Windows 7: How Slow Can You Go?

bobkn said:

joel406 said:

About 3 months ago I was in the market for a new laptop. After the usual rounds through the internet i started shopping localy. I found a Toshiba A305-S6905 at best buy with everything I wanted in a laptop with a great proce to boot. I already knew as soon as I got it out of the box the first boot would be to my Vista disk and a full format and install were a given. It was pre installed Vista HP x86. I re did it with Vista Ultimate x64.

The really funny part of the whole thing was as I was trying to purchase it the Bestbuy sales man was trying to upsell me on the same exact machine optimised by (get this) THE GEEKSQUAD!!??!!

I fought so hard to "not" flat out laugh in his face!

And they wanted an extera $40 for this "service".

Crapware installed by craptechs. Yeah thats what I want.

Damn good thing they had a factory sealed unit on hand otherwise I would have walked straight out.

That was more or less the reverse of the experience I had last year, with a (cheap) HP/Compaq laptop purchased at Best Buy.

They wanted $50 to scrub the crapware that came straight from HP. At least at that time, the software companies were paying the manufacturers to install the crapware. I don't believe that Best Buy was being bribed to add stuff.

For that price, I was prepared to remove it myself.

Turns out they'd already done it, so I got the service for free. I don't know what they actually did, but I didn't need to do very much additional cleanup. (Probably got rid of some time-limited commercial antivirus software, for example. I don't recall what sort was present.)

A clean install of Windows 7 has, I hope, made the machine as much mine as it can be.

It is sad they wanted to be paid to remove crap on a laptop that you never asked for...

When you bought the laptop...you bought the laptop itself, the OS, and the license for the OS...not all of the manufacture's offers so they might squeeze a few more bucks out of you...

Dinesh said:

The biggest crapware supplier is Dell. Buy a Dell PC with Windows 7 and you will get atleast 15 crap items which makes the performance go haywire.

I actually think you're correct . I remember my cousin's awesome (at the time) desktop PC and the crapware that bound it like chains.

Zidane24 said:

As sad as it is to say it...without that crapware, most laptops would be much more expensive than what they are...

It is a vicious cycle with un-knowledgeable members being left out in the cold.

You also have to look at the software options seen when ordering direct from one of the manufacturers as to what extras they will be charging for! hhmmm..... That can bring the price up.

As for Dell or ordering a custom gaming laptop while the support stinks they decided to offer the choice of OS shortly after Vista came out. Custom laptops is simply where you already specify things but "pay through the nose"! when you see the price tags like those at Alienware.
(gee only some $4,000-$5,000 or close!)

G ....eek Squad?! No thanks! I'll pass!

Night Hawk said:

Zidane24 said:

As sad as it is to say it...without that crapware, most laptops would be much more expensive than what they are...

It is a vicious cycle with un-knowledgeable members being left out in the cold.

You also have to look at the software options seen when ordering direct from one of the manufacturers as to what extras they will be charging for! hhmmm..... That can bring the price up.

As for Dell or ordering a custom gaming laptop while the support stinks they decided to offer the choice of OS shortly after Vista came out. Custom laptops is simply where you already specify things but "pay through the nose"! when you see the price tags like those at Alienware.
(gee only some $4,000-$5,000 or close!)

G ....eek Squad?! No thanks! I'll pass!

Funny this is the fact that an IBUYPOWER laptop (like mine) has the same power as a $5000 alienware at about 1/5 of the price...

Besides an anime wallpaper and a MMO that gets installed...no crapware from IBUYPOWER

That's due to ordering the laptop the way you want it from a 3rd source not a regular brand name. If you went into a Best Buy, Target, Walmart, or an office supply store like Staples you get what comes with the laptop at one of those places as if you walked into an HP or other dealer.

Pricewise? You know that the typical price range starts off for well under $1,000 when buying one instock at one of those places. The same would be seen with any desktop models as well. But you pay far less for the prepackaging then you would at some custom order vendors(Alienware and some others of course).

Another to remember about retail chains is that companies actually pay for shelf space to have their products on display. The typical unwary consumer then gets duped into buying the crapware as part of the deal.