Laptop Question

The processor is sound, don't worry about that. Got one in my macbook.
As for vista, I wouldn't have it personally, they might change it to XP though if you ask nicely

I dislike vista so far, but then I disliked XP when it first came out.
If you buy a machine with Vista home premium I'm pretty sure you are allowed to downgrade to XP on the same license, (just need to find a kind soul with a spare copy of the corporate CD and a key (pretty easy with XP)) that way you have bought a future proofed license, you can put it back to Vista after they have got SP1 out the door and working well.
If nothing else you can try Vista when you get it that way, if you pay the same to get it with XP you are stuck with that.
Just my opinion anyway.

[tigersaw]

I bought an HP with Vista a few months ago, and hated its sluggishness from the word go. HP would not supply drivers for allowing me to upgrade to XP, but finally got them from Nvidia after a bit of detective work using the FAA numbers on the motherboard to ID it. I put on XP pro - from google research only pro supports dual core - and now it runs like it should. I have real world figures that show it runs more than 50% faster than before, using test progs with whetstones, dhrystones, 3d jiggerypokery etc.
Nothing about Vista felt right, it was always hammering the disk, always nannying and very annoyed when you try to install non m$oft utilities.

I just bought a HP laptop with similar spec to Matt's but not a small one (normal 15.4" screen type).

Vista on occasion seems a tad slower than I'd expect from the spec, and that's with (what I gather) is a better graphics card - though still integrated (GeForce 7100).

I've only had one problem so far - and it's relatively annoying for me - that is, Microsoft have removed the IPX/SPX protocol from Vista onwards (XP has it but you need to manually install). A lot of my older games won't work over the network without this. I couldn't get a hack I found online to work either, I don't think this has been solved properly yet.

I've only really been browsing the web, MSN, so far so not really using it (just wanted it so I can sit in the lounge lol).

Btw the model is the HP Pavilion dv6000 according to the label on it.

Just buy a mac and forget windows completely

I recently bought a HP G6000 with Vista on it. Bought mainly cause of what I heard about Toshiba. Had no problems with it at all, there are now another 2 of these that members of my family have bought, all good so far.

I know someone who bought a very nice Acer laptop from Comet today.

It cost £360 which included a case, wire mouse and 1gig flash memory.

Thanks for all your replies guys, some food for thought there

I'll go away and research some more laptops aswell

Matt

Originally Posted by lukemillar

Just buy a mac and forget windows completely

+1, as windows is pants and makes me cry.