Study: Windows 7 doesn't boot faster

Although Windows 7 has been praised for loading and shutting down faster than prior versions of Windows, one software company says that, in many cases, the new operating system can take longer to get started than Windows Vista.

Iolo Technlogies, which sells PC tune-up software, said its lab unit found that a brand-new machine running Windows 7 takes a minute and 34 seconds to become usable, as compared to a minute and 6 seconds for Windows Vista. Iolo notes that it measured not the time it takes for the desktop to appear--which can be as little as 40 seconds on a fresh installation of Windows 7--but rather the time it takes to become fully usable "with CPU cycles no longer significantly high and a true idle state achieved."

The results are also fairly similar to what CNET found in its testing of the operating system. A Microsoft representative was not immediately able to comment on Iolo's findings.

Iolo plans to release more details on its findings and methodology next week. Although it remains to be seen just how it reached its conclusion, the report is clearly not good news for an operating system whose primary selling point is doing the basics better than past versions of Windows.

I will say that for my part, I have been using Windows 7 for months now and find myself rarely doing a full reboot and instead going in and out of sleep for days at a time--a process that moves particularly quickly.

As is often the case with Windows, Iolo found that things only get worse over time. It found that a three-month-old machine can take up to a minute longer to boot, or 2 minutes and 34 seconds. Windows 7 did outperform Vista at the three-month and six-month marks, Iolo said, but it generally "trailed the older version significantly" in its boot-up tests.

I plan to follow up on this on Monday, when more details about Iolo's conclusions--and how they were reached--become available.

Updated at 7:20 p.m. PDT: On the plus side, Wall Street Journal reviewer Walt Mossberg is out with his review of Windows 7 and gives it high marks, saying Microsoft now gives Apple a run for its money.

[mrs_deepblue]

I want to jump off the roof now. Come on folks... can you please boot in less time then it takes to get a cup of coffee???

[timber2005]

If you can start your computer, fill a mug with water, put it in the microwave with a tea bag (?), microwave it, take it out, and drink the tea in a minute and 6 seconds... I want to see a video of it.

[slickuser]

RIP OFF Steveo

[JosephPurell]

Yeah what the hell you'd think Microsoft would make this it's number one focus! I have used Windows for 13 years and recently got a Mac. That damn thing boots up and finds Wifi connection in 10 seconds.

Why the hell do people want to wait 1 minute 30 seconds to get onto and enjoy the Internet ..... it's sadly what they are use to , but there is so much better to be found/used!

[dhavleak]

IOLO technologies sells PC tune up software. They have a conflict of interest. i.e. it's in their interest to claim that Win7 is slow and needs their tune up software.

[ikramerica--2008]

But that cute little Asian girl told us it was faster! She even made a few slideshows using music 25 years older than she is to illustrate it! You callin her a liar?

[rationalreview]

I installed my free win professional 7 today via a computer class through MSDN Alliance with our school and, well, it does boot faster than Vista and XP did, but not by enough to make a huge deal out of it. Even after getting all of my programs and files back on it, it still boots faster, but again, not by leaps and bounds. Oh, and most people leave computers on all of the time now, so what does it really matter???

[rationalreview]

I installed my free win professional 7 today via a computer class through MSDN Alliance with our school and, well, it does boot faster than Vista and XP did, but not by enough to make a huge deal out of it. Even after getting all of my programs and files back on it, it still boots faster, but again, not by leaps and bounds. Oh, and most people leave computers on all of the time now, so what does it really matter???

Oh, I forgot, the shut down times were significantly faster, by far.

[Rolker]

I usually leave my laptop in "sleep" mode. But even if it take 1min and 30 sec to boot, I never felt that this is that bad. And usually it takes a bit more than that (Vista).

dhavleak
Agreed. Looks very fishy.

JosephPurell
10 second from a shut downed (not sleep) PC to a functional PC (quote:"...the time it takes to become fully usable "with CPU cycles no longer significantly high and a true idle state achieved.")?
I'm skeptic, but if this is true that is impressive.

[Mark_Anderson]

"That damn thing boots up and finds Wifi connection in 10 seconds."

Yes. In sleep mode. It takes my Macbook at least 40-50 seconds to become usable from a complete power down. My Vista machine also becomes usable about 10 seconds after coming out of sleep mode.

However, the Macbook shuts down much quicker than the Vista box. I believe Windows 7 has improved that statistic though.

Move along, nothing to see here.

[richard993]

Hibernate and sleep are not faster... they just appear faster because they switch off the screen while dumping state information to disk. Previous versions of windows didn't switch off the screen until the very end. Nice one Microsoft, your a bunch of clowns and crap developers, thinking you can fool users using trickery instead of developing faster and more reliable code! shame on you!!!

[Gold_Storm_Mac]

well you can't win all the battles.

[Mark_Anderson]

Just the ones that matter. :)

[Random_Walk]

Problem is, Microsoft isn't even winning those at this time ;)

As for the boot times? Yeah, Windows 7 does slow down over time boot-wise (and here I was hoping they got rid of the stupid bloat-over-time problems... silly me). A month ago, boot times were just under a minute (from POST screen to Outlook open/ready). Now they reach into the 2-minute zone, with no real difference in new apps or any changes in the ini files.

[Thranx]

"Problem is, Microsoft isn't even winning those at this time ;)"

89% market share says otherwise.

[Random_Walk]

"89% market share says otherwise."

...it used to be 95%. Try again? ;)

[CrashPad63]

It still is 95% worlwide, 89% in US only.
And stop this smear crap, Boot times are better, 1 minute, come on people Mac wont boot any faster.

[Mark_Anderson]

@Random

LOL pwned again!

[Thranx]

"...it used to be 95%. Try again? ;)"

Sure... and how's there server market share doing? And search? Hmmm....

[Thranx]

"...it used to be 95%. Try again? ;)"

Oh and ... I'd call 89% a good solid win... even if they've lost 6% in 6 years... so, at that rate, you can talk smack in about another 39 years.

[eadeguzman]

I was curious so I rebooted my Mac... It clocked at 1 min 30 seconds... So I guess not much difference in boot times...
My Win7? 1 minute 20 seconds.

Typing user name and password and the dual-boot screen included.

[captain_numerica]

@eadeguzman - Whoa, whoa. Hey, this isn't the time or place for empirical data! We're trying to have a nonsensical never-ending flamewar here.

But seriously folks, I experience similar results. I don't see a significant difference between my macbook and win7 rig when it comes to perf--general and boot/shutdown times. (Same could not be said for Vista...)

[Gold_Storm_Mac]

i smell a major flamewar coming soon.

[cvaldes1831]

Oooh, Vista versus Windows 7 people. Should be pure bloodshed!

[Dalkorian]

DUCK! ^^^
;-)

[GEO2003]

@Ramdom-Walk,
You stated that you are experiencing slow downs after a months.
You also sated from boot to Outlook Open is more then 2 minutes - This tells me that you are trying to auto launch Outlook as a start up process other wise, your timings would be calculated - boot to launch and ready to use outlook.
It really does not matter you are experiencing this and I think that I may have an idea why:

Windows Vista and 7 both keep The Pre-Fetch folder updaed and the Hyperfill file that it creates on the root directory of your drive.

It is a given that I agree that what I am about to explain should not work the way it does, but that is how Ms LEFT IT.

The INI under the pre-fetch folder does change and so does the hyperfil file created by Windows.
It changes everytime - YOU INSTALL PROGRAMS.

The pre-fetch does its best to put the more used programs in the front of the disk after a certain amount of usage, so that you can access those applications faster.

To all out there experiencing similar problems. - Understand that although the installation of programs is a one time deal - the Pre-Fetch folder contains this information and although does not see it as being use often for the calculations of which programs to put in front of the disk, still has to read the entire INI to arrive at the proper calculations of what programs are use the most.

So my advice to all is, finish installing all the programs that you need, Then go into the Windows Folder find the Pre-Fetch folder and delete everything including the ReadyBoot folder.

Display all Windows protected files via Explorer and on the root directory delete the Hyperfil file which is about 2gb.

I understand that you don't want to go to this process everytime you install something - You don't have to. - But when you start with a fresh copy of Windows we all do a lot of installations, and all these installations are been track so the the Pre-Fetch and Hyperfil is bloated.

Clean them both now that you have finish all your installations - give Windows a week to perform better calculations of what programs you do use the most - and you will see that the boot time returns to what is about normal which is anywhere between 50 seconds to 1 minute 5 seconds - depending on what you are loading at start up.

But remember- Lets say you go 3 months you in those 3 months you install 7 or 10 applications - you should repeat the process.

Ccleaner - Has a section on the Clean Windows section - Advance - at the very bottom - OLD PREFETCH DATA - select this - right click on it - and click analyze - double click the line that appears on the right hand side panel and it will show you what it considers old pre-fetch data.

You can use this if you want - personally if I do a lot of installations I like to delete everything on the pre-fetch because Ccleaner does not see a program intall yesterday as old data.

I think this will help everyone. - But remember give Windows time to re-assess what programs are use the most.

Geo

[windooor7]

I STAND behind window without wall all day. its not the OS, its ur pc you slow RPM HDD . throw in AMD platform(DRAGON) with SSD and then post back the results. Windows has nothing to do with this .

[Gold_Storm_Mac]

my low-end 2.0 Ghz C2 Duo MB can boot Sl in 50 seconds and shut-down in 4-5 seconds.

[ikramerica--2008]

Since it's a low end C2D, it can't have 4GB of memory. My MBP with 4GB takes 40 seconds simply to test the memory, which doesn't count against OS boot as that's hardware level.

Then beyond that, it takes almost 2 minutes to FULLY boot into SL. It's usuable much sooner, but you have to look at CPU usage, and it doesn't drop down to near idle for almost 2 minutes, though it never takes over so much of the CPU like Windows does. It's at most 30%. And I have VMWare fusion installed, so that loads kexts at the beginning that add at least 10 seconds, as well as logging into some servers at boot, etc.

Then again, who restarts their Mac that much anyway?

And it shuts down in under 10 seconds, including the extra few seconds it takes to disengage the VMWare hooks.

[Gold_Storm_Mac]

yea 2gb of memory

[Renegade Knight]

My win 95 Thinkpad boots amazingly fast. Hooah!

[PandaSage1221]

That is absolutely not true in my experience. I haven't clocked it, and I don't have a specific definition of "usable" other than.. ready to use.. but Win 7 *definitely* boots faster for me.

I can actually hibernate my laptop with Win 7. I gave up on that when using Vista, cuz it took insanely long to come back on, and I just put it to sleep all the time instead. So, Win 7 is greener too!

[Thranx]

I would concurr. I have Win 7 (rtm) running on 4-5 machines and in every case they boot to a usable state quicker than vista. On my primary box, it's significant when compared to a buck naked clean Vista install.

There may be some bias there, but I'll openly admit, I'm not running this on any older systems either. The slowest box I have running Win7 is a Laptop with a T8400 and 3 gigs of ram. If there test is older hardware... who knows.

[eadeguzman]

Maybe they clocked it with the dual-boot screen and didn't press [ENTER]... so that add 20 seconds or so...

[celticbrewer]

I use sleep mode. (Vista HP 64bit on a slow $500 laptop)

*With typing in my password*, it takes less than 10 seconds to go from sleep to browsing the web (it's WiFi, too). I timed it and it took less than 5 seconds without the password. Like someone else posted, my screen hadn't even come up to full brightness before the OS was ready.

And people are complaining why?

I do a full boot about once a month and use the laptop at least once a day. I've had it for over half a year and have had the desktop for over a year and a half. I have yet to see Vista crash.

[kevinchen22]

Booting Windows 7 as a VM on my really old Compaq desktop (2.1 GHz AMD, 256 MB of ram for VM) is faster than booting the XP machine itself (1GB RAM available). Although to XP's credit, it has a lot more services to load off of the hard drive.

[ijcopon925]

I don't believe this one bit...

[NewsReader_]

I'm with you. How can you run 3/6 month duration tests on an OS that has not shiiped and was RTM'ed in late July???

This report is dubious at best.

I will be convinced when they report more precise test results on RTM Win7 and the latest Vista, both clean installs.

[Random_Walk]

"How can you run 3/6 month duration tests on an OS that has not shiiped and was RTM'ed in late July??? "

Most folks use their computers for a few hours a day. Run it 24/7, and you can simulate it out.

[blackspyder1]

I dont believe it either.

[wolivere]

Has Iolo made software that works on anything other then XP lately?

Yes it may be doing stuff in the back ground, so I quess the assumption is 0 cpu cycles is complete boot. But if I have 10% cpu used and 90% available after 20-30 seconds who cares. If my browser or email can open while its doing other things who cares?

[Oso_Grande]

Windows Vista = One big reason to switch to Mac
Windows 7 = 7 more reasons....

[SpeedPsycho]

oh geez, not this again.

Macs have their place, and PCs have their place. Neither does everything perfectly. And guess what? Macs are becoming more and more like PCs in many ways - except the price.

Intel chips? Check
Viruses? Check
Hardware issues? Check
Price? ...

[Jeremy Chappell]

OK, OK, stop that. I use a Mac, I know the Mac is great, but seriously you're advocating switching for a faster boot time?!

I know it's tempting, but really there are plenty of places when a PC is a better choice than a Mac (and yes, vice-versa too) and boot time is hardly the definitive measure of a systems usefulness.

Now, I'm very interested about how Windows 7's performance degrades over time, is that better than/worse than/or about the same as Vista or XP? I have a Windows 7 box setup here, but it seems too early to see any significant performance drop off (and thus far I've not seen it). Anyone got proper data on that?

(And please can be not this a "my computer's better than yours" rant... PCs aren't going anywhere, and neither are Macs - can't we all just get along?)

[ilovewindowsnot]

SpeedPsycho, there are no known viruses on Mac OS X, there are however a few trojan horses. Two Mac differences stand out above all, hardware design, and a beautifully designed operating system. Two things Windows will never achieve.

[rdwalton]

Get a life, go on the mac site and whine.

[ddesy]

Oh please! I have no intentions of dumping my Mac, but Windows 7 is better than Vista and is actually a pretty decent OS.

And to those saying OS X has viruses, check again. There still are no actual viruses for it.

[cougar888]

There may be no "viruses" in the sense of a computer program that runs without permission or knowledge of a user without exploiting security vulnerabilities, but if by virus you mean worms or trojans, there are more than plenty. If you want an example, take a look at http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/the_java_exploit_how_dangerous_is_it/ . This has since been patched, but it isn't like mac doesn't have it's fair share of malware (By the way, some people mean malware when they say viruses). I do prefer the security model of UNIX over that of Windows, but at least Windows has made some steps in the right direction (requiring Admin rights to modify system files in a pseudo sort of way).

[Lennron]

I love the argument "Macs don't have viruses, they only have Trojans and Adware." Yes because even if that is true, that's SO much better. Trojans and Adware make up well over 50% of all Malware. And since most Mac users have a false sense of security and have no programs blocking that Malware, they're more likely to get infected than then average Windows user.

[ddesy]

cougar888,

Worms and trojans are not viruses by definition. Not only that, but it isn't like there are many of either for OS X in reality. It remains far easier to be infected on Windows than OS X.

[tghounsell]

J Chappell:

I think I would agree with you. I wouldn't buy a mac just for the faster start times. However, I'm guilty of making the switch to mac for exactly that reason. It happened almost accidentally. I've been running both machines on the same screen/keyboard/mouse for some time. But b/c the mac wakes up much faster than the Win 7 PC (which is newer, faster and has more ram), I just find myself reaching for more often for that reason alone. Win 7 has better fonts, better tasks menu (Dock), and runs Excel much faster than Mac. So I deliberately use Win 7 for long work sessions, but the mac for all my one-off computing needs.

I have a blog with my adventures into the mac world at http://www.thecontrariansblog.blogspot.com.

Cheers

[pakitas09]

why would someone even create a virus for a mac.......

[bknowledge]

I have been running the Win 7RC for the last five months and it takes me 48 seconds with entering a password to get to a usable screen. What did MS do to the final release to slow it down that much?
System: Dell Inspiron 1525 Win 7RC 32-bit
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 w/ 2GB of Ram & 160GB 7,200 RPM SATA HD

[ikramerica--2008]

Usable screen is not the same thing. Read the article. It's better that you can use Windows 7 earlier than Vista, but it's still booting in the background, just as Mac OS X does. There are a lot of tiny files to read from the HD and this takes time.

The only thing that will speed up the whole process is an SSD.

[bknowledge]

@ikramerica I read the article and 48 seconds is my system with a network connection and in an idle state. Unlike a lot of other people I don't have any programs set to launch at start up.

[LoofyGun]

At least on Vista the OS does scan some files after boot, which affects the performance. This is on a system with no startup programs. And it has been installed for a while, so superfetch has already done its thing. I'd imagine it's pretty much the same on 7.

[renGek]

The article doesn't mention how the PC in this study is configured. For all we know the pc was configured to have every single service to load automatically. We also don't know how much additional software is on the machine.

My XP machine for a time was booting up very slowly until I found the offending HP nonsense service that was taking forever to start up on every boot up. Once I switched it off my boot up time went back below 50 seconds.

[sharmajunior]

I just got the Signature version of windows 7 from Microsoft. I put it onto a Sony [it took 36 seconds to load].

Put it on a MBP unibody June 2009 version [it took 38 seconds to load]...I think the problem people are having to load it in a much larger time frame is that they may have less qualified hardware.

[gwailo247]

My own personal study on a dual boot system shows Windows 7 boots faster. And when coming of sleep mode my desktop is already visible before my monitor comes off standby.

But then I don't have a product to pitch...

[rationalreview]

Yes, this looks like a conflict of interest and they are violating some ethical boundaries by fudging the truth for personal gain, much like Apple.

[mistasandman]

lol What!?? It takes Win 7 about 15 seconds to boot from when you turn it on, till you can launch IE and get a connection. Anyone running Win 7 knows this.

[dverlaque]

15 seconds?
Videotape that... just so we can all see that what you just said is total BS.

[DrtyDogg]

I know he didn't do it, but here are a couple,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Ekp50iDyY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbMn4A7eBMI

[slickuser]

RIP OFF
RIP OFF
RIP OFF

[rationalreview]

Is this your review, go away.

[ckh1272]

Got to love the maturity around here.

[Dalkorian]

@ckh1272, I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?
Oh, sorry ...
;-)

[heloder1]

WHAT? I have Win 7 on 6 PC's now. They ALL, ALL!!!! Boot faster than Vista. My home and work PCs now have SSD. They boot in 20 seconds.

This article = FAIL!

[Jive Turkey]

Did it occur to you that it's the SSDs that make it faster, not the OS?
IMHO the Win7 boot to login screen is waaay faster than Vista, however, the time it takes to be usable after login is waaay slower. It seems to me that all MS did was change stuff to startup at login instead of at boot to make it appear that it starts up faster.

[heloder1]

Of course SSD makes it faster.... that is why i installed them. Win 7 still faster on boot up with the other 4 PCs.

[tipoo_]

"It found that a three-month-old machine can take up to a minute longer to boot, or 2 minutes and 34 seconds."


Mine is hitting the two month mark and still boots in slightly over a minute, all you need is CCleaner and a good third party defrag.

[Random_Walk]

jkdefrag is a good one.

Thing is, why do you need third-party apps just to keep your OS from bogging down?

[renGek]

My 3 year old pc takes less than a minute to boot and my pc is loaded with software. You just need to worry about the 3rd party people who don't do a very good job of keeping bad services off your machine....HP, quicktime, adobe... just to name a few major offenders.

[tipoo_]

"Thing is, why do you need third-party apps just to keep your OS from bogging down?"


The built in software would do just fine as well, but doesnt give you as much control.


p.s wasnt this "study" done by a company that makes PC tune up software? Of course they would want you to think that!

[celticbrewer]

"HP, quicktime, adobe... just to name a few major offenders. "

Exactly. Anyone else ever notice that adding Apple software causes major instability with Windows? Quadrupled boot times? As soon as I unisntalled the apple product, I had a perfect machine again.

Then they turn it around and say it's because windows sucks and that you need to muy a mac. That's like Honda putting a device in your Ford that makes it get 8 MPG and then they try to sell you a hybrid.

[kshiz30]

yea omg...because we cant sit in out chair for 1 minute and 30 seconds and just wait a little. oh what will we do with all the time wasted

[kamanashi]

I know, we could watch a minute and thirty second of porn. Such wasted time.

[BlutoNYC]

This article is BS. We got Lenovo T60 Thinkpad laptops that boot in 45 seconds. Also, as Microsoft Gold Partners, we have already received our released copies of W7 and have deployed them to 10-15 PCs and have gotten nothing but positive results. We even installed it on a couple of T43 Thinkpads which didn't run Vista well at all and Windows 7 runs on them like a champ! That's going to save our IT dept thousands of dollars in capital costs for 2010. Well done Microsoft, well done!

[compbry15]

Um. Did you even read the article? No where did they say Vista outperforms 7 on a daily basis. Of course you will get nothing but positive results, because 7 is mostly an improvement on Vista. It's also been known to work on less system specs than Vista. But these issues are not at all what are being discussed in this article.

This article is talking about the time it takes to start the computer until the moment when the PC is completely ready for consumption. You know... usually you boot up Windows, put your password in, and wait another 30 seconds before trying to open your browser or other application. Otherwise the computer wants to **** itself. Yea, that's what they are talking about when they say "usable" ... the point at which the computer will no longer **** itself when you try to open an application.

[daas88]

you would save thousands of dollars more if you used a linux distro. free and reliable. but people is too close-minded to try new things.

[CPP-Crispy]

I have run both Vista and 7RC on the same machine and I have to say that 7 gets to a usable state significantly faster then Vista.

[MadLyb]

OK, is it any hint that the 'study' was done by a PC Tune Up company that we have never heard of that this might be PR run?

Just saying.

[Jeremy Chappell]

Lets hope that's all it is, I really want Windows 7 to be good. I might be happy with a Mac (and I am) but I have enough clients with Windows (for various reasons - mostly good ones!) that a improved version of Windows would be most welcome.

[MadLyb]

Hey Jeremy,

Upgraded 2 laptops and a HTPC to Win 7 RC1 and have absolutely no complaints. MS got their act together for this one.

[ikramerica--2008]

CNET found the same result. Most commenters here don't understand what the article is even measuring. They are being fooled by MS loading the login and desktop portions of boot earlier in the sequence than in Vista. OS X does the same thing, that doesn't mean that overall it boots faster than before, just that you are made to think it does.

Perception is reality?

[DrtyDogg]

Perception is reality. I honestly don't care if there are still a couple of things my OS has to do once I am able to work. I am not saying that there findings are incorrect, just that they don't matter to most. My development rig is the only computer I use that the "full" boot time is even noticed, and I understand that it takes a while to connect to 5 remote data sources, start a web server, most of the time start a VM and boot Eclipse or Visual Studio.

The rest of the time my computer has "booted" once I can get into a web browser, or Mail.app/Outlook.

[rationalreview]

ikramerica....Good points and well stated.

[Dalkorian]

I think we hit the nail on the head here folks, perception IS reality. If the user feels it's faster, it doesn't matter if the system is still doing some housework in the background. It's faster - to the user.

And as a side note, I agree the company releasing this study has an ulterior motive.

[SVContrarian]

Hmm... benchmarks by a company that sells PC tuneup software? Call me skeptical. And the methodology is apparently ignorant of the engineering design behind Win7. Fact: Win7 gets you to a usable system faster. Fact: they delay launching non-essential services to get you up and working faster. Fact: there's more under the hood to launch (search, superfetch, etc...), so the system is busy for a while longer. Fact: the net effect leads to an experience that's worlds better. Who cares if your disk light goes blinky-blinky for 2 minutes after you're off and surfing. Who cares if your CPU is a few percent above idle. Seriously folks.

This is just nonsense that ignores some well thought-out design changes that really improve the experience.

Also, if your system has slowed down, ask yourself what have YOU done to it. An OS just doesn't magically slow down folks. Sorry - laws of physics still apply here. These things act in predictable ways. Have you added software? Every little addin takes a bit of time. Why are people surprised to find out their systems slow down when they load them up with all kinds of extras?

Finally, there's a huge conflict of interest here folks. These people sell $50 PC tune-up software. What do you think they're going to tell you, that Win7 rocks?

[dverlaque]

Can we get over this?
Macs happen to be better than PCs. They're not much more than PCs with the same hardware and software specs, although PCs don't have OSX, and therefore the software isn't really fair.
When you pay for a Mac, you also get things like ease of use.
PCs STINK

Oh, and yes, I'm typing this on my Mac.

[mistasandman]

Dude... Macs suck. That's why NOBODY uses them.

[beat_elite]

I have to disagree, the reason why nobody buys Macs is because they are freaken overly priced! I can't pay for a computer for 1,700 that has the same specs as an $800 PC. However, I still like Mac pre-loaded software including Imovie, which easily beats windows movie maker out of the water and Iphoto. Also making a non-removable battery is fail as well even if it boasts that "it lasts over 1,000 recharges" I doubt it.

[SVContrarian]

Why is it that the Mac-using 3% of the computer world provides us with 99% of the fanboi flamebait blog posts?

[utepass]

. . . because 98 of the 99 percent of the PCs are jacked up and can't connect to the Internet to post replies.

[rationalreview]

My experience with Macs is you get a good computer with an ok OS for a lot of money. If you even buy the cheaper Macs, you really feel and see the slowdowns begin, and the dust settles to reality. A similarly priced PC will get you more satisfaction or bang for your buck, but the cheaper PC's have the same dust settling effect, but I guess they're more affordable for those in need, which is most.

dverlaque, dude, get a dell, with OSX on it, which I have done. Get over yourself please.

[rationalreview]

99% of PC users are typically happy in there manhood and have no real reason to randomly troll with Macboys unless they're defending their product. I happen to use both and have no real significant beafs with either other than Apple's questionable ethical policies.

Mac users have a chip on their shoulder being in the minority of market share and have to YELL A LOT.

[ckh1272]

"by rationalreview October 7, 2009 10:13 PM PDT
99% of PC users are typically happy in there manhood and have no real reason to randomly troll with Macboys unless they're defending their product. I happen to use both and have no real significant beafs with either other than Apple's questionable ethical policies.

Mac users have a chip on their shoulder being in the minority of market share and have to YELL A LOT."

@rationalreview--I agree to a point, but it does go both ways. Refer to websterphreaky, applesuxleo, and shellcodes_coder as just a few examples of the "other side of the fence". These are all people (mac, linux, and windows users) with serious deficiencies in life IMO.

[Seaspray0]

@chk1272. "Refer to websterphreaky, applesuxleo, and shellcodes_coder as just a few examples ...These are all people (mac, linux, and windows users) with serious deficiencies in life IMO."

<sniff> And after I tried so hard supporting the fart app (one of the best apps out there), I didn't even get an honorable mention. I feel so insignificant now. :-)

[shycelticwitch]

LOL @ Seaspray... you ARE insignificant, just like myself and all the others here who's comments won't make a darn bit of difference in what people buy. Some of us like quality and ROI benefits, others like a lesser impact on their wallets so they buy what they can afford. I could care less if MS had 100% of the market share, it will never change the fact that quantity can never replace quality when it comes to long term savings.

[celticbrewer]

". . . because 98 of the 99 percent of the PCs are jacked up and can't connect to the Internet to post replies. "

Or maybe it's because their computers can do something useful in addition to surfing the net.