Netbooks running Windows 7 Home Premium
 

Just bought a Vaio from T5 the other day, seemed like a good deal.

However, Windows 7 Starter is poor. I'm trying to establish whether Premium would be better. Although, the spec says min 1GB ram and 1GHz which the M series has I wonder if it will choke if I get the upgrade.

Any advice on this? I still have time to post it back.

Cheers
SS

I'm running 7 Ultimate on an Atom-powered 1.33 GHz subnotebook with touchscreen, handwriting and voice recognition running. It all runs surprisingly well. I did swap out the 1GB RAM for 2GB, but memory's cheap.

Which particular 1GHz processor ? Or which laptop model ?

If I were you, I'd do that and try out something else as it sounds like your little machine is a bit underpowered.

Also see here for Windows 7 system requirements Windows 7 System Requirements

As you can see, Microsoft say 1GHz is the minimum requirement...... attempting to run anything in IT (Microsoft badged or otherwise) at a vendors published minimum requirement levels is a pointless activity (unless you are a book worm, tea drinker, or something else that will keep you occupied whilst you wait for stuff to boot/load ..... wait for stuff to process etc. etc.)

Intel Atom N450/1.66Hz Sony Vaio M1E/W

I haven't established if I can put another 1GB of ram in it. If I did this then maybe the Premium would be the way to go? Costs are building up then, defeats the reason for buying it. It was 250 pounds which seemed about the right price for a netbook.

Trying to lower my baggage weight as my Vaio SZ is taking a beating courtesy of airline security.

Try Vista perhaps. The specs seem adequate and the lower end 7 should run faster not slower or about the same .Some other underlyimg issue perhaps.

I'm sure he would prefer something that worked. :E

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!! :ugh:

XP would be preferable.

SD

The first Vaio netbooks max RAM was 1GB, so I would check if that's the case.
If so, send it back.

Why do you say 7 starter is poor?
I have an Acer netbook with 7 starter that works well with 2 GB RAM as well as a Asus EeePC 1000 with 2 GB RAM running 7 Home Prem.

If you're buying the machine in its netbook role, i.e. you want to be connected and do most things such as email through a web browser, then I think this Vaio is free when you sign up for a Vodafone dongle at 25 quid/month over 2 years ("T5" suggests you're in the UK).

Win 7 Starter limits are 3 applications active at one time (but you can have multiple windows open, so maybe not a real limitation).

If it doesn't feel fast enough for you, then I don't think upgrading the Windows version will do much for you. Adding a bit of memory might. It depends what you mean by "poor".

SkidSolo:

I've always noted that any systems which comes pre-installed with any version of Windows is usually extremely fragmented. (Disk-wise).
And continues becoming more fragmented as you use it.

I would suggest downloading a trial version of either PerfectDisk or Diskeeper on your netbook and allow either of these products to defrag your hard drive.
It may very well increase your system's performance. Not by a lot, mind you, but enough to be noticeable.

Your mileage may vary!

I'm getting the hang of Starter but to give another example of its limitation is that it won't recognise my dvd re-writer to allow me to save some movies/boxsets for those standby days. It only uses Media Player as well. I though Sony would have included InterDVD or equivalent.

On it goes. Its a neat piece of kit, so lightweight.

What about this ipad? Maybe I should hold out for one of those as I don't even have an iphone/touch.

Anyway, thanks so far for the advice.

Why won't it recognize your DVD-RW? I'll assume you have an external USB device? Did you download the drivers for it?

There is a problem with netbooks that cannot supply enough power from the USB port to power things like DVD re-writers.

Would a powered USB hub connecting the DVD-RW device to the netbook's
USB port suffice?

As pointed out above, the lack of DVD recognition is more likely a hardware issue and not a 7 starter limitation.
Try using different USB ports.
I know on my Asus some of the USB ports will not recognise some devices while others will.

Surely your DVD writer came with a DVD application package that is similar to InterDVD?
My LG DVD writer came with Cyberlink DVD suite.

My Netbook was also MAX 1Gb RAM. Actualy this was a spoof and it had an unoccupied RAM slot. I could not find where the installed RAM was as it only had the one slot.

Contact a company like Crucial and they will know if (and what) it can take extra RAM.

YES!
 

you should upgrade i just did it today works great and i have the exact same specs of you! and its fast.

Depends what you are wanting to do on your notebook.

Personally windows last all of 1 boot and a 5 min play before linux got fired onto the machine.

And it really does rock on my aspire.

If you are worried about loosing functions there are web pages out there that will walk you through installing virtually everything you get on a windows machine. The only thing you won't really be able to do is play games although I do have the old BBC game elite on mine with a thumb joystick running on a emulator.

O aye and it reduces your chances of getting a virus as well to nearly zero.

O and I don't have a problem with my DVD writer which is a cheapo LG thing

The external CD DVD writer I use with my Netbook plugs into two USB sockets to get enough power. The USB spec says that each socket can supply no more than 500 mA at 5 V.