It seems there are some issues with Vista and the BB. I need to buy an 8320 and a new laptop for a business associate....is there any reason why I shouldn't just get XP?

Any suggestions on a nice laptop with XP? (seems slightly difficult to find without Vista) Looking for a new, decent, somewhat compact, well-equipped notebook for around $1,000 or hopefully less.

Get Vista! It is a great OS that is only getting better. They are already on a beta SP1 and the OS has been very reliable for me. Go with a Dell or Sony laptop.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8320/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/-1)

Dell or sony? They've got to be the two most proprietery companies.

Personally I still like XP better but Vista does everything just fine, I find it a little slow on notebooks though.

for laptop brand i would go with HP, I had an acer and had to send it for repair 3 times, my HP never after 2 and a half years

I would go with XP if you still can. Here is an interesting read on what Vistas overhead does to your system:
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
I had Vista on a new Dell with a new HP printer and was never able to get the two to work. It also sucked up 85% of resources with 1 gig of ram with nothing else running. I ended up going back to XP. I know Dell still has some systems with XP available. You could always purchase and oem full cd from Ecost, Tiger Direct or similiar.
Vista does look cool, but if that's what you want go with a mac, Suse or Ubuntu.
Good luck.

Talk to any IT people and I bet they will tell you they're never upgrading to Vista - we sure aren't. Stick with XP and you'll be fine.

I got Vista Ultimate on my Dell 1710 and it works very well. Fast and NO error messages what so ever. The latest Desktop maanger work quite well with Vista and 2007 Outlook/Office.

Vista is not the monster that everyone say it is and I find it well behaved on both laptop and desktop!

Since I switch over from MacOS, I been using XP and my laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1501. This is my second Dell and not once have I called support. Very steady and reliable. Vista reminds me too much of Mac besides I have heard that some drivers do not work with vista yet.

XP - XP - XP

I bought my wife a sweet T-61 in the summer. I got Vista on it. After months of trying to get along with Vista, I bit the bullet and wiped the box and installed XP on it. (Along with the 22 individual drivers from the IBM/Lenovo website required to get everything to run).

I cannot recommend strongly enough to stick with XP for now. Unless you have loads of cash to max out the RAM, and lots of other PC's in your house and you just want to "try" vista on a spare box.

If this is your primary box - make it XP.

EDIT - I do recommend the t-61 laptop. I got a decent box for 1k (though it was a good deal I found on fatwallet)

i recently built a new machine and installed vista business......i hate it.

i will probably wipe it and install xp soon.

4 gig ram

keeps shutting drives off, causing time lags. (with raptor drives too)
also the stupid security features drive me insane. it asks for permission for everything.

everything in the box is high end. my cost, and i shopped around was $1900. (ok, so i bought a 24" monitor too)

If you feel youre pretty proficient with XP and it will cost you less I'd say go with XP.

If youre not (the reason I ask is because ppl proficient in XP may have a hard time adjusting to vista because of some changes) and the cost is either even or on par to get vista, id say go with vista.

If you are going to get vista, get at least vista business. I think the better of the five or six flavors available.

Vista is not bad per say...it has its problems, just like xp did when it came out (memory hog, incompatibility issues, etc for vista) and like an above poster said, they'll be coming out with SP1 shortly which should make it even more stable...

Sad part is, is that microsoft has made upgrading such a difficult and expensive venture. Mac you have one choice and it gives you everything for about, what $100? Microsoft, you could pay nearly $400 for one license and then you have to choose between all these flavors

Osx 10.5

I have 5 pcs at work with XP (2 laptops) and 2 with Vista.(1 laptop). Hands down, we are having way more trouble with the Vista machines. I think it's obvious and safe to say that Vista may become a great OS, but it's far too early for it to be stable at this point. I would wait a year before I buy any other machines with Vista on em, so they have enough time to work out the bugs and get everything compatible with it.

At the bare minimum, if you do get the /vista laptop, make sure you get at least 1 gig of ram...I would go with 2 personally. On the plus side, the new office on Vista is freakin amazing!

Good luck!

Tough call, I have Vista installed atm, hated it at first. The security always asking questions even though I was admin was annoying ( but found where to turn that off after a while). After getting used to Vista, I would say I like it and think it has a lot of potential ( just wish I could figure out why I cant get cd/dvd drive to work atm)
If you are thinking of going Vista later, it would be best to get it now as it will be cheaper with a new computer/laptop, but you need to be willing to deal with possible issues until its all sorted.
Go with 2gig ram for Vista IMHO, dont get acer... I had a good toshiba for a long time that I liked, but a lot of people dont like them. HP are good.

Well I'm definitely going with XP....was leaning that way anyways but this thread confirms it. That T-61 does look pretty nice.

Thinking about buying here...the one with XP Professional and upgrade the ram to 2G for $60.

Lenovo - Notebook computers - ThinkPad T61 14-inch

I'm an IT Pro and XP Pro or Media Center are still the way to go. Vista still has a slew of compatibility/general bugginess issues.

As for brands, Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Toshiba are generally pretty reliable. Stay away from Gateway and especially eMachines.

XP.....can't go wrong there.

I'm going with a MacBook for my next laptop... been using XP for a few years now, and I don't mind it...

its ridiculous how fast new technology comes out though... lol, by the time you make up your mind on what to buy, something better comes out...

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