Need help choosing a flavor of Vista

Buck94 · #1 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 01:52 PM

I am purchasing a low end laptop for my wife and I have a choice of getting Vista Home Basic or Premium. The laptop is for work and will only be used for Internet browsing, word processing and email. I have very little Vista experience and was looking for some opinions. Thanks!

Gatorubet · #2 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buck94

I am purchasing a low end laptop for my wife and I have a choice of getting Vista Home Basic or Premium. The laptop is for work and will only be used for Internet browsing, word processing and email. I have very little Vista experience and was looking for some opinions. Thanks!

Do you still have your XP disc from another 'puter?

I'd still go with XP unless you needed Vista for some newer software.

Buck94 · #3 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 02:04 PM

I still have an XP license and software (though it is pre SP2). The laptop is going to come preloaded with Vista...Basic would be a no charge, Premium for an upgrade charge.

Following your point, I would then just go with Vista home basic and re-image with XP pro.

However, If I had to choose Vista, are there any tangible benefits to Premium over Basic?

Thanks for the quick reply.

Gatorubet · #4 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 02:12 PM

I'll let the smart tech guys tell you.

All I know is I like Vista less than my old XP.

scooter1369 · #5 (**permalink**) 09-24-2008, 09:26 PM

I prefer Vista Home Premium better than XP.

Most people that have had issues with Vista fancy themselves much better with computers than they are and [censored] things up on their own, or had issues with third party software before they released new drivers.

Vista is actually a pretty good OS. Go with Home Premium unless you are running more than 2GB of RAM. IF you are running 4GB RAM, go with Ultimate.

SparkyOSU · #6 (**permalink**) 10-02-2008, 01:43 PM

My experience with vista: 4 1/2 days.

My take: I like it for a non-power user that needs to be safe all the time. For me, I cant stand it- too many "are you sure?" confirmations. I am installing Home premium on my family computer because it has family friendly games preinstalled- a decent web filter and looks pretty for the wife when Aero glass is turned on. Now keep in mind I am running a AMD 2.1GHz tri-core CPU with 4GB RAM and a NVIDIA 9series GPU. I DONT recommend Vista for last years CPU. I say you should atleast be on a dual core with 2gig ram before upgrading. If not you might experience slow down which is going to lower your morale a peeve you off more at what could be a pretty nice experience.

not to mention Home Premium has the Media Center pre-installed which is nice for the segment of people that know about OTA HDTV recording and internet TV.

in short if you are ready - get Premuim... if your rich get Ultimate so you dont find something you really want latter and have to spend anothe 150 to upgrade again... or see if you want to wait for Win7.