Win7 Starter or XP Home for a netbook?

[Quattro Pete]

Fiance wants a netbook. I narrowed it down to an Asus model. She will mostly do web browsing, email, and movie watching on it. Would I be better off getting her the one with Win7 Starter or XP Home? Her current notebook has XP Home and she's very familiar with it.

 

[DieselTech]

I been looking at netbooks myself. I know there are alot of applications missing from 7 starter from what I have been told.

QVC.com might have something you might like also. Many of the items are available on 3-4 pay also

 

[Familyguy]

Of those choices, I'd probably choose Win7 since that is going to be supported for the longer-term. Either one will probably be just fine for that workload once you strip away all the extra cruft, trialware, etc.

For what it's worth, I'm currently fiddling with an Acer netbook and Ubuntu 9.10. Very snappy combo. It's going to be used mostly for watching movies on long flights to Asia and the usual web/email schtick. It came with XP, but it felt a little sluggish to me. In all fairness, I didn't really spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the problem was and just decided to pave over the hard disk with Ubuntu.

Best,

 

[OVERKILL]

I've used both on the EEEPC's.

XP is faster.
7SE looks better.

Both work well enough that no matter which you choose, performance will be fine.

 

[DieselTech]

Just make sure you know what comes with the starter application

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

Just make sure you know what comes with the starter application


and what doesn't more importantly.....

 

[DieselTech]

Yes sir!!

 

[d00df00d]

Win7SE, and turn off all the graphical doodads and such.

 

[simple_gifts]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/acer_slams_vista_home_basic/

Quote:

by making the entry-level version so poor that no-one will want to use it.


I know this is not Vista, but low end MS products are pretty useless, much like the XP Lite debacle they tried in SE Asia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3554084.stm

Quote:

"XP Lite" - will feature lower resolution graphics and limited options for networking computers together.


So research carefully.

 

[SrDriver]

I vote for Linux.

 

[MysticGold04]

Definately Ubuntu or the new release of Mint FTW!

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Do not, repeat do not, use Win7Starter. Please read this: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/thatshowtheygetyou.asp Paul also said later on that DVD playback is completely unusable due to the face that that S.E. uses base video drivers rather than any of the accelerated ones (can't remember the exact details).

Upgrade to Home Premium to use it as it's supposed to be.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Originally Posted By: SrDriver
I vote for Linux.


for a fiance?

 

[simple_gifts]

TNS, good heads up; Too bad my fears are still warranted. I don't spend much time researching MS product licensing issues. No need to.

For othersVD playback requires a licensed product IIRC; Dell offers a Ubuntu based Mini with DVD playback

-Thomas

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
For othersVD playback requires a licensed product IIRC; Dell offers a Ubuntu based Mini with DVD playback



I'm pretty sure that (restricted) DVD playback in any Linux distro is done by simply installing the libcss package. I *think* that ubuntu-restricted-extras has it, but if not it's in the repositories.

If you're unsure about loading up Ubuntu for a fiance's machine, you could always just order whichever one your research suggests (that comes with whatever flavour of Windows you feel is best), then trying out the Ubuntu Netbook remix on it.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Do not, repeat do not, use Win7Starter. Please read this: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/thatshowtheygetyou.asp Paul also said later on that DVD playback is completely unusable due to the face that that S.E. uses base video drivers rather than any of the accelerated ones (can't remember the exact details).

Thanks all, I ended up ordering one with XP Home. She has a Fujitsu scanner which I'm not sure is fully compatible with W7 yet, so just to be safe, I stuck with the old and tried OS.

As for DVD playback, the netbook has no optical drive, so she won't be doing any of this. By watching movies I meant DivX/avi stuff.

 

[Familyguy]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete

As for DVD playback, the netbook has no optical drive, so she won't be doing any of this. By watching movies I meant DivX/avi stuff.


The Swiss army knife of video playback is VLC. It's 100% free and you can download it at www.videolan.org

Best,

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Familyguy

The Swiss army knife of video playback is VLC. It's 100% free and you can download it at www.videolan.org

Best,

Thanks. Yeah, I know VLC. I'm guessing VLC works just as well with W7SE as it does with XP Home?

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Do not, repeat do not, use Win7Starter. Please read this: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/thatshowtheygetyou.asp Paul also said later on that DVD playback is completely unusable due to the face that that S.E. uses base video drivers rather than any of the accelerated ones (can't remember the exact details).

Upgrade to Home Premium to use it as it's supposed to be.


No....... You can watch DVD's providing you install DVD SOFTWARE, it does not come with Media Center for doing so however. That is one of the limitations.

 

[greenaccord02]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Originally Posted By: SrDriver
I vote for Linux.


for a fiance?


I used it for a wife... It just depends whether she's open to the idea of trying new things.