Vista Worth Buying / Hardware Requirements - Tomshardware

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http://www.mobilityguru.com/2006/11/07/ ... page2.html

Security

Mobile computers are especially prone to security breaches because they are often used away from well protected home or business networks. If Vista offered mobile computer users nothing more than its security enhancements, it would be worth the price of admission.
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Network Access Protection (NAP) identifies and then to isolates "unhealthy" Windows Vista computers. The number one type of "unhealthy" computer is likely to be a visiting laptop. NAP links with Group Policy. So, for example, you can define "unhealthy" in terms of clients with unsuitable DHCP scopes. Other NAP protection includes excluding clients with an "unhealthy" IPSec policy, VPN or 802.1x validation.

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Shutdown

Vista brings numerous small improvements for mobile devices, take shutting down as an example. Vista has new APIs that shutdown applications automatically and prevent their hanging. In XP if you tell a machine to shutdown, it may refuse because certain programs have open processes.

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Go for a dedicated as opposed to built-in graphics processor. That means look for ATI and Nvidia graphics processors. Built-in graphics processors like Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950 will run Vista and even support the Aero Graphics GUI, though performance may be less than spectacular. You don't need a top of the line graphics processor to run Aero Graphics, but the greater power of a mid-level dedicated graphics processor is much more likely to yield a smoother, more satisfying Aero experience.

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Get the fastest CPU you can afford. Right now that's a higher end AMD Turion or Intel Core 2 Duo (Core Duo if your budget's tight) mobile processor. As for memory, Microsoft says 1GB of RAM, we say go for 2GB.

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Aero Graphics are superb, but there is one problem on a laptop. The extra hardware and graphics activity drain the battery more quickly. Aero Graphics reduces battery life from say 3 hours with XP to 2hrs with Vista.

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If you want good performance and the Aero GUI, go for more powerful hardware. If you can live with modest performance and you don't want the Aero GUI, less powerful mobile computers will work just fine.

The business version of Vista will be here at the end of this month. If you need the features of the business version, you can get going with a solid production copy of the operating system almost immediately.