It has some very good things:
- Looks fab, lovely shiny silveryness
- The screen is awesome. It's a Sony XBlack HD (1080) screen, and it looks really really nice
- Built in webcam
- HDMI output so we can plug it into the TV and (hopefully) get some decent quality output
- Very quick (dual core centrino and 2gig RAM)
- SD card slot (and Sony Memory stick pro slot, but who actually uses those?)
But there are a couple of disappointing things:
- No audio optical out
- Only three USB ports (lucky I have a portable hub)
- Ridiculous amounts of crap software preinstalled (more on that later)
- No OS CD/DVD, have to create your own
- Vista Home Premium "security" (more on that later)
But all in all, it's all good. I've spent the last few days trying to get the new 'puter to be like the old one in all the good ways (things laid out how I like them) while avoiding the bad things (10 minutes to boot up, 20 minutes to shut down).
So first impressions on Vista are very positive. It looks great, maybe that's because of the rather spanky screen, and the transparency thing, while being a bit of a gimmick, gives it quite a futuristic feel. However, I am quite computer literate. I am a web developer by profession, and I know how to administer computers. So I don't necessarily like all the gumpf getting between me and the stuff I want to change. For example:
The machine came with a 10 day trial of Norton 360. Whatever the hell that is. It wanted to go online and update itself, and do something or other. It got to the second screen of the sign up process: "Sign into existing Norton account or Create a new one". With no "back" or "cancel" option. They had disabled the close button! You can't do that! I'm not going to buy this software, I'm not giving you my name, address, email and phone number for a ten day trial! Let me close the damn window! Luckily I know the ctrl-shift-escape key combo to open the task manager. That got me cross.
So I uninstalled the Norton trial. And the side bar disappeared. So I tried to turn it back on. "The sidebar is controlled by your system administrator". Umm, I am the system administrator. Aren't I? I went through all the normal routes, it looks like I'm an admin user, but I can't turn the damn thing back on. I search on Google; apparently the group policy might have it turned off, and this is controlled by my network adminstrator. Umm, I am the administrator, and I'm not on a domain. And I can't open the group policy management console cos it's not installed. Hmmm.
I can't see the old XP style Users and Groups thing in the console. Apparently you don't get that in Home Premium edition. So I can't check I'm an administrator.
Eventually I find the registry hack to renable it when the policy has it turned off, and I can't edit the policies. And we have a sidebar! Whoo! A transparent clock, calendar and CPU meter. Now to get started on some personal time development, and write a (better) BBC news feed, and a blog spot uploader!
The other thing that's annoying is the sheer volume of software which comes pre installed, with no option to install it or leave it. While I appreciate Sony giving me Intervideo WinDVD, Skype and Acrobat Writer and some Vaio media stuff (DVD writers, music player, etc), I don't really want Big Fish Games (whatever they are), ArcSoft Magic-I, Adope Photoshop Elements, Premier Elements and the Norton stuff. And I really don't want the Google Toolbar and Desktop search pre installed (although Picasa and Google Earth was a nice touch)
I guess buying a laptop from someone like John Lewis means that you don't get machines ready for computer-savvy people, they are aimed at people who don't want to fiddle, they just want a working PC.
But anyway, now we're rolling. Office is installed, IE bookmarks copied over from old machine, ITunes installed and the portable drive is moved over. Just need to get rid of the old PC and rearrange the living room now!
Next time I'm gonna have some exciting news about our IT AGM, at which I am presenting a workshop!
