First, let me say that I'm (apparently) a Senior Citizen and not deeply into tech matters. I'm not ashamed to say that Vista on my 2007 Lenovo Thinkpad has been just FINE. My husband has an Acer with Win7 and he's always complaining about it.
Now I'm getting ready for a new laptop and Windows 7 is dead as quickly as Win2000 was.
For Christmas dear husband bought me a Lenovo Z580 with Win8. I'll spare you the drama that goes with buying a laptop from Staples at Christmas and just say that it was DOA. Blue screen, and nothing but error messages. I phoned Lenovo and a nice overseas lady read to me from a script, and said to do a Restore and "if that doesn't work in 24 hours, call us back." Ha ha ha...it didn't so the next day it went back to Staples (a more interesting story, but I'll skip that one too).
Now I'm gun-shy. Is there any point to waiting until manufacturers tweak the hardware so Win8 will "fit" better? I'm not in a hurry.
Is there any tattle about whether some computers handle Win8 better than others? (I believe this was true with Vista.)
You really need to consider what you want to do with the new laptop and let that guide your choices. For example, I play a lot of games and a laptop would be a poor choice because the integrated video cards usually do not support demanding games. Video editing - probably need more processing speed and ram. If budget is not an issue go all in. Shop some of the online, custom build sites such as cyberpowerpc.com (I do not own stock with them).
You seem satisfied with Vista?? That is just incredible to me. Most of the world thinks it is terrible. Personally, I like XP or 7. From what I have heard, 8 is another Vista. I would avoid it at least until the bugs are worked out.
Based on your experience, it would seem your need to fine a reliable vendor with state side customer support. I have a very hard time with some foreign accents of English. No offense intended to those individual as I can not speak their language at all.
