Windows 7: More disapointing as the days go on

[Temporary_User]

So let me catch up on this.
You can't find a comparable PC to the setup Mac because there is not LED monitor for the PC?
You can't find a comparable Mac to the setup PC because there is not a 30" monitor for the Mac?

I like everyone else understand why I would want a 30" over 27". Why would I want to give up 3" for LED?

[HotHotHeat]

I'm just going to mention this....

I spent the day installing Windows 7 and messing around on it. From a 'know nothing' every day consumer, here's my review...

Windows 7 suffers from a lot of the same user experience issues as Windows Vista. The mouse and keyboard just don't act as well as they do on a Mac. You really need to use a Mac to understand the difference.

It's sluggish at times. I've already had IE 8 freeze on me twice, and the start menu pops up on me randomly.

The rest of it is just the same as Vista. The control panel is terrible (unorganized, hard to find things...There's no mouse settings icon, just a like 'mouse' link in the corner of the hardware page).

The new system of minimizing and chooses windows is neat. They've reworked it nicely, but again, using it with a trackpad mouse is a disaster.

I will say this. It's a better effort than Vista. Then again, that's not saying much.

Here's the thing. What happened to the idea of innovating? I honestly could not tell you more than 3 innovations MS has made from XP to this week's release of Windows 7. What the hell has the world's largest software company been doing for the last decade?

That's an honest question. They are nowhere near the forefront of software development anymore, nevermind creating an original, quality OS.

I have no doubt that people will attack this post and say I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm a Mac fanboy, etc. Before you do, I hope you realize that whatever you feel is keeping Windows ahead of Apple in the OS development battle is completely a figment of your imagination.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

You know at first I was willing to concede the non sale price, but the more I think about it, that's one of the key differences between the Apple world and the PC world. Steve won't ever give you a discount on what he sells you, while PC stuff does go on sale (in a big way sometimes), hence resulting in one of the reasons why Mac equipment ends up being overpriced. One of the wonders of not being in a monopoly. So, no - sale prices are indeed fair game in a PC world.

Courtesy our friends at RFD, the 3007-HC has gone on sale ever 3 months at $899. Wait a few weeks, I bet goes on sale again! So it's not like it's some once in a lifetime event. It's like buying something from the Bay - why pay full price when you know a Bay Day is going to happen at some point.


Heheheheh - I knew you wouldn't wrap your head around the difference in value from a 30" to 27" monitor, despite your prior comments to someone regarding the difference from a 24" to 27".

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Edit: Although, now that I think about it, you won't even be able to see it all anyway. Since the resolution on those 27" screens is much much much larger than yours, you'll only be able to see a small portion of the screenshots on your monitor (regardless of the size). It's ok though, I think PCs support horizontal scrolling so you should almost be able to get the same effect.

How lucky you'll be that your multitouch mouse will have some fancy gestures to scroll downwards when you try and view a screen cap from a 30" monitor vs a 27"

We clearly need to get to something with the same monitor size. I like the idea of turning this into a 30" build off challenge - oh wait, that's right - not possible for Mac. Fine, lets do this at the Mac's next available price point - 21.5"

Dell Inspiron 545 - $941
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q8200 (4MB L2, 2.33GHz, 1333FSB)
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 4 DIMMs
1TB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
nVidia GeForce GT 220, 1024MB
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
Dell 1525 Wireless-N PCIe Card
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader
Piano Black

$250 - Dell 2209WA IPS Monitor (I wont even use the $220 sale price!)
40 Dell wireless desktop
20 speaker bar
50 webcam
20 bt

$1321

Mac 22.1"
# 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
# 1TB Serial ATA Drive
# ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MB
# 8x double-layer SuperDrive
# Apple Magic Mouse
# Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) and User's Guide

$1599

$278 - 21% difference - Winner = PC


Heck, lets take it at the Mac's next price point, the lesser 21.5" model. Basically drop the HD to 500GB and detune the vid card to something in the 2800 3dmark range.

Same Dell 545 deal as above, with a 500GB drive, and but now a Radeon 4350. = $732
$250 - Dell 2209WA IPS Monitor
40 Dell wireless desktop
20 speaker bar
50 webcam
20 bt

$1,112

Mac - as above, but with 500GB HD, NVIDIA 9400M.
$1,300

$188 (17%) difference - Winner = PC


Now's lets address the likely rebuttals from the Mac "crowd" here..

1) But it's a quad core 2.33 Ghz Q8300 vs a dual core 3.06 CPU!

- I put it to you that the Q8200 is a close enough equal to the 3.06 Duo. Might even be better in some situations, but of course, less so in other. EQUAL!
- Dell inexplicably has moved on to the quadcores at this particular moment, so no Core2Duo comparison is available.
- Apple loves to use SPEC CPU 2006 #'s and reports 31.7/41.8 on it's webpage. SPEC themselves checks a Q8200 in at 39.2 / 38.2.

2) But it lacks LED backlighting!

- This reminds me a lot of when people shop for LCD TV's and come upon the 120/240 hz obscure specs. Specs are one thing, but 90% of people can't tell the difference.
- Fanin80 - you worked at a FS, so answer this question honestly. If you took 50 average customers at random, put a 22" LCD with LED and and another one with out it in front of them - what percentage do you think would a) be able to pick it out? b) be willing to pay 15-20% more for it.
- I humbly submit to you that no more than 25% (and I'm being generous here) of people could tell the difference, and even fewer would pay the extra 15-20%.

3) Yeah but it lacks that smooth sleek styling.

- Granted. But we're not talking styling, just performance for dollar.

4) Meh it's only $XXX difference, the Mac is TOTALLY worth that much more.

-To a gadget obsessed person, sure! But this debate is over dollars. It's all about percentages and the fact that on average, Mac's will cost you more.



If you're up for the challenge Fin80, if you really want to prove that Mac's as a whole are not "overpriced", you need to do it a various price points, not just at the very top. That means: $750, $1,000, $1,500. 15-20% is the minimum I expect a PC to be cheaper. Wanna play?

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

How lucky you'll be that your multitouch mouse will have some fancy gestures to scroll downwards when you try and view a screen cap from a 30" monitor vs a 27"

Screen size has nothing to do with image size. Both screens are the same resolution, so the screen shots will be 100% identical in dimensions.

As for whatever else you have, it's 1:30 in the morning and I couldn't care less. I'll look at it in the tomorrow, though, and I'm quite certain I'll find enough holes in it to shoot it down.

If we're lucky, we can still be doing this six years from now too. I know I'm looking forward to it!

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

I'm just going to mention this....

I spent the day installing Windows 7 and messing around on it. From a 'know nothing' every day consumer, here's my review...

Blah, blah, blah.... I'm a Mac fanboy

Fixed.

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by Bent Wookie

Fixed.

How exactly do you think you're being perceived in this thread?

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Screen size has nothing to do with image size. Both screens are the same resolution, so the screen shots will be 100% identical in dimensions.

Bzzt. As wrong as Apple charging it's iPod customers $10 for updates....

Apple 27" = 2560x1440.
3007-HC =2560x1660.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Temporary_User

So let me catch up on this.
You can't find a comparable PC to the setup Mac because there is not LED monitor for the PC?
You can't find a comparable Mac to the setup PC because there is not a 30" monitor for the Mac?

I like everyone else understand why I would want a 30" over 27". Why would I want to give up 3" for LED?

This. 100x this.
Its an inherently flawed challenge. You can build a Mac that's impossible to match the specs 100%. You can build a PC that's impossible to match the specs 100%. Why some people don't want to admit that? I don't know.

[MickMcGeough]

Worst. Thread. Ever.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

So... about this Windows 7. I just installed it last night and I don't really notice any difference. I do like the 'snap' feature they added in and the fast sleep + restart/shut down. But this is not worth $130 or whatever they're selling it for. Heck, it's not even worth the $60 bucks I bought it for. This is essentially just a gigantic service pack from Microsoft.

Is there anything I'm missing that makes this the greatest thing ever?

Anyways, continue on... about macs vs pc's.

Most of the improvements in this release aren't going to be in the eye candy department.
Improved boot times, kernel improvements like better performance out of multicore processors, hardware support improvements, improved UAC, support for virtual hard disks, better support for SSD, etc. Important features for sure but nothing that's going to wow your average user the first time they boot into it.

Sure, they did make other improvements like some UI enhancements, improved control panel (yes, even if a mac user is confused by its the first tiem they open it... its not a mac after all), RAW image decoder, and what not.

They didn't blow it up and re-invent the wheel because they didn't have to but there are definately some important improvements there, even if they're not immediately apparent at first glance.

[HotHotHeat]

Just noticed that Windows 7 took up 26 GB. It must be all that awesome clip art.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Just noticed that Windows 7 took up 26 GB. It must be all that awesome clip art.

Really? Is that a typo? According to Microsoft the requirements for the 32 bit version is only 16GB. Even the 64 bit version is only listed at 20GB.

edit: And yes, all the extras to have full hardware compatibility with everything on the market and backwards compatibility, etc add up into a larger OS footprint. Some OS's worry about that kind of thing, some don't. Probably not something worth starting a computer holy war over. Each type of system has its place.

[HotHotHeat]

I understand the backward compatibility thing, but it's not a typo. I have 21.2 GB of free space on a 50.6 GB partition. I've installed the OS, Google Chrome, and msn messenger. And bootcamp for the Mac drivers. I thought I read 17 GB or something too somewhere.

[wooohooo]

It only took me 16 GB to install. But I only did 32 bit instead of 64

[Phaneuf3]

Optional OS components aren't included in the minimum requirements maybe?
IE8, shadow partition or whatever they call it, etc..

Can't say I paid that close attention to my disk space when I was playing with the beta/RC... on a 250GB drive gaining or losing a couple GB isn't the end of the world.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Just noticed that Windows 7 took up 26 GB. It must be all that awesome clip art.

Man, this sure is a problem, what with the limited amount of HD space available these days.

Wait, they make drives now that are 1000GB?

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

I'm just going to mention this....

I spent the day installing Windows 7 and messing around on it. From a 'know nothing' every day consumer, here's my review...

Windows 7 suffers from a lot of the same user experience issues as Windows Vista. The mouse and keyboard just don't act as well as they do on a Mac. You really need to use a Mac to understand the difference.

The rest of it is just the same as Vista. The control panel is terrible (unorganized, hard to find things...There's no mouse settings icon, just a like 'mouse' link in the corner of the hardware page).

I think you over estimate "know nothing every day consumers" act, If they arent addicted Mac Fan Boys they might be able to find START > CONTROL PANEL > MOUSE

http://www.techtalkz.com/windows-7/5...ndows-7-a.html

Or, if they were unable to find START > CONTROL PANEL > MOUSE - they might be able to find www.bing.com or www.google.com and type in "how to change mouse settings in Windows 7"

[HalifaxDrunk]

Sorry, I have nothing to add to this train-wreck except this....

[Bobblehead]

BTW - the new 27" iMac is a panel that isn't available other than Apple yet.

It is actually made by LG - model number LM270WQ1.

Interesting site where they disassembled the iMac.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac-...27-Inch/1236/1

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by FurnaceFace

Same thing for a PC....and perhaps this will be a fun exercise. I'm in the market for a laptop. I have the following wants:
Light. 3.5 lbs is about the max, I want it under 4 for sure and the closer to 3 the better
Display. ~13" display with 1280 at minimum
Battery. I'll go with 6+ hours to get me through the majority of long flights I'd take
Processor. Something I can run photoshop (even an older version like 7) and play movies on. I don't need 1080p quality movies, but I want something with graphics capability.
The most game intensive thing I'd likely run is EA Sports games.
At least 2 GB RAM
At least 160GB HD, 250 or higher is gravy
Wireless. G is fine, I have nothing which runs N
As many USB ports as possible and the every popular SD slot

I don't care about webcams
I have no bluetooth devices
It'll never get hooked up to a TV so DVI doesn't matter to me

Find me the best PC and Mac deals with those specs please.

Fanin80 did a decent post on this back at post 62. However, I realize now he never used the sale price of the Dell! Full price is for suckas....at least in the PC world.

Using your requirements, here's where Dell (one of the more pricey vendors) can get you to:

Vostro 1320 - $779
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, with Media, 32-bit, English

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P7570 (2.26GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)

Obsidian Black
No Productivity Software
13.3 inch WXGA Anti-Glare Display
No Integrated Webcam or Microphone
Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card
4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz, 2 DIMM
320GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with Free Fall Sensor
Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+/-R write capability
9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Price:$779

and the specs on the cheapest MacBook

13" MacBook
13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display with 1280 x 800 resolution
2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 1066MHz bus
2 GB DDR3 memory @ 1066MHz
250GB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics with 256MB DDR3
Glass Multi-Touch Trackpad
Built-in 7-hour battery
Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi 802.11n
Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet
Built-in iSight camera
Built-in stereo speakers
Built-in omnidirectional microphone
Combined optical digital output/headphone out

Price: $1,099 ($1,209 if you increase it to 4GB of RAM)

Difference = $320 = 41%. ($430/55% if you equalize the RAM)

I won't even get into the world of other vendors - no time right now but I'm pretty sure there's a better deal to be had than the Dell. Although this Asus is nice if you're into the pretty MacBook Air look...

I'll be honest though, at the 13.3" screen size, playing EA sports games or doing heavy duty Photoshop is kind of crazy, and neither the Mac or Dell above will be great for that. This screen size doesn't lend itself nicely to these activities, hence why a decent vid card adapter is tough (or impossible for Mac) to find at this screen size. Step up to 15" if you're going to do that primarily.