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Yesterday Scobleizer reminded me about the whole Mac versus Vista debate, with his post about Vista on Dell’s Tablet. It seems not only Robert is having that issue, here is an Attorney with similar complaint:

… another reason why I prefer Apple computers. Mac laptops sleep when you close the lid and wake up instantly when you open the lid. You can do this over and over again, for months, and never have to reboot. Very few, if any, people have this experience with Windows computers.

First, directly to the point being discussed. There are excellent controls provided by Windows Vista to make this happen on PC laptop! In fact, this was one of the first things I adjusted when our new Dell laptop arrived. Yes, I had to dig deep inside myriad of Power Management settings in Control Panel. The question, of course, is what was Dell and Microsoft thinking!? Why isn’t this CONFIGURED PROPERLY out of the gate?

Mac has really come of age, and with Firefox running well on Mac, it finally is a leading second choice for desktop. But, here’s my message to Steve - we are not imbeciles! We can figure out how to use 2 Button Mouse! And it isn’t just me, I hear from a friend who otherwise loves his Mac Laptop, that his biggest complaint is that there is no second button on the mouse!

I have been running Vista on my primary PC for over half a year now. It is a monster machine, with 4gb ram and 4 cores processor, so I really don’t feel any sluggishness or anything. Quite the opposite, in fact, but would it be even faster with Windows XP? I never did run XP on this PC, so we may never know. And even if a single process would be faster on XP, I am not sure it would be as fast/efficient in utilizing 4 cores with as many processes as I run…

PS: If you want to know what exact settings I put on Vista on our Laptop, just ask in comments, and I’ll promptly put up a detailed write-up there.

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As many of you know, after months of planning and research I bought my wife a lovely birthday gift. It’s a top notch Vista Laptop, from Dell’s Vostro Small Business Line. Naturally, I am typing this mini-review on it right now.

We have been using our Vostro 1400 since the beginning of September, which, albeit not much, is still more than some other people reviewing things out there (yes, Amazon Kindle reviewers, I am looking at you!!).

I must say I had high expectations for this laptop, mostly since CPU and motherboard technology has come such a long way lately. This year Intel finally got their act together and introduced low power / high speed CPU line, which is a real necessity for having a decent mobile machine.

I am not into lengthy reviews, and I think my readers aren’t either, so here’s the summary of what I think are most critical points:

• Cool looks, but most importantly runs Cool also! The thing does not heat up! Unless you are doing some intense gaming, the fan doesn’t run, or runs at very low speed. I can finally keep it comfortably on my lap without getting burned!
• Integrated 2 Megapixel webcam, microphone, WiFi, and other small touches are great and really add to overall appeal (click on picture above for details).
• The 14" model that we got is pretty light; without extended battery it is only 5.3 pounds, not ultra lightweight, but reasonable indeed.
• Long battery life, advertised at 7 hours with extended battery, though we haven’t had a chance to test it in the field yet.
• Power cable connector "snaps-out" if it’s pulled (or tripped over) accidentally. Now quite Apple’s magnetic connector, but still nice of Dell to finally put some engineering thought into the "little things".
• Comes with free Integrated 10 GB Online backup. Dell is keeping it free for this year, and they told me they don’t know if it will change next year, or if they will ever charge for it.
• The laptop itself is inexpensive! Yes, that is a feature, for me at least!

I got it with Vista, naturally, and I think that’s the only way to go. Looks like they heard my plea and added Vista Home Premium option also. Too bad we already got ours, but still Kudos to Dell for listening to their customers!

If you are buying, make sure to opt-in for Vista Home Premium or higher. Make sure to add Integrated Web-Cam with Microphone. Also, we got ours with 2GB of RAM, and don’t you even think about going lower, though it’s pretty much standard these days anyhow.

That’s all for my mini-review. Overall it’s a great machine, no problems to report thus far. Runs everything you can throw at it, including games in high-resolution, just make sure to add nVidia 8400 or higher, if you plan on gaming with it a lot.

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