Interesting development...

[Lang Murphy]

Well, to me, anyway...

I've been bitching and moaning about how OEM's are shipping Vista Home Basic
on PC's that have 512MB's RAM. I don't think that's sufficient for
running -any- flavor or Vista. My personal opinion, formulatted from
personal experience running Vista Ultimate on a laptop with 512MB RAM, is
that Vista needs at least 1GB RAM. Yeah, I should install Basic to see how
that runs under 512MB RAM, but I haven't, and I just can't imagine that the
deltas between Basic and Ultimate are going to make that much of a
difference. (Read: Aero.) Maybe I'm outta line with my assumptions. Maybe
not. I'm sure I'll be enlightened... ;-)

Anyway... Dell is now selling PC's with Vista Basic and 1GB RAM.

And -now- I have to wonder... why not sell those PC's with Home Premium? For
$70 more than the PC's with Basic, you can get a PC with Premium and a
larger flat screen monitor (17" vs. 15"). Hmm... is it worth it? Well, of
course, it depends on how one uses one's PC. If all one does is surf the
web, then Basic fits the bill, I guess. If one wants to manage photos and
work with video, then Premium may better fit the bill, fully realizing, of
course, that one can get Basic and then go off and find 3rd party apps that
work as well, and very possibly better, than the native Vista photo/video
apps. I guess if one is going to go the 3rd party route regardless of the
flavor of Vista delivered with the new PC, then maybe Basic makes more
sense, money wise.

It's no big deal... I just had a few spare minutes to post this and thought
I'd throw it out... respond as you like. I would hope, however, that this
doesn't turn into one of those flame war threads that seem so common in this
NG. "You're a dope." "Oh, yeah? You're an idiot." Please... spare me...

Lang

 

[Jane C]

And about time too. Poor old Home Basic seems to get a dreadful bashing -
mostly because of the low amount of RAM that the OEMs have been putting in
the boxes - along with no decent gpu.

Home Basic on an Ultimate-compatible box fair flies ;-)

I did a test a while ago - Home Basic, 1.5GB RAM, WDDM gpu - loaded it up
with open source/cross-platform programs, all of which installed and ran in
a standard user context, btw, and it was quite impressive. Not everybody
needs or uses Media Center stuff. I didn't even miss the Aero.....much

 

[xfile]

Those are for people who perceive they have little or no use of computers.
I don't have the current data but the last one I have which was at least 3-4
years ago - around 30% of US households. The key message, however, is those
who don't have don't think they need one.

But if user experience is such terrible, it will only ratify their beliefs
on they don't need computers. So I praise Dell (or other OEM's) for
correcting it.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Running the Vista upgrade advisor on a variety of machines,

512mb and low end video card = Vista Basic
512mb and higher end Aero compatible video card = Vista Home Premium
1gb and low end video card = Vista Business
1gb and higher end Aero compatible video card = Vista Ultimate
2gb and low end video card = Vista Business
2gb and higher end Aero compatible video card = Vista Ultimate

Well, to me, anyway...

I've been bitching and moaning about how OEM's are shipping Vista Home
Basic on PC's that have 512MB's RAM. I don't think that's sufficient for
running -any- flavor or Vista. My personal opinion, formulatted from
personal experience running Vista Ultimate on a laptop with 512MB RAM, is
that Vista needs at least 1GB RAM. Yeah, I should install Basic to see how
that runs under 512MB RAM, but I haven't, and I just can't imagine that
the deltas between Basic and Ultimate are going to make that much of a
difference. (Read: Aero.) Maybe I'm outta line with my assumptions. Maybe
not. I'm sure I'll be enlightened... ;-)

Anyway... Dell is now selling PC's with Vista Basic and 1GB RAM.

And -now- I have to wonder... why not sell those PC's with Home Premium?
For $70 more than the PC's with Basic, you can get a PC with Premium and a
larger flat screen monitor (17" vs. 15"). Hmm... is it worth it? Well, of
course, it depends on how one uses one's PC. If all one does is surf the
web, then Basic fits the bill, I guess. If one wants to manage photos and
work with video, then Premium may better fit the bill, fully realizing, of
course, that one can get Basic and then go off and find 3rd party apps
that work as well, and very possibly better, than the native Vista
photo/video apps. I guess if one is going to go the 3rd party route
regardless of the flavor of Vista delivered with the new PC, then maybe
Basic makes more sense, money wise.

It's no big deal... I just had a few spare minutes to post this and
thought I'd throw it out... respond as you like. I would hope, however,
that this doesn't turn into one of those flame war threads that seem so
common in this NG. "You're a dope." "Oh, yeah? You're an idiot." Please...
spare me...

Lang

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[Malke]

Well, to me, anyway...

I've been bitching and moaning about how OEM's are shipping Vista Home
Basic on PC's that have 512MB's RAM. I don't think that's sufficient for
running -any- flavor or Vista. My personal opinion, formulatted from
personal experience running Vista Ultimate on a laptop with 512MB RAM,
is that Vista needs at least 1GB RAM. Yeah, I should install Basic to
see how that runs under 512MB RAM, but I haven't, and I just can't
imagine that the deltas between Basic and Ultimate are going to make
that much of a difference. (Read: Aero.) Maybe I'm outta line with my
assumptions. Maybe not. I'm sure I'll be enlightened... ;-)

Anyway... Dell is now selling PC's with Vista Basic and 1GB RAM.

And -now- I have to wonder... why not sell those PC's with Home Premium?
For $70 more than the PC's with Basic, you can get a PC with Premium and
a larger flat screen monitor (17" vs. 15"). Hmm... is it worth it? Well,
of course, it depends on how one uses one's PC. If all one does is surf
the web, then Basic fits the bill, I guess. If one wants to manage
photos and work with video, then Premium may better fit the bill, fully
realizing, of course, that one can get Basic and then go off and find
3rd party apps that work as well, and very possibly better, than the
native Vista photo/video apps. I guess if one is going to go the 3rd
party route regardless of the flavor of Vista delivered with the new PC,
then maybe Basic makes more sense, money wise.

It's no big deal... I just had a few spare minutes to post this and
thought I'd throw it out... respond as you like. I would hope, however,
that this doesn't turn into one of those flame war threads that seem so
common in this NG. "You're a dope." "Oh, yeah? You're an idiot."
Please... spare me...

This is similar to what happened when XP first came out in 2001. OEMs
like HP and Dell were selling XP HE on machines with 256MB of RAM. I
still see boxen like that from clients. XP HE will run on 256MB RAM but
not well, needing at least 512MB to be decent and 1GB (and proper
configuration) really makes it fly. I used to have SUSE on the box where
I now have Vista. With 512MB, SUSE was completely zippy. I've got 1.5GB
on there with Vista Ultimate and it still feels stodgy to me.

We're in the early stages of Vista. When hardware/software products are
truly Vista-compatible, a lot of the problems we're seeing will go away.
As for why sell Basic, I can't answer that because I'm not a marketing
person but $70 is a week's worth of groceries for some of us.

You make thoughtful and interesting posts and I like reading them but
your hope that this thread won't turn into a flamewar is futile. There
will always be trolls. ;-)



Malke

 

[Lang Murphy]

And about time too. Poor old Home Basic seems to get a dreadful bashing -
mostly because of the low amount of RAM that the OEMs have been putting in
the boxes - along with no decent gpu.

Home Basic on an Ultimate-compatible box fair flies ;-)

I did a test a while ago - Home Basic, 1.5GB RAM, WDDM gpu - loaded it up
with open source/cross-platform programs, all of which installed and ran
in a standard user context, btw, and it was quite impressive. Not
everybody needs or uses Media Center stuff. I didn't even miss the
Aero.....much

<snip original post>

Any flavor of Vista on a seat with 512MB's RAM will probably end up getting
bashed. I think it's possible that some folks think they can get away with
512MB's RAM, and I've seen posts from folks in here that have 512MB's RAM
and find it sufficient to their needs, but I still think it's way
underpowered. There was a post from a guy who wonders if 512MB RAM will be
sufficient to run Basic and Office 2003... maybe to run Basic... maybe to
run Basic with a single Office app open... and... maybe not. I'd rather
spend the extra cash on bringing a seat up to a gig of RAM than have to deal
with the probable performance hit one takes running Vista with 512MB's RAM.

Aero's OK. My favorite feature is the thumbnail windows that pop when the
mouse hovers over the taskbar. (Especially with Remote Desktop windows...
you can see what's going on on the other PC without having to open that
window... small point, and I like it.)

Thanks for the response!

Lang

 

[Lang Murphy]

Those are for people who perceive they have little or no use of computers.
I don't have the current data but the last one I have which was at least
3-4 years ago - around 30% of US households. The key message, however, is
those who don't have don't think they need one.

But if user experience is such terrible, it will only ratify their beliefs
on they don't need computers. So I praise Dell (or other OEM's) for
correcting it.

<snip original post>

xfile...

Yes, I think it's great Dell is pumping up their Home Basic offerings to a
gig of RAM.

I was reading the Office Depot flyer this afternoon and right on the front
cover (lower right) there's a box that states "Enhance the Performance of
your 512MB up to 2GB - FREE Sandisk 2GB ReadyBoost USB drive with purchase
of any 512MB Notebook - Use Windows Vista ReadyBoost for an instant Upgrade
of up to 2GB without opening the PC."

Well, needless to say, I think this advertising is misleading... surely not
to the technically savvy who know how USB flash drives and ReadyBoost work
to improve the performance of a Vista PC... but the non-technically savvy
might read that, uh, differently? I'd bet on it...

Lang

 

[Lang Murphy]

Running the Vista upgrade advisor on a variety of machines,

512mb and low end video card = Vista Basic
512mb and higher end Aero compatible video card = Vista Home Premium
1gb and low end video card = Vista Business
1gb and higher end Aero compatible video card = Vista Ultimate
2gb and low end video card = Vista Business
2gb and higher end Aero compatible video card = Vista Ultimate

Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

Well... I've always taken the upgrade advisor's recommendation with a shovel
full of salt. That's kind of an odd table... Home Premium is only suited to
PC's with 512MB RAM? That makes no sense. Not to me, anyway. I can only
assume the requirements were created a "long" time ago (long in terms of
Vista...) because, frankly, LOL, I'd stay away from 512MB RAM and would
recommend 2GB's to all who can afford it.

Thanks for the response!

Lang

 

[Lang Murphy]

This is similar to what happened when XP first came out in 2001. OEMs like
HP and Dell were selling XP HE on machines with 256MB of RAM. I still see
boxen like that from clients. XP HE will run on 256MB RAM but not well,
needing at least 512MB to be decent and 1GB (and proper configuration)
really makes it fly. I used to have SUSE on the box where I now have
Vista. With 512MB, SUSE was completely zippy. I've got 1.5GB on there with
Vista Ultimate and it still feels stodgy to me.

We're in the early stages of Vista. When hardware/software products are
truly Vista-compatible, a lot of the problems we're seeing will go away.
As for why sell Basic, I can't answer that because I'm not a marketing
person but $70 is a week's worth of groceries for some of us.

You make thoughtful and interesting posts and I like reading them but your
hope that this thread won't turn into a flamewar is futile. There will
always be trolls. ;-)



Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

I can't remember the minimum RAM recommedations for Windows ever being -not-
under spec'd. I have an XP Home box here that came with 512MB RAM which I
upgraded to a gig and that box runs lickety split, even after two years.
I've got 3 Vista boxes running Ulitmate here... 2 have 2GB's and one has
1.5GB. They all run acceptably for me.

Yes, good point on the $70... with two kids off in college, I've found a
deeper appreciation of what I used to consider "spare" cash. Now...
here -is- no "spare" cash... I've been waiting to get a Vista compatible TV
tuner card and saw an ATI 550 on Buy.com for $50. Gee, I'd love to get it,
but the budget won't allow it at the moment.

Just thought I'd push for a non-flame thread, for a change... ;-) Whether
that actually works out or not remains to be seen. The first 4 replies were
civil. Let's hope that trend carries forward... not just in this thread but
in others too.

Thanks,

Lang

 

[xfile]

LOL.

I understand, but allow me to defend for marketing or copywriters (knowing
they are among the condemned in this group), their job is to get messages
across in 3 seconds.

1001, 1002, 1003 - Time's up.

So, that's the pressure. Sometime, they don't know what they're writing
about but the pressure is there - 3 seconds.

Take care.

 

[Frank]

Lang Murphy wrote:

Anyway... Dell is now selling PC's with Vista Basic and 1GB RAM.

I think they proly "saw the light" after all the "blow-back" they and
all the other builders have been getting from pushing Vista boxes out
the door with only 512RAM.
Frank

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

You are missing the point of the table.. where Ultimate is suggested, Home
Premium will run with all of its bells and whistles..

The reason that MCE was only available on OEM machines was to ensure that
there were enough resources for it.. the spec offered on MCE machines was as
good as gamer requirements.. anything less and the media parts of MCE would
run like a dog..

With Vista, it is in the hands of the end user to ensure that the machine
meets the required spec

Well... I've always taken the upgrade advisor's recommendation with a
shovel full of salt. That's kind of an odd table... Home Premium is only
suited to PC's with 512MB RAM? That makes no sense. Not to me, anyway. I
can only assume the requirements were created a "long" time ago (long in
terms of Vista...) because, frankly, LOL, I'd stay away from 512MB RAM and
would recommend 2GB's to all who can afford it.

Thanks for the response!

Lang

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[Lang Murphy]

LOL.

I understand, but allow me to defend for marketing or copywriters (knowing
they are among the condemned in this group), their job is to get messages
across in 3 seconds.

1001, 1002, 1003 - Time's up.

So, that's the pressure. Sometime, they don't know what they're writing
about but the pressure is there - 3 seconds.

Take care.

Point taken. The other thing I was thinking about, after looking at that
blurb for a minute or so... "Enhance the performance of your 512MB up to
2GB." Well... if one has 512MB and one adds a 2GB stick, ain't that 2.5GB?

Whatever... LOL...

Lang

 

[Lang Murphy]

You are missing the point of the table.. where Ultimate is suggested, Home
Premium will run with all of its bells and whistles..

The reason that MCE was only available on OEM machines was to ensure that
there were enough resources for it.. the spec offered on MCE machines was
as good as gamer requirements.. anything less and the media parts of MCE
would run like a dog..

With Vista, it is in the hands of the end user to ensure that the machine
meets the required spec








--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

OK, yes, I guess I did miss that point. MS upselling, I guess...

Lang

 

[Lang Murphy]

Lang Murphy wrote:



I think they proly "saw the light" after all the "blow-back" they and all
the other builders have been getting from pushing Vista boxes out the door
with only 512RAM.
Frank

Well, I guess that's good; they're listening to their customers for a
change... or the Big Dogs listened to some downstream Dell employee. In
either case, they're listening.

Lang

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Lang Murphy wrote:

I think they proly "saw the light" after all the "blow-back" they and
all the other builders have been getting from pushing Vista boxes out
the door with only 512RAM.

Usually, what happens is that the RAM makers bring out higher-density
chips. Initially, these are high-priced, so you may see:

Money 50 32M
Money 70 64M
Money 140 128M
Money 420 256M
Money 840 512M

What's happening here, is that the chips used to make the 256M and
512M parts are costlier per Meg than those for the 32M,64M and 128M
parts. In each capacity category, you'd often find the same board
with more or less blank spaces where additional chips would have been
added were you to have bought "up the chain".

So, for example, the 128M may have 16 chips with 8 on each side; the
64M would have had chips on only one side of the board, and the 32M
would have had only 4 chips. At that point, the cost of the board and
manufacture starts to eclipse that of the chips, so it's not all that
cheaper than the 64M, and should be nearly extinct.

At this point, if an OS comes out that works best with 512M-1G of RAM,
production volumes will switch from "small" to "big" chips and prices
will shift accordingly, like this...

Money 50 32M (stockless, please ask to order)
Money 70 64M (stockless, please ask to order)
Money 120 128M
Money 180 256M
Money 320 512M
Money 640 1024M

....and it's really easy to say "specify more RAM".

This is happening in the last 6 months, where 1G sticks are concerned.
So I may have built my last 512M Vista PCs, and it doesn't surprise me
to see the market moving from 512M to 1G minimum.

-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Tip Of The Day:
To disable the 'Tip of the Day' feature...

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Not MS upselling.. they suggest the highest version that will run, and it is
up to the user whether Ultimate or something below is used.. there is no
hint of "well if you buy another video card, you can run Vista Ultimate"

OK, yes, I guess I did miss that point. MS upselling, I guess...

Lang

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[xfile]

Point taken. The other thing I was thinking about, after looking at that
blurb for a minute or so... "Enhance the performance of your 512MB up to
2GB." Well... if one has 512MB and one adds a 2GB stick, ain't that 2.5GB?

Whatever... LOL...

Lang

 

[Lang Murphy]

Not MS upselling.. they suggest the highest version that will run, and it
is up to the user whether Ultimate or something below is used.. there is
no hint of "well if you buy another video card, you can run Vista
Ultimate"




--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

Well... I don't know about that... if they're suggesting Premium on seats
with 512MB RAM (ridiculous, imho) and Ulitmate on seats with 1GB RAM, that
sure seems like upselling to me, because Premium will run on seats with 1GB
or 2GB RAM without issue. I guess... one would think, or I would, anyway,
that the recommendation should be for the lowest version of Vista that would
run on any given configuration, not the highest, i.e., "Premium or above".
Yes, I understand that one could then say, well, yeah, Basic on everything.
I guess I just can't get over them saying Premium will run on 512MB RAM. Uh,
no? In fact, I don't even know if Media Center will load on a seat with
512MB RAM. And if it does load, I'd bet it won't actually play anything...
certainly not videos. -That- I remember from first hand experience.

Whatever, no big deal. Just yammering...

Lang

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

WUG must have flipped with the 512mb machine I ran it on, because the
minimum RAM requirement is 1gb. In fact, 1gb is the minimum for all versions
other than Vista Basic. Maybe I flipped out, not realizing that the machine
where Home Premium was recommended had more RAM than I thought it had.

IMHO, I think it would have been better to stick with Home and Pro, and
maybe market a Media Center pack for those who are prepared to either buy a
machine already set up for it, or who are willing and able to upgrade their
machine to make the most of Media Center.

Well... I don't know about that... if they're suggesting Premium on seats
with 512MB RAM (ridiculous, imho) and Ulitmate on seats with 1GB RAM, that
sure seems like upselling to me, because Premium will run on seats with
1GB or 2GB RAM without issue. I guess... one would think, or I would,
anyway, that the recommendation should be for the lowest version of Vista
that would run on any given configuration, not the highest, i.e., "Premium
or above". Yes, I understand that one could then say, well, yeah, Basic on
everything. I guess I just can't get over them saying Premium will run on
512MB RAM. Uh, no? In fact, I don't even know if Media Center will load on
a seat with 512MB RAM. And if it does load, I'd bet it won't actually play
anything... certainly not videos. -That- I remember from first hand
experience.

Whatever, no big deal. Just yammering...

Lang

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/