So what happens the day after Windows Vista is available to consumers? Will you still be able to buy a laptop or desktop with Windows XP, or are you going to be forced to upgrade with a new computer purchase? We polled system vendors, including Gateway, HP, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Lenovo, and the answer is unanimous across the board.
According to every system builder we talked to, starting with Vista's January 30 launch, systems aimed at consumers will include only the new operating system, with no option for sticking with XP.
On the other hand, business users (or consumers who buy from a vendor's small business or corporate lines) will have a choice between XP and Vista. Most corporate users will want to stick with the older OS for now, at least until they come up with a rollout plan for installing Vista across their networks, which could include hundreds or thousands of PCs. Microsoft will continue to support XP sales to business users, at least through 2008.
At CES 2007, AMD announced a plan to standardize the motherboard, chassis and basic components for those popular "small-form-factor" PCs. The goal of its new DTX standard is to help component and system makers focus on common layouts for motherboard inputs, mounting holes and other design elements to encourage more companies to carry Shuttle-style and even smaller PCs. Motherboard manufacturers Asus and MSI have already committed to producing DTX hardware, and AMD expects to send a reference design to system builders some time this quarter.
More of these for everyone.
(Credit: CNET Networks)If you recall Intel's BTX initiative, you'll remember that it was designed largely to deal with the massive amount of heat generated by Intel's Pentium D processors. But AMD's DTX standard, which will be open to processors from any manufacturer, is more of an attempt to push broader adoption of the smaller PCs that consumers seem to want. Both Intel's and AMD's chips have either reduced their power consumption or have special low-power versions of their processors that have been primed for new system designs, but the infrastructure for developing new types of affordable PCs on a mass scale hasn't really been in place thus far. The DTX initiative is an attempt by AMD to alleviate that problem.
Putting Ohio State's poor showing last night in the BCS Championship game behind them, Ohio-based Micro Center had a few Vista desktop and laptop prototypes on display at CES. The big news on its PowerSpec desktop line is the addition of a Lian Li chassis for its high-end gaming PCs. The Lian Li chassis is an all-aluminum, tool-free unit that will be used on two highest-end models, the G450 and the G430. Lian Li makes some of the best PC enclosures around, and it should help the PowerSpec name garner some respect among gamers.
Likewise, Micro Center's WinBook laptop line will get refreshed when Vista is released. Borrowing from the Zune, two new WinBook laptops, the 15.4-inch GL and the 13.3-inch TL, will come draped in a glossy, brown chassis. Micro Center is dressing up its WinBook laptops as it leaves the budget market to focus on midrange and performance notebooks.
Micro Center is also stepping up its support, promising a 48-hour turnaround time for repairing your PowerSpec or WinBook machine. Disclaimer: The clock starts when Micro Center receives your busted PC, whether you ship it back or drop it off at a Micro Center store.
Micro Center is not sharing the specs and pricing of its new models until the machines are launched in conjunction with Vista's consumer release at the end of the month. Systems will be on store shelves in Micro Center stores and also available online at the Micro Center and WinBook Web sites.
I met with HP this morning to hear how its new MediaSmart TVs work with your Media Center PC ecosystem. (Takeaway: the TVs will play your PC-stored digital media, but you have to use Windows Media Player 11, and FairPlay-protected media from the iTunes Store won't work. Also, the built-in 802.11n wireless networking is a much-needed high-bandwidth touch.) The highlight of the meeting, though, was when a member of HP's PR team stepped in to hand the PR manager giving the presentation a write-up of the just-announced Apple TV device.
HP's MediaSmart TV: better than Apple TV?
(Credit: HP)In a heretofore-unseen display of marketing agility, and before he was even halfway done reading the memo, the flack jumped into a point-for-point breakdown of why the external Apple TV is inferior to the value and functionality of HP's MediaSmart TVs. With MediaSmart you get the PC connectivity functionality built into a 1080p display, but with Apple TV, he cited, you still need the screen, and it will support output up to only 720p. He also pointed to out that while Apple TV will, naturally, play iTunes Store content, the movie selection is limited to about 300 titles, and all from one studio. With HP partnering with CinemaNow, you can download more than 4,000 titles from multiple movie houses directly to a MediaSmart television.
For myself, I like the idea of both, at least based on what I've heard. AppleTV has the benefit of letting you hook it up to any screen you want to, while 1080p output gives the MediaSmart TV the quality edge. I can even see a situation in which you'd connect the Apple TV to a MediaSmart TV, or a similar home network-aware TV. In that scenario, everyone's a winner.
Gateway's eMachines desktops get a cleaner look.
(Credit: Gateway)Gateway is holding back most of the details on its new, Vistafied eMachines and Gateway DX430 desktops, but we did get to take a look at two engineering samples today. Highlights include tweaks to both brands' already strong visual appeal, as well as removable faceplates on the bottom half of each desktop, which could open the door for some customizable image options in the future.
The Gateway desktop also gets a makeover.
(Credit: Gateway)You can expect that Gateway will continue to offer AMD and Intel dual-core chips in both systems, as well as Celeron on the lower-end eMachines. Gateway has also added a USB 2.0 media card reader to all of its new eMachines systems, a welcome step up from the USB 1.1 model on the older models, especially if you want to transfer large amounts of photos or other data. We'll know more about the full range of configurations and pricing when Gateway releases the systems on January 30, 2007.
Dell developed its own cooling hardware on this PC.
(Credit: CNET Networks)The Dell XPS 710 H2C, to be officially announced at CES tomorrow, isn't fundamentally that different from the old, vanilla XPS 710, but two important factors make it stand out. Thanks in part to an internally developed, hybrid liquid-cooling rig, the XPS 710 H2C will be the first desktop ever from Dell to ship with a factory-overclocked, fully warrantied CPU. The Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700's stock 2.6GHz will ship to customers at 3.2GHz.
The XPS 710 H2C is also notable for its price. At $5,200 for the core configuration, it's roughly $1,500 less expensive than similar over-the-top gamer PCs. We've reviewed similar systems from Velocity Micro and Widow PC in the last week, and they both came in around $7,300.
Dell's new XPS 710 H2C
(Credit: CNET Networks)The hardest of the hard core might balk at the fact that Dell still relies on an Nforce 590 (D) motherboard chipset, which doesn't have as many features as Nvidia's standard 590 circuitry and is a generation behind the more recent Nforce 680i chipset. But if its status as a volume player hurts Dell by making it less nimble than its smaller, boutique-shop competition, we're glad that Dell is making up for it with its ability to drive down prices.
We know that Velocity Micro has been cooking up this CineMagix Grand Theater long before CES. We remember speaking to one of its product managers about his very vague home theater PC plans many months ago over the course of a previous review. The result is not dissimilar to the Sony VAIO XLR3 Digital Living System, which also made its debut at CES, except that Velocity Micro's system will start about $1,000 cheaper.
Velocity Micro's big, bad living room PC
(Credit: Velocity Micro)Core specs will include a fast Intel Core 2 Duo 6700 processor; aggressive, sound-sensitive cooling; and standard-def or Blu-ray optical at launch. The date is to be determined, but it will be at least after January 30, as it will have Windows Vista, with HD DVD made available shortly thereafter. Velocity Micro will also offer options for up to 2.5 terabytes of hard drive storage, and it's working with AMD to integrate "OCUR" (open cable uni-directional receiver) CableCard support.
If, like us, you think the CineMagix Grand Theater's chassis might be too big for mass living room acceptance, you might want to stay tuned to Velocity Micro's plans anyway. It refers to this system as the "keystone" in a coming line of models that will include a smaller, DVD player-size unit, as well as media center extenders and, perhaps most intriguingly, a home media server. The idea of putting a system in the basement to shoot media, games, and whatever else around your home has been tossed around quite a bit in the past, but many manufacturers at this year's show seem to have rekindled their interest, citing multitasking-friendly dual- and quad-core CPUs and greater penetration of wireless networks and new homes designed for room-to-room connectivity.
We've already reviewed HP's new, Vista-equipped TouchSmart PC, announced here at CES 2007, but what we didn't talk much about was the new custom support application that HP sent with it, and which will come in all new HP laptops and desktops. We sat down with HP this morning to talk about it, and we came away more than a little impressed.
Total Care Advisor is an HP-made suite of support tools designed to help you stay proactive in maintaining the health of your HP system. The software clearly breaks down the various areas of your system via large icons and simple explanations, and clicking an icon leads to more specific information about the current and potential problems within the specified area. If your PC is connected to the Internet, the support application can talk to HP's servers in order to run diagnostics, install updated support tools, and in general help keep your computer, as well any peripherals connected to it over your home network, up to date and running well.
Total Care Advisor's main screen.
(Credit: HP)HP joined Dell and Gateway in 2006 in offering remote tech-support services in which you can give tech personnel clearance to take over your PC over the Internet and drive any necessary software changes. If HP's Total Care Advisor works as advertised, it prevents you from having to make that tech support call in the first place. Another idea we like about Total Care Advisor: it's designed to corral those nagging pop-ups from the Windows Update Advisor and other auto-updating programs.
The very first CES-related thing we saw when we got to Vegas was a banner advertising Windows Vista at Las Vegas International. Since then, it's been pretty much nonstop. Vista is everywhere at the show. It's dominated the conversations we've had with nearly every major desktop, laptop, peripheral, and software vendor we've met with.
(Credit:
Aurum3.com)
The ubiquity of Vista at CES mirrors how it's going to affect the PC market. Mass adoption won't happen right away, but as you'll find Windows XP on the majority of computers today, in a few years we anticipate that Windows Vista will have almost as much penetration. That almost makes it superfluous to review it, since for many of us, we'll eventually be using one version of it or another regardless. If that sounds too fatalistic, perhaps you'll take heart, as we have, that the energy level from the various computer and software vendors seems high. In part, we suspect that's due to an anticipated rush of new computer purchases. But we also get the feeling that products such as HP's TouchSmart PC IQ770, the Asus W5Fe SideShow, and the Sony VAIO XL3 are just the beginning of Vista acting as a catalyst for innovative new hardware designs.
Alienware Hangar 18, formerly the A-Series.
(Credit: Engadget)We first saw Alienware's Hangar 18 HTPC at Digital Life in October 2006. Then it was called the A Series, and, as now, it was built on an AMD Live!-certified platform (the meaning of which we're still fuzzy on). The only real news at CES is it has a new name, the Hangar 18, and Alienware is pegging the release date sometime in Q2 2007. Specs remain subject to change, but figure that it will have a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 chip in it. You can also make out a slot-loading optical drive bay on the front panel. Alienware has not committed to an HD-optical drive or CableCard in the device yet, although by the time it hits the market four months from now, we wouldn't be shocked if one or both of those features crept in. The only trick is that at Digital Life, Alienware was pitching this as a mainstream media PC, so it will have to strike the usual balance between features and cost if it wants to retain that positioning.
