Thinking of a new Laptop, what do you all think?

[Cymbal Man Freq]

Ymmv

 

[tlarseth]

I just looked at my work computer, it is XP, and has 2GB RAM, and I have 26 tabs open in IE, and 3 tabs open in Chrome Portal, and one of those tabs is Netflix. I have yet to have a crash and this is an everyday occurance.

I would jump on an XP forums and post about it, or run a browser scanner that scans stuff like BHO entries, and I would run a virus scanner like Malwarebytes to check for viruses.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq]

I used to get by on 2.5 GB of RAM last year, but this year browsers are becoming an increasing problem. I've checked some other forums about it, the general attitude there from 90% of the regulars was, "I've got 16 GB of RAM, it will not be a problem for me!"

 

[tlarseth]

Have you tried Opera? It has full flash support, and to me is one of the less resource intensive and is actually pretty secure if you set it up right.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq]

I tried Opera on my Win 98SE machine around 2003. I wasn't impressed.

I'm on twitter a lot and on my XP machine, twitter refused to work on IE and Firefox after twitter did a layout redesign early this year, so I've been using Chrome since. I view a lot Instagram photos throughout the day, and twitpics, a lot of videos, a lot of news articles, just a vast array of any sort of RAM hungry website. The only way to get the RAM back is to shut down the browser completely, and sometimes a reboot may be more appropriate because there's probably some memory I've never even heard of that's probably maxed out.

My Win 98SE machine had to be rebooted every hour because the heap memory ran out constantly. I couldn't look at more than 75 large photos between reboots.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq]

Win 7 seems to have more Kernel memory than XP. I had to do some hack to get XP to give me 320 MB of kernel memory so Acronis True Image could work, but I have to reboot between backing up and validating the image because the kernel memory is maxed out. Win 7 seems to have more than 800 MB of kernel memory used up when I run Acronis (currently using 673 MB while I wait for an answer that may not be forthcoming in the backup section of this forum.)

 

[cytherian]

I agree, USB3 is the big kicker. Really makes a huge difference for people who use USB storage devices. I'm doing a half-baked version right now and realize a 40% improvement (USB 3.0 adapter in an Express Card slot). Full USB 3.0 would be more like 300%.

Very nice specs. Wow, tuck an SSD drive in that baby and it'll be like 20 seconds to cold boot! You might even beat out an iPad.

 

[tlarseth]

Win 7 seems to have more Kernel memory than XP. I had to do some hack to get XP to give me 320 MB of kernel memory so Acronis True Image could work, but I have to reboot between backing up and validating the image because the kernel memory is maxed out. Win 7 seems to have more than 800 MB of kernel memory used up when I run Acronis (currently using 673 MB while I wait for an answer that may not be forthcoming in the backup section of this forum.)

Another thing you can do is run MSCONFIG, and remove all uneeded startup files, I recommend manually starting them "When" you need them, they will take up a lot of memory, as far as Opera goes, since they got the deal with Nintendo, they have completely redone their browser, I think it is worth taking a second look at.

I was thinking about getting a tablet with 1 GB of RAM, but since Adobe abandoned Flash for Android this summer, I wonder if that pretty much disables the internet for hard-core internet surfers; and whether these low RAM devices with Win 8 even thought about memory hungry browsers.

There is a flash 11 apk available so you can still have flash player on your android device, the ICS update removed Flash from the market, but with the apk, I have full flash on my Droid Bionic.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq]

"I agree, USB3 is the big kicker. Really makes a huge difference for people who use USB storage devices. I'm doing a half-baked version right now and realize a 40% improvement (USB 3.0 adapter in an Express Card slot). Full USB 3.0 would be more like 300%."

I bought an external Blu-Ray burner a few months ago, and it's frightfully slow compared to my workload while using USB 2.0.
Probably have to get a spare USB 3.0 hard drive to copy to & from for Blu-Ray projects.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I'm interested in the answer to your question.

I just posted (post #44) in http://www.sevenforums.com/news/257997-windows-8-ready-set-preorder-5.html asking about downgrading.

Here is a thread i found that you should read.
HP urges consumer customers not to downgrade new PCs to Windows 7 - Computerworld

In your post/specs I don't see what version of Win8 you get, so maybe you have to buy a Win 7 license to downgrade???

I'm guessing this an HP laptop based on this in the specs you posted:
Webcam: HP TrueVision HD

And yet another reason to never buy HP products. HP has been notorious for not upgrading drivers on older equipment when a new OS comes out but now they are doing it in the other direction? Yeesh!

 

[tlarseth]

@DavidW7ncus, yes it is an HP Laptop

I do believe it is just regular Windows 8, very few laptops will ship with pro, so I have to either buy windows 7, or use a key that hasn't been activated yet to get to windows 7, between the hardware manufacturer's, and windows update, all drivers are accounted for with Windows 7, so no issues with drivers and downgrading. We did a gaming test run on this machine just to see how it compared to my current one...with GW2.

My machine on min settings and sub-rendering on, I get about 15-17 average FPS

On the HP I am going to buy, the game on max settings and Vsync off along with sub-rendering off, gave me an average of 70 FPS.

My laptop heats up to 95 degrees Celsius, the new one only got up to 52 degrees Celsius, this is with min settings on mine, and max settings on the other one.

I now know I will be buying this, but still undecided if I want to keep win8 or downgrade to win7, I do have an unused win7 key I can use for the downgrade.

I'm interested in the answer to your question.

I just posted (post #44) in http://www.sevenforums.com/news/257997-windows-8-ready-set-preorder-5.html asking about downgrading.

Here is a thread i found that you should read.
HP urges consumer customers not to downgrade new PCs to Windows 7 - Computerworld

In your post/specs I don't see what version of Win8 you get, so maybe you have to buy a Win 7 license to downgrade???

I'm guessing this an HP laptop based on this in the specs you posted:
Webcam: HP TrueVision HD

And yet another reason to never buy HP products. HP has been notorious for not upgrading drivers on older equipment when a new OS comes out but now they are doing it in the other direction? Yeesh!

HP doesn't just not update their drivers when a new OS comes out, they stop a few weeks after that specific model originally ships. I am going to give them one last try before I say screw HP and switch to the "Dude your getting a Dell".

 

[DavidE]

Thanks for that feedback.
Those are impressive differences for the FPS and temps!

I played with Win8 a little, and for me it's not worth the cost to upgrade.
If I was going to get a new PC i would consider Win8...
I learned i can use Win8 with a "3rd party Add-on" to add back the Start button.
I just don't like the idea of needing a 3rd party program to replace core functionality.
I prefer Vanilla systems as much as possible...for stability and reliability!

If I still played games i might have a different opinion.

 

[tlarseth]

My FPS and heat was with both machines with Windows 7.

 

[DavidE]

Oh, i misunderstood
I thought you were "going to buy", and tested the new laptop with Win 8.

 

[cytherian]

As for drivers, HP shouldn't be on the hook for removable 3rd party components. While HP should be out there lobbying with component makers to provide updates to drivers for their hardware, they better have their act together on things like the BIOS. Now if you're talking about an HP peripheral... I tend to avoid those. They used to make the best printers, and now they just make "pretty good" ones. Plenty of worthwhile competition from Canon and Epson.


But you know, having read about what has happened with the internal architecture of Windows 8, it's understandable about providing only minimal support if someone downgrades to Windows 7. This isn't like Vista-to->Seven. Seven-to->Eight is much more significant. In any case, with what people have discovered about running Eight with a Seven like customization makes it compelling to stick with Eight.

 

[gregrocker]

Let's be on the lookout for any modern hardware device that can't run on Win7. I haven't found one yet.

If manufacturers develop only drivers for Win8, then there should be some backward compatibility.

 

[Layback Bear]

I have only had one driver problem with Windows 7 and it wasn't Windows 7 fault.
Windows 7 and Nvidia recommended the same driver for the card but because it was a MSI O/C from the factory it didn't like the new driver. I'm presuming that Windows 7 recommended the new driver because Nvidia recommended it.

 

[DavidE]

Let's be on the lookout for any modern hardware device that can't run on Win7. I haven't found one yet.

If manufacturers develop only drivers for Win8, then there should be some backward compatibility.

According to the link below, HP will not be selling consumer systems with Win 7 now that Win 8 is available.
Also sounds like they are taking a hard line stance on not supporting consumer systems downgraded to Win 7.
This may be something people here should at least be aware of...

"Windows 7 will not be supported on these new platforms, and no drivers, apps, or Windows 7 content will be available through HP," the company states. "If users choose to downgrade their HP consumer desktop or notebook system, HP will continue to support the hardware but if there is an issue where HP diagnostics are required OR it is determined that the loaded software or upgrade operating system is causing the issue, HP may suggest returning the system to the original Windows 8 OS that shipped with the computer."

source: HP Warns Customers Over Downgrading Win 8 PCs to Win 7 [UPDATED]

 

[gregrocker]

This is the standard OEM policy for Clean Reinstalling to enforce the sponsor's crapware and keep the standard troubleshooting default at hand to run Factory Recovery. HP seemed to be getting smarter with the Minimal Recovery option on recent models.

The idea that they think they can enforce an unworkable GUI OS on non-touchscreens and push aside the best OS ever in just a few short years is so disastrous you have to wonder if they've even tried Win8 on a non-touchscreen device. They are turning their backs on perfection and embracing a mess.

This should either sort out by everything moving to touchscreen posthaste or the OEM's and MS will have to offer downgrade rights as they did with Vista. Offering consumers no choice is not a viable option, just as offering no Start screen option in Win8 is not a viable desktop experience.

 

[Layback Bear]

Adding and keeping all that trash that comes with a store bought computer is a cash cow that manufactures don't want to loose. They will try to make it more difficult to use your computer when removed if they can. Microsoft wants to sell lots of Windows 8 and HP wants to sell lots of touch screen computers; they will play ball with each other.