Another question that came up in my mind. Will the Intel Core Duo T2300 and a Radeon X1400 be sufficient enough for Windows Vista?

The Acer Aspire 5672WLMi that I am thinking of getting has Core Duo 1.66GHz, Radeon X1400, 100GB SATA 5400RPM, 1GB DDR2 667 RAM. But will these specs be sufficient enough for Vista when it comes out?

I am a student, and I can't really afford to buy a laptop every year, so it would be nice to know.

It will easily be enough for the premium version of Vista.

I appreciate the comment CoffeeShark, but can you please show me the link to where you got that info (I searched all over the internet and I cannot find anything concrete).

I need to be sure, because on a student budget with debt beyond my neck I will not be able to afford another laptop in a while (good thing the college I am at gives MASSIVE discounts on software including Retail OSs).

Yes, the Radeon x1400 will support Windows Vista with the Aero glass theme with the desktop window manager (DWM). Even the older Radeon 9600+ cards will run fine. Of course, the more graphics and system RAM the faster it will run.

Well, technically speaking, nothing is for sure because Vista/Longhorn is still in beta. CoffeShark is probably using some of the builds of Vista that's floating around on the web (if he's not a beta tester). You can google for Vista's Hardware Compatability List (HCL). But it's pretty safe that whatever hardware you buy now will have support when Vista comes out. If you want to use Vista's Aero (or whatever the heck they're calling it today) interface and all the eye candy, make sure your laptop vid has around 64M or greater. Probably of more concern is if your laptop meets Microsoft's DRM when playing certain types of media. By the way, most universities (at least ones in the US), if you enroll in an engineer course, most likely you can get the necessary softwares (OSes, Maple, Mathematica, CAD, CAM, Spice, etc..) for free, go talk to your computer support department.

P

This is tearing me inside, I am having doubts about whether I should get it now or not.

Well, I know the feeling. If you need a laptop, get it now, there's no point in "tearing" yourself over it. Life's too short. For the "average" user, there's not much difference on the surface between Vista and XP. The only major difference is the interface. In fact the interface in Vista sucks in my opinion. If you want transparency (and want to use Microsoft Windows), transparency is already built into Windows 2000 and XP (at least the APIs are there). You can use a program called glass2k that will allow you to have transparency in Win2k/XP (and it doesn't suck up a lot of resources compared to Vista/Longhorn). For the other eye candy stuff, you can use Konfabulaor, MagicDock, etc... to create an interface that is loads better than Vista.

P

I just got done trying the beta build 5270 on my MSI-1029, boy is it system intensive, my cpu usage was at 50% when I wasn't using a single program, just lettin it sit. I figure it's just a beta thing but it crippled my system.

It was alot prettier than xp. It actualy had some thought into the look rather than randomly throwing bright colors anywhere. XP looks like a 4 year old just ate crayons and threw up on a computer screen. I'm happy that microsoft went ahead and made a decent looking OS. I still think that OSX is prettier though but its close now.

It's not a beta thing. If you remember back when XP was first out, enthusiast systems were approximately 256-512mb of PC133 or DDR266. XP idles @ 128mb of ram used when all is said and done. People were freaked out because it used so much resources and they continued to use W2k or 98 for atleast 1 maybe even 2 more years. Then hardware that is capable of running the O/S faster started getting cheaper and most 98 w2k users switched.
I'll be the first to tell you that it's a bad idea to immediately switch to a new O/S from microsoft when it comes out. I did it with XP and I'm planning on waiting for atleast a year with Vista. I'll get certified on it immediately, but I'll wait to use it myself.

Yep, Vista definitely is system intensive. They may clean up the code or whatnot a bit, but I wouldn't expect anything phenomenal in terms of performance improvements.

The only thing I could think about against the 5672 is that it's still a 32 bit chip and I'm assuming Vista is going to be the real push into 64bit computing for the mainstream. You may want to keep that in mind. There will be a 32bit version of Vista, but 64 is where it's going to be at in the coming years after Vista.

A briefing by Microsoft personnel is what i'm basing my statement on, and their recommendations for Vista basic and premium. The other beta testers around the forums can give you some great indications of how beta2 is going.

Premium will demand a dedicated video card, preferably something around the ati x300 or later, with 64mb dedicated. Basic will run on integrated gpus but not have the 3d interface of Premium.

ATI Cards
http://www.ati.com/technology/windowsvista/index.html

Nvidia cards
http://www.nvidia.com/page/technology_vista_home.html

integrated Intel
http://www.intel.com/business/bss/pr...ons/mobile.htm

check back here for updated requirements:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/win...guid.mspx#EBAA

Why do you really want Vista, especially if you have a tight budget?

It's not like it will do anything new, other than be pretty.

Because the world changes, and we have to change along with it, I am not going to use XP forever, I'll have to switch eventually like 90% of the remaining population.

Vista SP1 won't come out 'til early 2007 so it's at least a year before it'll even be safe to use. Do you really want to wait a year? XP will be on peoples' PCs for a long time to come... don't underestimate it.

Edit: I'm a student too, I know what you mean about futureproofing but it's not the end of the world to use XP for another couple of years.

yeah i had 98 up until my last computer died last year. it was fine