[imcarthur]

With all of the Apple loving that happens on PPOT, I thought it was time for a positive PC spin.

We had a household computer motherboard death (my wife’s) so it was time to buy a new PC. After many years of newest/greatest in PCs & software, I calmed down a decade ago & the puter became an appliance. I just want it to work & do so reasonably fast. So I resisted the change from Windows 2000. It was so stable, I really had to work to crash it. During my last upgrade, I finally went to XP Pro – I had to buy Vista & use the license for a backdate download. It has been peachy but starting to bog down on my P4 3000Mhz 1GB.

So I reconfigured it & passed it to my wife. All she does is light email, light PhotoShop, net & play Mah-Jongg. Her HDs were fine, so it has been a painless transition for her. I called my hardware guy & he supplied a clone with an Intel i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20GHz, 3193 Mhz, 2 Core with 4GB Ram & a 1 terabyte HD at a decent price. Not a trailblazer but solid. I also added Office 7 – Word, Excel, Outlook etc. I use Chrome rather than IE.

Before the fruit brigade kicks in, I am familiar with the spiel. In a work emergency in JAX in March, I even bought a MacBook Pro for music streaming (in 10 minutes btw). I played with it & came away thinking that it was a nice piece, well-built etc, but the software & file system just felt like a PC for Dummies. I decided that I was far more comfortable with the control that Windows & a PC gave me.

All I can say is: I like it. A lot. It’s fast. Windows 7 is easy to get around & intuitive & loads very fast. My older core programs & hdwe all work - once I sorted out drivers& updates etc. All of the new Office programs are really great, although I am only 5 days in, but so far so good. Even my music system – computer wavs to DAC via USB then balanced signal to Focal Solo6 BE Studio Monitors sounds tremendous - although I have to come up with a better volume control solution.

So if you are on the fence, Windows 7 doesn’t suck. Obviously, it needs the hdwe to handle it, but it ain’t bad at all.

Ian