ON WHEN I'LL BUY A VISTA MACHINE

WAITING FOR PRIME-TIME

A day after the official release of Microsoft's new Vista operating system, the anecdotal evidence on customer reception seems to indicate what one would expect for now.  As this AP story says it in it's headline, "Few Rush Out and Buy New Windows Vista".  This despite the fact that,

"Retailers around the world held special midnight events Monday or opened early Tuesday morning, as the Vista operating system and Office 2007 business software went on sale in 70 countries.

Some stores, including a Best Buy in midtown Manhattan, brought in extra employees to handle pent-up demand for Vista."

I've yet to stop by a store to check out the new operating system and Office upgrades.  This despite the fact that I call myself an early adopter that so often finds himself on the bleeding edge.

There's no question that I'll have several Vista powered desktops and notebooks all decked out with Office 2007 by the end of the year.  But it may be a few more months before I get started.

What am I waiting for?  Here are are the five key things:

1.  Vista Computers with Hybrid Hard Drives:  New Desktops and laptops releases that take advantage of the Hybrid hard drive feature of Windows Vista, whereby new laptop drives would come equipped with special hard drives with built-in bits of Flash memory. 

This enables faster boot-ups and lower--power computing on the go in principle.  Windows Vista also has related disk optimization features like ReadyDrive, SuperFetch and ReadyBoost, that are not to be found on the first crop of Vista-installed machines today.

2.  Sideshow laptops:  New Vista laptops that roll out with Sideshow, also a Vista capability that I've talked about in the past.  It allows the incorporation of a low-power secondary screen that displays information from applications in your PCs on the side of the machine, or even the side of a computer bag. 

This is a Vista capability that makes even Mac afficionados drool.  Gizmodo just took a fresh look at what Sideshow is all about.

3.  Gaming Out-performance: Reviews in the mainstream gaming magazines that solidly demonstrate that Vista machines finally outperform XP machines on gaming speeds and performance metrics. 

So far the reviews have been lukewarm on these performance differentials, primarily due to the beta nature of the video graphics drivers that work with Vista.

4.  Peripheral Assurance:  Again, more reviews in the mainstream computing magazines that more peripherals work with Vista out of the box than they seem to now.  This'll likely be a matter of a few more weeks.

5.  Higher-powered TabletPC laptop: Vista apparently has meaningfully upgraded the TabletPC aspects of it's feature set.  And while Toshiba has rolled out the very promising Portege R400 TabletPC with Vista, it comes with a relatively under-powered processor. 

So I'm waiting for a more powerful version with similar features, including Sideshow and the Hybrid Drive features mentioned above.

It's not a question of if all these wish list items will come to be but when.  Until then, I'll be a Vista tire-kicker in many of these stores.  This will likely be my last Vista post for a  little bit.

In the meantime, I'm switching my attention to Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X from Apple.

Disclosure:  I am a long-time shareholder in Microsoft and Apple.

Comments

[Yaser Anwar]

MP-

There are lots of issues, especially in Gaming, when you upgrade to Vista. I'm sure that won't be a problem for you but for the 70 million avid gamers, Web Tangent's gaming is like heaven. And for now, it doesn't work.

To make VISTA more secure, MSFT has added so many layers of "computer bureaucracy" that its insane.

Good luck anyways.

[Matt Keegan]

I won't be getting Vista anytime soon unless I decide to purchase a new laptop.

It seems that waiting for Microsoft to get the bugs out of something, if ever, is the best course. Plus, the price is way too high.

There shouldn't be much of a surprise that the response from consumers has been tepid thus far.

[Metoo]

I'm somewhat similar - I like the idea of Vista, but I've been waiting for some of the above developments before taking the plunge. (Wouldn't you feel insane to put down $2k or $3k on a great laptop but lacking a hybrid drive or an external sideshow enabled display and then have it become 'outdated' (more so than the usual pace of tech progress dictates) the next month)

But, let me give you the 'glass half empty' analysis: these promised features seem to be long long long in coming. Lots of talk, little action. Back in 06', the way msft and manufacturers talked, sideshow based laptops would be out in large number by, if not the launch of vista, then certainly Q2-Q3. It's May 2007. How many sideshow laptops have been announced ... I can think of exactly 2: the Asus, and the LG. Both of which are shoved into a specific (and unnecessarily limited niche) with their tiny 12" screens.

Hybrid drives were 'just on the horizon' in 06'. Again, it's May 07 and, for all intents and purposes, they don't even exist in consumer laptops.

How long should we wait for these features, and at what point have we undergone the transformation from 'wise consumer, making an informed choice to delay a purchase in anticipation of future advances' to 'poor soul, being led along by vaporware promises'