- Posts tagged Windows 7
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HP Slate is 'meh'
[Conecti.ca's] conclusion? "The official verdict is meh." Yeah, ouch. Apparently the Slate's biggest strength is also its greatest weakness -- it's essentially a touchscreen netbook, and that means that while it can run everything including Flash, it can be "slow and annoying.
Can this possibly be a surprise to anyone not in denial? These doofus Windows tablet devices are netbooks with the keyboard snapped off. Using a desktop OS not only too bloated to run well on their relatively slow processors, but unable to fully realize the experience of a touch UI.
The old ones sucked. The new ones suck. Future ones are gonna suck.
Bill Gates said you can't just build a new OS for tablets, but he was wrong. It was wrong about tablets eight years ago, and it's still wrong today. It's actually sad to see a company like HP follow a path that a decade of devices has proved time and again is... wrong.
Another Pointless Monstrosity: The PC Industry Never Fails to Amaze
Let's take a cheap laptop (aka "netbook"), flatten it, and use an "optimized" bloated desktop OS with a processor barely powerful enough to run it. Then let's sell it for more than the iPad. We'll claim it's "better" because it has every port from the last decade, and hope people don't notice the thickness, size, weight, and lack of battery life.
This "Ezy Tablet PC" is the embodiment of everything the PC industry gets wrong. not only in design, but in their thinking about what's allegedly wrong with Apple's hardware.
IDC Idiocy: Apple iPad is Not a Tablet PC
Although Apple's iPad could find success, its shipments won't count in IDC's Tablet PC numbers since it doesn't run a full operating system.
Remember when the iPhone hit the scene, and attempts were made to define "smartphone" so it wouldn't be included? Well, now "tablet PC" is being defined as well.
This is nonsense. Aside from varying definitions on what a "full" operating system is, I'd argue that, as a touch device, a "real" tablet PC must have an OS designed for touch from Day 1. Therefore, "optimized" Windows machines need not apply.
Whatever. The only way for PC makers to avoid being embarrassed by Apple's runaway success is to try defining Apple out of the picture.
I'm usually wary of articles claiming to be "the straight scoop"...
The PC-or-Mac debate has been raging for more than a quarter-century, but making sense of it requires considering the situation as it stands at one moment in time.
Harry McCracken on PC vs. Mac. Though broad in scope, it's one of the few articles I've read claiming no bias that manages to more or less pull it off.
Though Windows 7 Taskbar Is Weak, You Can Put Folders On It.
VMWare Fusion 3.0 Is Here: Upgrade So Far Is Painless.
Noticed it available, upgraded from 2.0 and downloaded it online ($40). Took about 15 minutes to download.
Ars Technica Windows 7 Review
So while Windows 7 may not right all of Vista's wrongs, it is absolutely superior to its predecessor. It has three years of improvements, so it can't help but be better. But if you hated Vista's UI, you're going to hate Windows 7's. Worse, in fact, because 7 forces you to use the new Start menu and taskbar, with no possibility of reverting to the old behaviour. If your applications didn't work in Vista, they almost certainly won't work in 7. Sure, 7 has some virtualization tools to help, but this was always possible in Vista too. If you felt Vista was too big and too slow, well, 7 isn't going to provide much joy there, either. Marginal improvements, perhaps, but nothing more.
The above quote, from the closing summary, sure doesn't sound impressive. Still, the entire review (it's long and detailed) is positive overall.
The reviewer thinks Vista got a bad rap. Even though he agrees Windows 7 is actually "Vista R2", he likes it a lot.
In Other Words, Windows 7 Is Just Windows
Iolo also says its tests indicated that Windows 7's startup times, like Vista's, degrade over time. After several "commonly-used" applications have been installed on a new Windows 7 box, for instance, its boot time — again, as measured by the company — slows to two minutes, 34 seconds, an increase of 64%.
No surprise. All anyone talks about is Windows 7's new coat of paint, but underneath it's the same thing as before.
The Best Review of Windows That Mossberg Has Produced.
UPDATE: Kudos to reader Jon T. of Cardiff, Wales, for digging up this quote from Mossberg's review of Vista:
"After months of testing Vista on multiple computers, new and old, I believe it is the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced." — Wall Street Journal, Jan. 18, 2007
"After using pre-release versions of Windows 7 for nine months, and intensively testing the final version for the past month on many different machines, I believe it is the best version of Windows Microsoft has produced." — Wall Street Journal, Oct. 8, 2009
An interesting addendum to CNN's article on what's wrong with Windows 7. The entire article is worth reading.
Much has been made of Mossberg's review -- including some over-exuberant article headlines -- yet he still believes Mac OS X has the edge. The thrust of his review is that Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista. Big deal, we already expected that.
Paul Thurrott: Microsoft Ads Are Goodness and Light, Apple Ads Are Evil
About a year ago, Microsoft finally began fighting back against the snarky Apple "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads...
That would be the highly praised, very successful, brilliantly executed, well-written and multiple award-winning ads. Carry on.
with a series of its own advertisements which highlighted the diversity of the PC market.
Simply dubbed "I'm a PC," the advertising campaign is still a huge hit, and virtually everyone who sees these ads is taken by how nice they are.
They were never a “hit”. They were mostly ridiculed for missing the fact that the characters in Apple’s ads are a personified “Mac” and “PC”, not actual people labeling themselves one or the other. Poor Microsoft. It's hard to fight back against that which you don't understand.
Unlike Apple's sarcastic, borderline libelous advertising
“Borderline libelous” being exactly the same as “not libelous”. It’s the use of weasel words by Thurrott to appear to call Apple out for doing something they’re not doing.
Now with Windows 7 rising like a phoenix over the horizon...
A rare moment of honestly by Thurrott. He admits Vista burned Microsoft to ashes.
Microsoft is back with a new set of ads, this time based around its next OS. As with its previous ads, the Windows 7 ads are a welcome shot of positive vibes.
He points to the two new ads with 4-year-old Kylie (she's probably 5 by now). If you haven't seen them, look here and here.
They're cute, funny, and relevant.
Cute? Definitely. Kylie is adorable. Funny? Only in that Microsoft thinks we should take OS advice from a kindergartner. Relevant? To what? Certainly not an OS comparison.The Kylie ads ultimately use pull quotes from various reviews to sell Windows 7. You know, just like movie ads use selective pull quotes from movie reviewers. Problem is, when you actually see the flick you find out it stinks.
And they once again make Apple, and its own ads, look silly by comparison.
Hardly. Microsoft did two things wrong. First, using a child to sell technology is stupid. I’ve written before about Microsoft resorting to using children -- who can’t possibly know any better -- to hawk their wares. Now they’re at it again, apparently because without Kylie they’ve got nothing. But they’re not selling Kylie, they’re selling Windows 7, which Kylie doesn’t know from the Fisher Price OS.And for all Thurrott’s claims of “snarky” and “borderline libelous”, where’s his rant about how no kindergartner in existence is searching the Internet for Windows 7 reviews and making slideshows out of pull quotes from those reviews?Apple uses intelligent writing, wit, and sarcasm, delivered by adults, while focusing on the differences between the two platforms. Microsoft uses bunnies, flowers, unicorns, and a child to spew quotes containing words she can’t pronounce, much less understand. Maybe Microsoft thinks the use of a child's ignorance is just what they need, but I know how I prefer my technology sold.
