Dell Laptop, £352 Delivered Vista or XP, Good Spec?

treasureirealnds

i have belkin wireless for my pc. Is windows vista compatable with this does anyone know?
does the Dell one come with built in wireless adaptor? (if thats what it's called?)

Kilty_2

jayne.doe wrote: »

Beer i dont know why you think laptops go more wrong than say a PC. The laptop is all built in therefore less to go wrong. Prior to this one i had a laptop for yrs. One of my children dropped it and broke the screen but i never had any problems with it prior to that.:)

Smaller components packed into smaller spaces generating similar amounts of heat..... laptops will break down more often than desktops.

Wouldn't put me off buying and using one though.

timbellina

I've had a 17" screen on my laptop for a little over a year now. Got a Dell; it's been very reliable.

BUT! It's so much more useable than the 15" I had before. It feels like a "desktop replacement"; and I can, and do, use it exactly like that. Weight wasn't really an issue (the difference was really very minor) - but get the biggest battery you can.

Every now and then I think about a UMPC - I need to run an XP based payroll program once a month, and I'm self-employed, so if I go on holiday, and I can't run it, then people don't get paid. But, after the 17" screen, I just can't see myself going back to anything smaller - much less a 7" screen.


Tim

jayne.doe

Kilty wrote: »

Smaller components packed into smaller spaces generating similar amounts of heat..... laptops will break down more often than desktops.

Wouldn't put me off buying and using one though.

We have 2 pc`s in the house and 2 laptops one is IBM and the other mine the pc`s have more go wrong with them.....I can only speak as i find tho:)

melbury

I am about to buy son a laptop to take to university and we have decided to stick to one with XP, as there seem to be some issues with Vista at the moment and a lot of people are having problems with it.

I understood that Microsoft would be supporting XP for quite a number of years yet, but earlier post on here says only until next year!!! Is that true?

If this is the case, can you change over at some future date?

melbury

albertross wrote: »

If you want to change over at a future date, it will cost you.. what are the "issues" with Vista that concern you?

Have been told that existing printers, scanners etc will not work with Vista and some people are having problems with it getting online etc. I am not a technical person and just don't understand about dowloading patches to make things work! Also have been told that Vista Home edition is very slow!

Don't you think buying with XP is a good idea then?

gromituk

melbury wrote: »

I understood that Microsoft would be supporting XP for quite a number of years yet, but earlier post on here says only until next year!!! Is that true?

No it isn't. Vista is not due to be supplied from next year, but "support" (ha!) will indeed continue for ages.

It's ironic that this thread is about a Dell. Microsoft desperately wants to lead everyone by the nose into Vista, but Dell's users demanded XP, so Dell reintroduced it on new machines. Too many people are fed up paying to be Microsoft beta testers, and XP does everything that you would want a computer to do anyway.

Just defect to Linux (try it for free as a live CD without touching your hard disk, then install it for free as dual-boot, retaining Windows) and get off the commercial Microsoft treadmill. "Aero"-type gimmicks have been available on it for ages.

Kellm9

melbury wrote: »

I understood that Microsoft would be supporting XP for quite a number of years yet, but earlier post on here says only until next year!!! Is that true?

If this is the case, can you change over at some future date?

The support dates are different depending on the version of XP you have. But I think this laptop comes with XP home edition. From the Microsoft website this has mainstream support until 14th April 2009 and has extended support until 8th April 2014. If you have a look through the Microsoft site you can find these dates, they call them Lifecycle support, see link
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselectwin and choose your product.

Hope this helps
regards
Kellm9

melbury

Kellm9 wrote: »

The support dates are different depending on the version of XP you have. But I think this laptop comes with XP home edition. From the Microsoft website this has mainstream support until 14th April 2009 and has extended support until 8th April 2014. If you have a look through the Microsoft site you can find these dates, they call them Lifecycle support, see link
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselectwin and choose your product.

Hope this helps
regards
Kellm9

Thanks for the information. Don't really understand what they mean by mainstream support and extended support though. Is all of this support free of charge?

Kellm9

Melbury

Copied from Microsoft website. So absolutely no worries until at least 14th April 2009.

Mainstream Support

Mainstream Support is the first phase of the product support lifecycle.
At the supported service pack level, Mainstream Support includes:

• Incident support (no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims)
• Security update support
• The ability to request non-security hotfixes

Extended Support


The Extended Support phase follows Mainstream Support for Business and Developer products.
At the supported service pack level, Extended Support includes:

• Paid support
• Security update support at no additional cost
• Non-security related hotfix support requires a separate Extended Hotfix Support Agreement to be purchased (per-fix fees also apply)

Please note:

• Microsoft will not accept requests for warranty support, design changes, or new features during the Extended Support phase
• Extended Support is not available for Consumer, Hardware, Multimedia, and Microsoft Dynamics products