Alright, so now that we’ve already discussed why you should look at XP above all the others, let’s have a look at some Windows XP notebooks that are still available on the market. You might remember that we also talked about some mini notebooks that just happened to also have XP installed straight from the factory. New notebooks with windows XP aren’t easy to find, and are usually found in netbooks due to the lower amount of RAM available (Vista is a huge resource hog). Netbooks are smaller laptops with lesser performance, meant specifically for being portable and easy to use on the go. So, which newer notebooks have XP?
Well, not many. Just about all of them (netbooks excluded) are coming with either Windows Vista or Windows 7 (the newest one…I’ll have to write a post about that soon), so you’re going to have a tough time finding something that’s got the OS that’s two versions hold. But, you’re not out of luck yet. While you might not be able to find a new XP notebook, there are plenty of refurbished laptops that come with this nice OS installed. Dell sells quite a few of these refurbished systems; we have links to those (and others) at the bottom of this page (under the header “Shopping”) that will take you to the correct pages. You could also go on the Dell site yourself and look through their store, but I guarantee that you’ll spend more than if you were to just go through us. HP also sells quite a few refurbished laptops with XP, but the same is true: You’re just going to end up spending a lot of money if you go straight through the manufacturer. Stay third party and you’ll find great Win XP notebooks that you’ll enjoy for a long time.
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]]>Before we get to that, let me ask you all a question: Why do you use your laptop to begin with? Do you use it for gaming? Do you use it for business needs that require a large amount of word processing? Heck, do you use it for business needs that require a lot of processing power (think computer aided drafting, etc.)? If so, you might be aware that most types of operating systems are absolute memory hogs. Windows Vista is probably the worst offender; the OS is a bloated monster. It’s the epitome of terrible programming that reduces your computer’s performance to a level that shouldn’t be seen with today’s faster processors. Who wants that?
Well, nobody wants that. That’s exactly why we advocate looking at a Windows XP laptop instead of the Vista variety. Now, before anyone says it, yes, I’m well aware that XP isn’t exactly very good with memory usage either. However, with the later service packs that have come about as a result of complaints upon complaints hurled at Microsoft, Windows XP actually became, well, halfway decent. That’s my opinion at least…I’ve used XP extensively on several laptops, and Vista extensively on others. The XP laptops blew the Vista laptops clear out of the water. While Vista takes an hour and a half for a 1.6 GHz processor (such as I have) to boot up and become useful, XP seems to take much less time and half the resources. By the way, just to give you guys an idea: My Vista system right now is running the standard start-up items, one Excel spreadsheet, one Word document (which I’m writing), and the task manager. It’s currently using up 880 MB of 2 GB total physical memory. Add in iTunes and perhaps Firefox and you’re done.
Now, don’t even get me started about the FAT32 operating systems (Windows 98…does anyone still have that?). If you love the blue screens of death, you’ll love these. I think they’ve mercifully gone the way of the do-do at this point, but I’m sure there are people out there who still use the abomination we called Windows ME. If you’re one of those users, light your computer on fire right now!
Yes, XP laptops are really the lesser of all evils. I suppose that’s not saying much, though. But, if I were you I’d definitely look into buying Windows XP laptops instead of their counterparts. No question.
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