Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7

[nplima]

[...] OK, Macs. No. Dell. Mac. Dac. Mell. Bah.

hahahah decisions, decisions....

there are more PC brands than Dell, you know? it looks like you want OS X on something other than a Mac. it's tough...

A friend of mine asked for my help in getting her a new laptop. £500 max. I'll do the setting up, so it will feel like a new toy for me 🙂

 

[Goona]

Windows 7 will be less buggy on release. Apple doesn't
beta test as thorougly as Microsoft.

How well did Microsoft do with testing Vista?

 

[Anuba]

hahahah decisions, decisions....

there are more PC brands than Dell, you know? it looks like you want OS X on something other than a Mac. it's tough...

A friend of mine asked for my help in getting her a new laptop. £500 max. I'll do the setting up, so it will feel like a new toy for me 🙂

Well I'm hesitant to throw a third brand into the mix. I had a bunch of different crappy PCs in the 90's and then I bought my first Dell, and it was my first PC that was of quality build (this was in 2000 mind you, so no comparisons between plastic and cable spaghetti vs. the interior of the current Mac Pro, please... the plastic turqoise G3 machines weren't so pretty on the inside either). I never had a single problem with it. I've stuck with Dell ever since. Their service is pretty hard to beat, and that's important IMO. I've looked at HP but their product line and web site are so confusing it gives me a headache, and those are the only two brands with the kind of service I'm looking for (NBD on-site repairs).

Yesterday I looked at Dell's ultimate behemoth, the Precision M6400 17".

It's an 8-pound beast with aluminium enclosure, quad processor, dual hard disks with RAID, up to 1 TB, 1 GB NVidia Quadro graphics, up to 16 GB of RAM, full backlit keyboard with numpad, 17" edge-to-edge LED screen with 100% Adobe color gamut. It beats the living hell out of the MBP 17" in all benchmarks, and has a weird trackpad which, when you press a button, lights up to become a jog/shuttle wheel for video editing and such:

I saw a demo where they used it on the timeline in Flash, and it was wicked. This one could be an actual desktop replacement, I could go back to using a single computer... but then it all fell apart when I saw the fine print: First, the battery life is 2 hours. This is bad even for Dell (who will give you up to 9 hours on some other machines), but I suppose powering all these desktop-grade components comes at a price. But what's worse, It has some proprietary Dell firewire chipset. As some of you may know, the TI chipset is the only way to go for firewire audio. Everything else will just snap, crackle and pop your audio to smithereens. The corner-cutters at Apple tried to sneak an Agere chipset into the previous gen MBP and there was mayhem in the audio community; they quickly switched back to TI.

Getting hold of a laptop with a TI firewire chipset is very hard, unless you buy an MBP. But thanks to the suckiness of BootCamp, Windows users can't enjoy the TI chipset goodness through an MBP due to Apple's keyboard driver causing huge DPC spikes (deferred procedure calls = they cause dropouts in the firewire stream).

Aaaaaand it's back to square one. 🙄

 

[jaw04005]

How well did Microsoft do with testing Vista?

Contrary to popular belief, the Windows Vista beta test was the largest operating system beta in Microsoft's history up until 7. Anyone and everyone could join the beta. The general public could join by signing up via Microsoft Connect, the Windows' Web site or even posting your e-mail address in the comments section on some of the Microsoft's employees' personal blogs.

Microsoft just failed to listen to feedback in hopes the Vista backlash was similar to the uproar when Windows XP debuted and would eventually go away. It didn't work out that way.

 

[steveza]

Microsoft just failed to listen to feedback in hopes the Vista backlash was similar to the uproar when Windows XP debuted and would eventually go away. It didn't work out that way.

This was the key failure of Vista. Due to the management structure that was in place at the time Vista was developed much of the feedback from the beta phase was ignored in order to speed the product to market. That coupled with quite senior staff micromanaging every detail of the development process (down to icon colour choices) created a monster.

MS has gone to great lengths to show that W7 will not suffer from these problems. Reading some of the staff blogs (like this one) shows that things have changed for the better.

 

[Stridder44]

I saw a demo where they used it on the timeline in Flash, and it was wicked. This one could be an actual desktop replacement, I could go back to using a single computer... but then it all fell apart when I saw the fine print: First, the battery life is 2 hours. This is bad even for Dell (who will give you up to 9 hours on some other machines), but I suppose powering all these desktop-grade components comes at a price.

You say that as if you were surprised or something. Laptops this big (i.e., notebooks with desktop-grade components) are not very mobile to begin with, and cost more than a desktop you could build yourself with equal or better parts. They all are 10 pounds, 4 inches thick, and have a 2 hour battery life. But they have RAID and 16GB of RAM, oh boy! 🙄

 

[tubbymac]

That thing is seriously pushing the definition of a laptop. 10 lbs and 2 hour battery life is too much of a compromise. At that size you might as well just get a Mac Pro or another high end desktop since you don't have much portability with that config anyway and at least with a desktop you'd have an easier time upgrading the thing. Besides cramming all those desktop level components into a laptop frame is going to make it serve as a radiator as it's gonna get pretty hot.

Finding the TI firewire chipset on a PC machine is tough. Most PC vendors stick some junk JMicron or Agere firewire controllers in the machines and hope people don't notice. You really have to do your research in the PC minefield filled with cheapo cost-cutting companies (Dell and every other manufacturer included) if you're looking to get lag free real time firewire I/O.

 

[iNikon]

The more you post, the more you look like the moron that you are. Pass the Kool Aid, please. 🙄

It's simple.

Windows 7 is no more than Vista, with a little different design, some removed programs, and which basically went back to Xp's speed, and improved it a bit. So it's just a little faster than Xp, (And I don't care about what tests say, I'm talking about my experience).

So, Snow Leopard will make Leopard even faster than it is. Which means, it'll certainly be faster than Windows 7.

That's all about speed.

And about all the other things, well, it's just like the previous versions:

Speed/Performance: Snow Leopard.
Security: Snow Leopard.
Stability: Snow Leopard.
Design: ?, we still don't know how the Snow Leopard design will be. Windows 7's design is basically identical to Vista, so I'd give this to Snow Leopard.
Best 64-bit system: Snow Leopard.

So for what is Windows better? For...em...nothing, except if you're looking for the cheapest computer you'll use only and only for games, nothing too serious.

Oh, and you can customize Windows, there are thousands of horrible, disgusting themes you can find online!

Have fun.



And because it's unstable. And slow. And easily infectable.



BS, it naturally gets slower the more you use it, the more you install program. Just like any other Windows version.



BS again. It's because of the instability. The registry. Partial uninstallations. Malware. It's not just about drivers.

 

[fleeglegeep]

Well I'm hesitant to throw a third brand into the mix. I had a bunch of different crappy PCs in the 90's and then I bought my first Dell, and it was my first PC that was of quality build (this was in 2000 mind you, so no comparisons between plastic and cable spaghetti vs. the interior of the current Mac Pro, please... the plastic turqoise G3 machines weren't so pretty on the inside either). I never had a single problem with it. I've stuck with Dell ever since. Their service is pretty hard to beat, and that's important IMO. I've looked at HP but their product line and web site are so confusing it gives me a headache, and those are the only two brands with the kind of service I'm looking for (NBD on-site repairs).

My brother works for a cell phone company and he has customers that come in with their laptops regularly so he can set them up with that new fangled wi-fi anywhere that you can get on your laptops through your cell phone account. All of the really old used and abused laptops that come through the door say Dell on them.
Some of them looked like they served as boat anchors or were drug behind cars. But the customers bring them in, open them up and low and behold start up they do.

 

[Anuba]

You say that as if you were surprised or something. Laptops this big (i.e., notebooks with desktop-grade components) are not very mobile to begin with, and cost more than a desktop you could build yourself with equal or better parts. They all are 10 pounds, 4 inches thick, and have a 2 hour battery life. But they have RAID and 16GB of RAM, oh boy! 🙄

I am surprised they didn't stick a bigger battery in the machine, given its ample size. HP's equivalent, the Elitebook 8730 (with nearly identical specs and form factor) gives you 4-10 hours depending on battery configuration. And Apple shoved an 8-hour battery into the MBP 17". 2 hours (and that's what Dell says in the specs, so make it 1-1½ hours) is bottom of the barrel in this class.

And please, not the DIY desktop PC speech... I've already stuck with desktop machines waaaaaay longer than anyone else I know, but building them from spare parts is where I draw the line. Too Linux-geeky and parents' basement-ish for me.

 

[nxent]

i dunno, will windows 7 actually be consistent in waking up from sleep? or is that something they fixed in vista?

 

[Anuba]

Finding the TI firewire chipset on a PC machine is tough. Most PC vendors stick some junk JMicron or Agere firewire controllers in the machines and hope people don't notice. You really have to do your research in the PC minefield filled with cheapo cost-cutting companies (Dell and every other manufacturer included) if you're looking to get lag free real time firewire I/O.

My Dell XPS700 actually does have a TI chipset, so there's a good chance they're putting that chip in other machines as well, at least the desktops. And you can always buy a PCI or PCI Express 1394 adapter with the TI chipset on it if all else fails. Unfortunately there's something weird with the XPS700 that makes it useless for Firewire audio no matter if I use the onboard firewire or a PCI card w/ TI chipset. It's fine in XP, but when I run Vista or Win7, no sample buffer/latency setting can stop the audio from crackling, and I've found that it's the graphics in certain audio apps that are doing it. If I minimize the app windows, audio performance is fine. I has a modest NVidia 8600GT so I don't see how it can strangle firewire, but there you go... I've had to resort to using the iMac for audio. Which is lame, as it has the cheapo AGERE chipset, but it's still better than the XPS700. This is the main reason why I wanted to replace the XPS700 with a Mac Pro, I know I'll be getting the TI chipset, but then with the fan control and DPC spike issues in BootCamp it would be just as bad as the XPS700. Unless of course I just run everything in OS X, but I want to use Win7 primarily. Gaaaaaah. All I need, really, is BootCamp 3.0 with fully functional fan control and no weird bottlenecks and buggy drivers, all ambivalence and frustration would disappear and I'd place an order for a MP quad 2.66 and an MBP 17" right this minute.

i dunno, will windows 7 actually be consistent in waking up from sleep? or is that something they fixed in vista?

You're having trouble getting Vista to wake from sleep mode? About half a dozen times over the last couple of years, my Vista laptop has returned from sleep showing only a black screen and a mouse cursor, and I've had to hard reboot. I eventually realized that it only happens when the machine is already asleep and I dock it with the port replicator, when I then open the lid to wake the machine up it apparently doesn't know what planet it's on so it freezes up. Other than that, waking up works as expected every time.

 

[Goona]

Contrary to popular belief, the Windows Vista beta test was the largest operating system beta in Microsoft's history up until 7. Anyone and everyone could join the beta. The general public could join by signing up via Microsoft Connect, the Windows' Web site or even posting your e-mail address in the comments section on some of the Microsoft's employees' personal blogs.

Microsoft just failed to listen to feedback in hopes the Vista backlash was similar to the uproar when Windows XP debuted and would eventually go away. It didn't work out that way.

Well I guess that's why my Vista machine is so crap, and the programs keep freezing and crashing.

 

[Anuba]

Well I guess that's why my Vista machine is so crap, and the programs keep freezing and crashing.

Then why don't you fix it?

There are two Vista apps that are known to crash and freeze often on some configurations - IE7 and WMP.

The problem with IE, in 9 out of 10 cases, is Adobe add-ons -- conflicting versions of the Flash plug-in and/or PDF plug-ins, or a bad egg version of either plug-in. Track down the culprits by disabling the IE add-ons, one by one.

The problem with WMP, in 10 out of 10 cases, is one or more rotten third-party DivX/Xvid/FFDShow codecs.

Nothing other than those two is known to crash frequently, and the issue is with third-party add-ons and not the OS itself -- just like when Leopard hangs, freezes and throws BSOD's due to Kaleidoscope, LCC, DivX and other 3rd party enhancements that try to make themselves part of the system with limited success.

 

[Stridder44]

The more you post, the more you look like the moron that you are. Pass the Kool Aid, please. 🙄

Like I said from the beginning, he was a total troll. Notice how he hasn't come back "enlighten" us with any more BS. Don't get me wrong though, I wish he would. His posts are funny.

I am surprised they didn't stick a bigger battery in the machine, given its ample size. HP's equivalent, the Elitebook 8730 (with nearly identical specs and form factor) gives you 4-10 hours depending on battery configuration. And Apple shoved an 8-hour battery into the MBP 17". 2 hours (and that's what Dell says in the specs, so make it 1-1½ hours) is bottom of the barrel in this class.

And please, not the DIY desktop PC speech... I've already stuck with desktop machines waaaaaay longer than anyone else I know, but building them from spare parts is where I draw the line. Too Linux-geeky and parents' basement-ish for me.

No no I wasn't suggesting you build your own machine (although it is way cheaper, pretty damn easy, and hardly parents' basement-ish...that's like saying fixing cars is too repairman I-didn't-go-to-college-ish). It was just an example. But yeah, I really hope Boot Camp 3.0 is released with Snow Leopard and would finally fix the driver issues and terrible battery life problems.

 

[Anuba]

No no I wasn't suggesting you build your own machine (although it is way cheaper, pretty damn easy, and hardly parents' basement-ish...that's like saying fixing cars is too repairman I-didn't-go-to-college-ish).

Fair enough. 😀

It was just an example. But yeah, I really hope Boot Camp 3.0 is released with Snow Leopard and would finally fix the driver issues and terrible battery life problems.

Yep. I'm not much of an electronics techie but isn't heat the worst battery killer (in terms of total life span, not per-charge life)? I read somewhere that a high temperature in the environment where you charge a Li-Ion battery can seriously cut the number of recharge cycles a battery will handle. And I can think of no hotter place for a battery than the cramped furnace that is an MBP running Vista x64. I would imagine that these bizarre issues with overheating that people are having with BootCamp+Vista on UMBP's, to the point where they start getting random graphics artifacts, are also shortening the lifespan of the battery. The occasionally non-removable-and-ludicrously-expensive-to-replace battery, that is.

 

[MikhailT]

The most important fact is that both OS is on the right track because everybody is gaining something on both ends. Snow Leopard and Windows 7 will bring a very close battle in a war between Apple and MS and that only benefits the customers because for the first time in recent history, both OS may turn out to be very good and desirable for both sides. It only encourages innovations from both ends for the next OS. W7 has something SL don’t? Apple will come up with something better for 10.7, SL has something W7 don't? MS will copy it. 😛

MS lost the battle between Leopard and Vista in the never-ending OS war (until one company goes out of business of course) because Vista did suck in the beginning with horrible drivers support and so on. This resulted into a bigger market share and better “company image” for Apple. While they are still gaining more people, the question now is can they continue the momentum into the new battle between SL and W7?

Windows 7 is coming back strong and so is Snow leopard. This battle is going to be VERY CLOSE and I honestly think Apple won't win this round easily as it did with Leopard. The economy may push the win over to MS this time, with the W7 running better than XP on netbooks, people are going to want it even though netbooks are still a small market. Combine that with HPTC, slim PCs and low ends PCs that could run W7 better than Vista and XP, definitely enough of an impact on sales that W7 could sell better than Vista ever did at faster pace.

Snow Leopard is going to be an awesome upgrade too. Small changes all over; Exchange built in support, OpenCL/Grand Central, pure 64 bit optimized and leaner OS, data detectors, system-wide text manipulation support, and so on.

 

[Goona]

Then why don't you fix it?

There are two Vista apps that are known to crash and freeze often on some configurations - IE7 and WMP.

The problem with IE, in 9 out of 10 cases, is Adobe add-ons -- conflicting versions of the Flash plug-in and/or PDF plug-ins, or a bad egg version of either plug-in. Track down the culprits by disabling the IE add-ons, one by one.

The problem with WMP, in 10 out of 10 cases, is one or more rotten third-party DivX/Xvid/FFDShow codecs.

Nothing other than those two is known to crash frequently, and the issue is with third-party add-ons and not the OS itself -- just like when Leopard hangs, freezes and throws BSOD's due to Kaleidoscope, LCC, DivX and other 3rd party enhancements that try to make themselves part of the system with limited success.

The computer crashes when using freaking google search, I guess google search is laden with flash add ons, not to talk of how slow it is to use and this computer ain't even that old.

 

[MattZani]

Here is my opinion:

Windows 7 will turn it around for Microsoft, it will be the true succeeder to XP, will add more features, and be generally better.

Snow Leopard will improve on core performance, Multi Core usage, and stability. It wont add very many features, but it will add the building blocks for things to come, maybe in 10.6.X, maybe in 10.7, who knows, but its good to see Apple truly making the OS as good as it can be at the core.

 

[Anuba]

The most important fact is that both OS is on the right track because everybody is gaining something on both ends. Snow Leopard and Windows 7 will bring a very close battle in a war between Apple and MS and that only benefits the customers because for the first time in recent history, both OS may turn out to be very good and desirable for both sides. It only encourages innovations from both ends for the next OS. W7 has something SL don’t? Apple will come up with something better for 10.7, SL has something W7 don't? MS will copy it. 😛

MS lost the battle between Leopard and Vista in the never-ending OS war (until one company goes out of business of course) because Vista did suck in the beginning with horrible drivers support and so on. This resulted into a bigger market share and better “company image” for Apple. While they are still gaining more people, the question now is can they continue the momentum into the new battle between SL and W7?

Windows 7 is coming back strong and so is Snow leopard. This battle is going to be VERY CLOSE and I honestly think Apple won't win this round easily as it did with Leopard. The economy may push the win over to MS this time, with the W7 running better than XP on netbooks, people are going to want it even though netbooks are still a small market. Combine that with HPTC, slim PCs and low ends PCs that could run W7 better than Vista and XP, definitely enough of an impact on sales that W7 could sell better than Vista ever did at faster pace.

Snow Leopard is going to be an awesome upgrade too. Small changes all over; Exchange built in support, OpenCL/Grand Central, pure 64 bit optimized and leaner OS, data detectors, system-wide text manipulation support, and so on.

M$ has one major disadvantage though, in the fact that the barrage of anti-trust crap from all over the world (Europe in particular) has scared them into removing a lot of software that Windows normally ships with. I know they used ugly tactics against Netscape back in the 90's, but come on, this is getting ridiculous, the OS will be bare naked soon...

Meanwhile, Apple has been going increasingly monopoly- and proprietary bonkers and they're starting to look like some sort of capitalist Cuba. They sell the hardware AND the OS AND more and more of the software AND the iPods AND the iPhones AND the music AND the movies, everything is tied together so that all roads lead to Apple and no roads lead back out, but for some weird reason the antitrust dogs almost leave them alone (perhaps for the same reason the malware wizkids leave Apple alone, they're not big enough - yet). So Apple can keep cramming OS X with iLife, iTunes, Safari, Mail and other features that M$ no longer dare include. They're moving all that stuff to the Windows Live platform, but I reckon it's only a matter of time before the Frenchies rip that service apart too, and demand that M$ must ship every single byte in a separate download.

 

[elppa]

M$ has one major disadvantage though, in the fact that the barrage of anti-trust crap from all over the world (Europe in particular) has scared them into removing a lot of software that Windows normally ships with. I know they used ugly tactics against Netscape back in the 90's, but come on, this is getting ridiculous, the OS will be bare naked soon...

Meanwhile, Apple has been going increasingly monopoly- and proprietary bonkers and they're starting to look like some sort of capitalist Cuba. They sell the hardware AND the OS AND more and more of the software AND the iPods AND the iPhones AND the music AND the movies, everything is tied together so that all roads lead to Apple and no roads lead back out, but for some weird reason the antitrust dogs almost leave them alone (perhaps for the same reason the malware wizkids leave Apple alone, they're not big enough - yet). So Apple can keep cramming OS X with iLife, iTunes, Safari, Mail and other features that M$ no longer dare include. They're moving all that stuff to the Windows Live platform, but I reckon it's only a matter of time before the Frenchies rip that service apart too, and demand that M$ must ship every single byte in a separate download.

Wow, you really know your stuff about European law and previous legal action taken against Microsoft. I learnt a lot from that, thanks.

 

[MikhailT]

M$ has one major disadvantage though, in the fact that the barrage of anti-trust crap from all over the world (Europe in particular) has scared them into removing a lot of software that Windows normally ships with. I know they used ugly tactics against Netscape back in the 90's, but come on, this is getting ridiculous, the OS will be bare naked soon...

Meanwhile, Apple has been going increasingly monopoly- and proprietary bonkers and they're starting to look like some sort of capitalist Cuba. They sell the hardware AND the OS AND more and more of the software AND the iPods AND the iPhones AND the music AND the movies, everything is tied together so that all roads lead to Apple and no roads lead back out, but for some weird reason the antitrust dogs almost leave them alone (perhaps for the same reason the malware wizkids leave Apple alone, they're not big enough - yet). So Apple can keep cramming OS X with iLife, iTunes, Safari, Mail and other features that M$ no longer dare include. They're moving all that stuff to the Windows Live platform, but I reckon it's only a matter of time before the Frenchies rip that service apart too, and demand that M$ must ship every single byte in a separate download.

W7 takes care of that problem. Custom builders can customize Windows 7 not to include IE8 and every other things that could be removed. It is easy to do so, even for end users. Therefore MS does not have any problem in that field as long as they continue to modularize their Windows OS. Other companies can include Live apps if they want to. MS has a link to the live apps that allows you to download them, MS did this because it allows for two things to be done at once, they do not restrict the live development team to the OS release cycle and the compliance with their anti-trust settlements and US/EU rules.

Apple can do whatever they want as long as there are competitors in their market area and as long as Apple doesn't try to control the other competitors and force them out of the market.

MS didn't have any big competitors and they tried to force a lot of places and companies to only accept MS products which is when they abused their powers and can be subject to the antitrust laws. Apple doesn't do that therefore they are not subject to any antitrust laws at the moment nor would they ever be considered as a monopoly.

You can run iTunes on Windows, which allows you to manage your ipod and iphones. If you want to buy music that can go on any devices, you do not have to use iTunes for that, you can go buy them at Amazon or any other music stores. Apple does not force you to buy music at iTunes, you can put music from other sources. While they do forces you to use iTunes to manage your ipod and iphones, it isn't enough to be considered a monopolistic practice.

 

[Anuba]

Wow, you really know your stuff about European law and previous legal action taken against Microsoft. I learnt a lot from that, thanks.

Ooh, sarcasm. That's right, I know nothing about law. But I live in Europe, if that counts. 😉

W7 takes care of that problem. Custom builders can customize Windows 7 not to include IE8 and every other things that could be removed.

Yes, it takes care of the problem as far as Microsoft's legal battles are concerned, but my point was that from an end user perspective Win7 will have much less goodies out of the box than Snow Leopard will, and people who are daft enough to believe that you can't fill the feature gaps easily and at no cost might go for a Mac just for that.

 

[MikhailT]

Ooh, sarcasm. That's right, I know nothing about law. But I live in Europe, if that counts. 😉


Yes, it takes care of the problem as far as Microsoft's legal battles are concerned, but my point was that from an end user perspective Win7 will have much less goodies out of the box than Snow Leopard will, and people who are daft enough to believe that you can't fill the feature gaps easily and at no cost might go for a Mac just for that.

That's why Microsoft will include the links and market it like as if it isn't missing from the OS. The PC builders will include their own apps if they want to. They can preinstall apps for the clients or by default just like you can preinstall Apple's products on Macs. Buying the Leopard retail disc yourself, it does not come with iLife, iWork or any of the bundle apps that normally shows up when you buy a hardware. Just like buying a Windows disc, it won't come with any app bundled but buying a PC with Windows will have some of the apps bundled. So the decision is on the PC builders themselves. They know what Macs come with, if they want to sell, they need to fill the gap.

 

[Infrared]

Getting hold of a laptop with a TI firewire chipset is very hard, unless you buy an MBP. But thanks to the suckiness of BootCamp, Windows users can't enjoy the TI chipset goodness through an MBP due to Apple's keyboard driver causing huge DPC spikes (deferred procedure calls = they cause dropouts in the firewire stream).

I've steered clear of Apple's keyboard driver when using Windows on a
Mac Pro. I wonder, is it possible to not use the Apple driver on a MBP?
Or does that mean one would lose trackpad functionality (not a problem
on a Mac Pro, obviously)?