debating going out and buying a Vista for dummies book -not I have never needed before but not sure what to expect.
Is it that different from XP- that I am going to have to do alot of reading to run this? Has anyone noticed needed improvements over XP?
I don't know if I like Vista - I just HATE the fact that Dell sold out to Microsoft. Dell seems to have forgotten their advertizing that they build computers only for one person (or something like that). I too am reluctant to buy into a new system, so I'm extremely disappointed that Dell will only offer Windows XP on their top-priced laptops.
Sorry to rant. Maybe if I had been allowed to choose for myself, Vist would have been OK, but I may as well go out and buy an Apple. They seem to have their OS working already.
Actually, I do like it! I just received my new Dell XPS410 with Win Vista on Feb. 12th and so far the experience has not been bad. One of the "Dell-on-Call" techs that I spoke with the first week recommended that I use the "Program Compatibility Wizard" when I install my apps and I believe that has helped a great deal. I was even able to install JASC Paint Shop Pro 8.1 (11 is out now)and it is working great...even better than on XP!
The main problem I have is with my Epson Perfection 2450 scanner.....and that's because Epson is not providing Vista compatible drivers!!! So, that's $400 down the drain!
It seems to me that a lot of the software and hardware vendors "dropped the ball" in being ready for Vista and I don't really think that we should blame Microsoft for their short comings!
Here is another example......back in October I purchased a $400 cutter/plotter and I know they had to know that they were going to have to come up with new drivers for it. Would you believe it is going to be July before they will have Vista compatible drivers?
Got my laptop 2 days ago and Vista is goin good so far, the only problems i have are, trying to play certain dvds and trying to to configure the networking of my home system with xp.
My wireless mouse is working fine jus pluged it in and it worked. Guess if i had in another 1gig i would have a index score over 4.
Other than that everything esle is going good, Aero's and 3-d flip and other features goin good.
Pamela, You might want to check out a program called VueScan (Google shoudl find it easily). I managed to get my ancient Canon CanuScan FB620U to work with Vista (x64 even!) using the driver included with this software. It lists your scanner as being supported. It has a free trial, so you can try it and see if it works. Dave.
And I really like it. Supreme Commander and C&C3 demo play great with Vista. Brother's laser printer works fine. Love the aesthetics of Vista. Working nicely with Linksys router. External hard drive working fine. I'm waiting for FirstDefense ISR to complete their beta because I prefer that solution over System Restore. Windows Media Player working fine. Nvidia drivers (7900GS) working fine. The only problem that has consistently surfaced is the loss of System Restore points when I use the boot defrag option in PerfectDisk 8. But I don't plan to use System Restore anyway once I get FirstDefense so that's a minor problem for me.
well, it all depends, if you really like the neato little tachometer gadget to watch your dual core usage and the way cool glass effects around the window, then join the vista bandwagon. if you think it is great to have to spend more on hardware just to let the operating system prevent you from doing certain very bad things, - it's just great if you want your computer to run software and due what your 4 year old machine can still do, you might want to wait for Microsoft worm hole, the next big thing in OSs
Upon receiving my E-521 with Vista preloaded, I was not pleased at all with the performance.
However, after performing a clean install of Just the vista OS, things changed a bit. System performance was up where it should have been out of the box, and other than issues with the sound card things went fairly well.
Went back to XP-pro due to the audio issues, as well as having a few pieces of software I like to run that just do not work on the new OS, and the fact that there are so many security holes and possible avenues for exploit I find it rather bothersome. Most of these "holes" were identified during beta testing and only a few of them have been corrected.
I'll wait till SP-1.5 before I load it back up. Definitely shows a bit of potential once you get past them moving all the settings around. Hopefully by then all the drivers and software updates I need will be in place.
Best and only major configuration change I made after the install was to turn off that annoying UAC feature.
Ag2Au
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Posted March 8th, 2007 11:00