Windows XP v Vista

inmypocketnottheirs

My parents (80 and 73) are considering buying a laptop. They have zero pc experience.

I have XP and am advising them for ease of use, and so that I can help them troubleshoot, and for availability of software they should opt for XP.

Does anyone else agree, or advise to the contrary?

Also is anyone aware of the major brands in stock anywhere with XP if this is the best option? We have found Evesham have a laptop with Celeron processor 80 GB Hard Drive, wireless card for £500. All machines on Dell site are Vista as are Currys, PC World, Staples etc.

Thoughts and comments welcome! :beer:

Browntoa

Dell still have some XP machines in the Dell Outlet

Vista is fine but a lot of old programs don't run due to compatability problems ( Dell are shipping Works 8 with theirs and it does not work properly !! ), some stuff has been moved from Xp but it does have a similar feel.

I would suggest that at their age they would be better off with a small XP desktop PC with a 19 inch TFT screen for ease of viewing ?? I'm sure there are still loads floating around on Ebay ??

Only AVG of the free antivirus works on Vista as far as I'm aware at this time and NONE of the free firewalls but the new Vista firewall does block incoming AND outgoing traffic unlike the XP one so would suffice until the free ones catch up

inmypocketnottheirs

Thanks for your advice. So far I think XP is the favourite. You may well be right about desktop with larger monitor, I think it is a question of space for them and hence preferring the laptop. But a very valid point I will discuss.

zenmaster

Browntoa wrote:

Only AVG of the free antivirus works on Vista as far as I'm aware at this time and NONE of the free firewalls but the new Vista firewall does block incoming AND outgoing traffic unlike the XP one so would suffice until the free ones catch up

I believe that Avast antivirus also works with Vista. I've not tried it myself but their forum states that it works with both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Vista.

GoofyGAT

I agree with Browntoa, & this Acer L100 (small form factor PC with Media Center Edition - basically WinXP, & a 19" TFT), or something similar would be ideal. As you can see, not only is it compact but also spec-wise it blows the Evesham laptop away.

My neighbour (in her early 60s) purchased the L100 recently & is very pleased - it was her first ever PC btw. Look around, you may be able to get it for less - she paid £399 from Tesco, but they're now sold out. G

inmypocketnottheirs

GoofyGAT wrote:

I agree with Browntoa, & this Acer L100 (small form factor PC with Media Center Edition - basically WinXP, & a 19" TFT), or something similar would be ideal. As you can see, not only is it compact but also spec-wise it blows the Evesham laptop away.

My neighbour (in her early 60s) purchased the L100 recently & is very pleased - it was her first ever PC btw. Look around, you may be able to get it for less - she paid £399 from Tesco, but they're now sold out. G

Def prefer the AMD processor to the cr*ppy Celeron. Thanks for the tip, I will see if I can steer them away from the Evesham.

Thanks!:beer:

inmypocketnottheirs

Think we got a result. A Packard Bell with Centrino Processor 1.8 MHZ, 120 GB HD, 1024 MB RAM, 15.4" monitor, XP Media Centre for £500 from Currys.

Pretty chuffed!

Rob_K

Hope this isn't too late!

Personally I'd recommend they get Vista.. It's a far more elegant and stable OS than XP, far less susceptible to malware/spyware/viruses etc, and like the Mac fans have been saying for years about their OS- it "just works" - no need to install lots of drivers, (and when there is a need, Vista will go off and find the driver for you as long as you are on the internet)

If this is their first experience of a PC, Vista is streets ahead of XP in terms of usability and smoothness of user experience..

with this in mind, Dell's Dimension C521 (it's the one that's advertised for £399) has the following spec:

Vista Home Premium
AMD Athlon X64 X2 Dual core Processor 3800+ (I'd recommend upgrading to the dual core for £23- well worth it
Collect and Return 1 year warranty
19" Monitor - better for the old folks as the text will be bigger and clearer
1024Mb RAM
160Gb Hard drive

Price: £422


Hope this helps and isn't too late for you!!

junkiepilot

Rob_K wrote:

It's a far more elegant and stable OS than XP,

:rotfl: your having a laugh right? Vista more stable than XP! It falls over at every hurdle whilst kicking the crap out of your processor....I wouldn't touch vista until it has a SP released to fix all the bugs.

superscaper

junkiepilot wrote:

I wouldn't touch vista until it has a SP released to fix all the bugs.

Why do people get so obsessed with service packs. It's just a name for a collection of updates. Not sure why an arbitrarily chosen cut off for a collection of updates should make it so much better than one small update before etc. And of course there's no such thing as "fixing all the bugs". No piece of software in history or will ever be written that you can prove to be bug free. :j

wolfman

junkiepilot wrote:

:rotfl: your having a laugh right? Vista more stable than XP! It falls over at every hurdle whilst kicking the crap out of your processor....I wouldn't touch vista until it has a SP released to fix all the bugs.

Have you actually used Vista?

Once you do you'll find it's actually very stable. In my opinion on a similar level to XP. We've been trialling it here for ages due to IIS7 and it's been great.

And no it doesn't "kick the crap out of your processor". Ok so you need a machine that can handle it, but if you have got one it'll run fine. And before you start the Aero argument, most of the load is handled by the GPU which effectively free's up CPU cyles.

You could wait until SP1 "to fix all the bugs", of which nothing major have been reported. Or of course you could stick with XP which had 20 critical flaws fixed last month, to Vista's none.