[boead]

I just bought an HP Laptop, a Pavilion dv7. 2.2GHz duel core AMD, 4GB memory, 320GB hard drive, eSATA, HDMI, Radeon HD graphics, webcam and so on… Beautiful display, beautiful body and finishing – I’m really impressed at the value. With an 8-cell battery it weighs in at just 7.5lbs.

I picked it up at about 9am a few days ago. Went to work, only had time to plug it in and let it charge for a couple of hours. I later fired it up for the first time, got frustrated with the long process of registering. Made my “once only” copy of the recovery discs (3 DVD’s) that took about 2 hours! It came with Vista64 Home Premium and lots of bloat-ware.

I then installed Windows 7 RC1 Ultimate Edition which took about 30 minutes. Nearly all the drivers were available in the install pack! What wasn’t were devices like the 5-in-one card reader, remote control and some other unimportant things and all these missing drives were on HP’s site, the Vista64 drivers all worked fine.

Regardless of what you may have read, both good and bad, Windows 7 is a Home Run!! Absolutely great, fast to boot, VERY intuitive navigation and functionality. I’ve always found the default nav schemes to be “not my cup of Joe” but I am giving Win7 a try and loving it. It’s very snappy, downright quick to respond especially for a mobile computer. Folder navigation is smart; the way private and public folders are intergraded is right on. This portable computer is for the kitchen, living room, backyard and will be used by a few of us in the house.  Win7 is certainly going to make it easy to share photos, videos and stuff and it’ll also be easy to backup (I use a NAS-box).
HiDef video playback is smooth, audio is quite and clean. For a pre-release OS this is awesome, hell as a final release this is perfectly acceptable. I’ve used every Microsoft RC OS since Win95 and this is by-far the best. Brilliant people at work over at Microsoft, they should be proud.

BTW: I shopped notebooks for some time, this is my first! I’ve been in the graphic arts, entertainment and  publishing industry (print and video) since the late 80’s. I’ve done system integration and IT for about 15 years and quite honestly I’ve never wanted a laptop. They were always too slow and annoying and I never really needed one. I like toys but with a purpose – sorry boys.
I came close to an Apple MacBook Pro a few times. I played with them extensively over the years, especially recently. Win7 compares VERY favorably to the Mac OS so far. Then consider the price:performance and it’s a no brainer. Apple’s got a rough road ahead of them with Win7 and powerful sub $1000 Notebooks available everywhere. This notebook I just got was $650 at Staples on sale. I could buy 3 of them for the price of a comparable MacbookPro.


After a few days living with Win7 I’m hooked!! I’m going to convert my workhorse quad core next. I just upgraded my WiFi too and speed is extreme. I also have this notebook connected to my living room audio system.  It’s the “house” stereo; late 80’s Energy pro22 speakers, early 80’s Kyocera amp, iPod dock, TT and a Pioneer CD changer – oh and some outdoor rock speakers by the pool. Audio quality is good considering. I copied over about 100Gb of MP3’s and a slew of movies and TV episodes. On the rack, the PC makes for a cool music server. The included remote works nicely, especially with Windows media Center. Quick response from across the room, access to tens of thousands of songs and internet radio as well as access to my NAS box with thousands of lossless tracks.

You know what sucks? iTunes! Holly shite, this program just keeps getting worse. It took a few hours for iTunes to read, download album art and so on all that other nonsense it does. THEN I told it to activate Genius – another 4 hours late and failed as usual! If I didn’t have an iPod, I’d rid myself of that beast/memory hog app. I mean, I like the way it works, its intuitive and all but poorly written. I LOVE the newest Foobar2000 app, fast and nice to use – finally. It also sounds the best. And Windows media player is excellent too. Fast to catalog all 100GB of MP3’s, much faster then iTunes and it sounds great AND the visualizations are much cooler.

If you have a relatively new PC, either desktop or laptop I’d consider switching to Win7 RC1. It’ll be free till June of next year and will be consistently updated and convertible to a paid version when its necessary. 64-bit Win7 AV is free too. If you’re going through a router (and most are) Windows firewall and defender are more than adequate. I’ve used them for years on all my PC’s and NONE have ever gotten viruses or hijacked unintentionally. You can download an MS check-list app to check your hardware and software apps. Its best to not upgrade you vista but let it install a clean OS; it’ll automatically back up your entire computer to a Windows.old folder so nothing is lost.

Sorry for all the words, just excited and wanted to share.
Enjoy!
 

[Mr Content]

Interesting stuff, thanks for the info on it. I am in the market for a new PC, doing a lot of big file photo work. may just wait until win 7 is released. Boead, what is a good video card choice for photo editing?

Mr C aa

[whubbard]

I've been using 64-bit vista since it came out. I just downloaded 7RC1 and am going to install it on my secondary PC.
What would you say the big differences are between 7 and Vista?

I personally loved Vista, so I'm really thrilled about 7.
The real problem Microsoft has here is that XP is stable, supported, easy to use, and frankly, perfect...ergo, nobody wants to switch.

-West

[GHM]

I've been using Windows 7 on all 3 of my PCs at home, laptop included since December. 32 Bit on two of them and 64 Bit on the main rig( QUAD core). I'm still hooked on the OS!
I started to download the RC, but figured since I would have to reinstall when Windows 7 is released . I would be better to just wait.

I like how you can plug up a device and Windows 7 will go find the driver for you on the net. This is a very cool OS!

[MerlinWerks]

For an iTunes alternative try J. River Media JukeBox (not for iTouch/iPhone though) or MediaMonkey, there are at least a few others.
I believe Win 7 RC1 will start to shut down your computer every 2 hours starting in Mar 2010, so even though it'll keep working through June, effectively it may only be usable until March.

[jaywills]

Lessee here, a Microsoft release candidate that appears to be incompatible with one of its major competitor's most popular programs.  Sure didn't see that coming.

[richidoo]

Thanks boead. Another positive Win7 review on Anatech, with more technical details.

I use Red Chair Software's Anapod for file transfer in and out of iPod. It has worked flawlessly for 6 years.

[boead]

Lessee here, a Microsoft release candidate that appears to be incompatible with one of its major competitor's most popular programs.  Sure didn't see that coming.

Oh no, iTunes suck on all computers! At work (WinXP) its so horrible I stopped using it (duel core, 4GB RAM). People ask me all the time why iTunes won't work well on their PC. I just tell them they're not alone and its not their fault.

For a software compay that claims to make the best applications in history (self proclaimed) They sure have trouble writting a simple music player, I mean lots of other tiny companies don't seem to have any problem? Maybe they're not as smart as they think they are. 

[boead]

Interesting stuff, thanks for the info on it. I am in the market for a new PC, doing a lot of big file photo work. may just wait until win 7 is released. Boead, what is a good video card choice for photo editing?

Mr C aa

I always liked anything from ATI allthough nVidia is good too. I don't like the intel graphics. This machine has the Radeon HD 3200 which is nothing special, visual quality for photos is quite good. Allthough allot of that has to do with the quality of the screen.

[jaywills]

"Oh no, iTunes suck on all computers!"

That prolly explains why nobody uses it.

[PhilNYC]

Lessee here, a Microsoft release candidate that appears to be incompatible with one of its major competitor's most popular programs.  Sure didn't see that coming.

Oh no, iTunes suck on all computers! At work (WinXP) its so horrible I stopped using it (duel core, 4GB RAM). People ask me all the time why iTunes won't work well on their PC. I just tell them they're not alone and its not their fault.

For a software compay that claims to make the best applications in history (self proclaimed) They sure have trouble writting a simple music player, I mean lots of other tiny companies don't seem to have any problem? Maybe they're not as smart as they think they are. 

iTunes works great on Mac...maybe it's easier to develop apps on MacOS...

[tonyptony]

I'm also a long time Windows user (but I do see why others may prefer a Mac), but haven't yet tried v.7 beta. Has Microsoft finally provided a real color mangement system, or an audio layer that does not mishandle the original data stream?

[GHM]

 ...I could almost see where this is headed!!! For the record I tunes never worked well for me. I had to do a new install to get that crap of one of my computers! It was like a virus, I couldn't get it to uninstall through the normal process. A buddy uses it on his Mac but dislikes how it tries to pick and choose what music to save. It erased half or locked him out of his HD claiming the music was illegal.
Good thing he still owned the CD's so he could rip it all back to the HD!

WASAPI works like a charm with J.River and Foobar. It does a great job handling the original data stream.

[Jon L]

It's nice to hear MS (hopefully) learned from the disaster that is Vista. 

I'm still sticking with XP Pro for my audio PC and will continue to do so until some controlled listening comparisons are done by me and others that compare optimized XP Pro vs. optimized Win 7, both using ASIO (or whatever bit-perfect method) playing lossless files through revealing systems. 

[dvenardos]

Interesting, never had a problem with iTunes and Windows XP (I build my own computers), but only use it for listening to podcasts on the computer and managing iPod. I have a separate FLAC folder for use with squeezebox.

[boead]

Lessee here, a Microsoft release candidate that appears to be incompatible with one of its major competitor's most popular programs.  Sure didn't see that coming.

Oh no, iTunes suck on all computers! At work (WinXP) its so horrible I stopped using it (duel core, 4GB RAM). People ask me all the time why iTunes won't work well on their PC. I just tell them they're not alone and its not their fault.

For a software compay that claims to make the best applications in history (self proclaimed) They sure have trouble writting a simple music player, I mean lots of other tiny companies don't seem to have any problem? Maybe they're not as smart as they think they are. 

iTunes works great on Mac...maybe it's easier to develop apps on MacOS...

You missed the point, there’re are plenty of other software apps for Windows that work wonderfully and most of them are from tiny companies that take donations to stay in business and who’s developers have other ‘full time’ jobs.

I was working in a local video production studio today; they just moved to a new building and were in the process of re-building multiple editing suites. A once dominated Mac hardware environment has given way to nearly ALL Windows PC (Avid Systems mostly) one, with only a single Mac around running Final Cut Pro. Some of us were discussing why Apple doesn’t release a Win version to compete with Avid Systems. Apparently Apple makes NO $$ on the Final Cut app and associated media server, they are just trying hard to get the studios to go back to Apple hardware. Unfortunately for Apple, Abode has aggressively improved Premier Pro (now in version 4) which is growing on even hard core Final Cut fans. I installed Premier Pro CS3 on my new $650 notebook and its great and more then capable of professional editing.

Apple doesn’t want to make a proper functioning iTunes? Likely not if it persuades people into buying Mac hardware – for their iPod. ??

Not attacking Apple and I wouldn’t want this discussion going in that direction. I just commented on how horrible iTunes 8 is on Windows XP, Vista and v7 when there is just NO good reason for it. With iTunes I like to use the selective sync to easily and quickly organize what music, video and pictures are on my iPod Touch.

Enjoy fellows.

[EDS_]

Lessee here, a Microsoft release candidate that appears to be incompatible with one of its major competitor's most popular programs.  Sure didn't see that coming.

Oh no, iTunes suck on all computers! At work (WinXP) its so horrible I stopped using it (duel core, 4GB RAM). People ask me all the time why iTunes won't work well on their PC. I just tell them they're not alone and its not their fault.

For a software compay that claims to make the best applications in history (self proclaimed) They sure have trouble writting a simple music player, I mean lots of other tiny companies don't seem to have any problem? Maybe they're not as smart as they think they are. 

iTunes works great on Mac...maybe it's easier to develop apps on MacOS...

You missed the point, there’re are plenty of other software apps for Windows that work wonderfully and most of them are from tiny companies that take donations to stay in business and who’s developers have other ‘full time’ jobs.

I was working in a local video production studio today; they just moved to a new building and were in the process of re-building multiple editing suites. A once dominated Mac hardware environment has given way to nearly ALL Windows PC (Avid Systems mostly) one, with only a single Mac around running Final Cut Pro. Some of us were discussing why Apple doesn’t release a Win version to compete with Avid Systems. Apparently Apple makes NO $$ on the Final Cut app and associated media server, they are just trying hard to get the studios to go back to Apple hardware. Unfortunately for Apple, Abode has aggressively improved Premier Pro (now in version 4) which is growing on even hard core Final Cut fans. I installed Premier Pro CS3 on my new $650 notebook and its great and more then capable of professional editing.

Apple doesn’t want to make a proper functioning iTunes? Likely not if it persuades people into buying Mac hardware – for their iPod. ??

Not attacking Apple and I wouldn’t want this discussion going in that direction. I just commented on how horrible iTunes 8 is on Windows XP, Vista and v7 when there is just NO good reason for it. With iTunes I like to use the selective sync to easily and quickly organize what music, video and pictures are on my iPod Touch.

Enjoy fellows.

The irony is beautiful.  You attack iTunes, Macs and Apple and then say you didn't.  You should run for office.

I have iTunes on a MacBook, a Toshiba laptop running Vista ex-XP, and an HP laptop running Vista. It works as advertised on each. 

 

[boead]

The irony is beautiful.  You attack iTunes, Macs and Apple and then say you didn't.  You should run for office.

I have iTunes on a MacBook, a Toshiba laptop running Vista ex-XP, and an HP laptop running Vista. It works as advertised on each. 

good for you. 

I wasn't attacking Apple, just iTunes.

[flintstone]

Windows 7 is very nice, I think the best ever from M.S.  I had the Windows 7 BETA, and now have the RC on two computers (64 bit and 32 bit). I usually run a Linux based system because I haven't liked XP or Vista much...my wife has Vista, and I have XP pro.

[ctviggen]

The irony is beautiful.  You attack iTunes, Macs and Apple and then say you didn't.  You should run for office.

I have iTunes on a MacBook, a Toshiba laptop running Vista ex-XP, and an HP laptop running Vista. It works as advertised on each. 

good for you. 

I wasn't attacking Apple, just iTunes.

I have iTunes, and it works perfectly well under XP, for what I use it for (which solely is to load my iPod).  As for XP versus Vista, Vista seems to be much more trouble than it is worth, for no benefit that I can see.