Windows 7 Starter leads the way on netbooks, demands premium
By Donald Melanson 
posted Oct 19th 2009 6:47PM
posted Oct 19th 2009 6:47PM
We've already seen plenty of Windows 7 laptops and desktops up for order, but it looks like we're now finally starting to see how things will shake out on netbooks as well. After much confusion in the early days of Windows 7, it appears that Windows 7 Starter edition will indeed be the standard issue offering on the majority of netbooks, and it looks like it'll also demand a slight premium over otherwise comparable XP-based systems. In most cases, Windows 7 Starter seems to add $30 to the cost of a netbook (as with the Dell Mini 10v pictured above), or $50 in Canada if the first few listings on Future Shop are any indication -- which, as Digital Home Thoughts points out, would appear to be quite a bit more than the license fee manufacturers are paying. Of course, there are also a few netbooks that break the mold with Windows 7 Home Premium, and it unsurprisingly appears to be the standard offering on low-cost thin and lights that eschew the netbook moniker altogether. Hit up the link below for a rundown of some of the options already available to order, which is sure to grow considerably in the next few days.
[Via Digital Home Thoughts]
[Via Digital Home Thoughts]
Its worth the 20
Windows 7 Starter Edition sucks balls:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions
Maximum physical CPUs supported 1
Home Group (create and join) Join only
Backup and Restore Center[37] Cannot back up to network
Multiple monitors No
Fast user switching No
Desktop Wallpaper Changeable No
Desktop Window Manager No
Windows Mobility Center No
Windows Aero No
Multi-Touch No
Premium Games Included No
Windows Media Center No
Windows Media Player Remote Media Experience[38] No
Encrypting File System No
Location Aware Printing No
Remote Desktop Host No
Presentation Mode No
Windows Server domain joining No
Windows XP Mode[39] No
Aero glass remoting No
AppLocker No
BitLocker Drive Encryption No
BranchCache Distributed Cache No
DirectAccess No
Subsystem for Unix-based Applications No
Multilingual User Interface Pack No
Virtual Hard Disk Booting No
FUUUCK THAT SHIT. Stick with XP, or pay the $200 extra and get a real notebook with Premium. WTF is with MS, offering a crippled OS as an "upgrade" from a full scale OS. lulz
Am I right that Starter edition netbooks have absolutely NO MCE support? Can you can stream off them (if they're connected to the same Homegroup with 3rd party software?
maybe not worth the 30 :)
Desktop wallpaper not changeable?! Seriously, WTF?!
What's the default pic, then? Ballmer's mug?
As a student i can pick it up for £30/$50 ish separately and it's fully blown Home Premium. Worth the extra $20 in my opinion!
"Desktop Wallpaper Changeable: No"
I agree... WTF! That is one of the dumbest things you could disable.
Anyways, obviously their strategy is to encourage netbook manufacturers and consumers to use Windows 7 Home Premium by making the Starter Edition experience as abysmal as possible (at one point there was even going to be a 3 app limit). Though I have a feeling it's going to backfire.
Everything else I could live with - it's a netbook - but not being able to change the wallpaper? Now that's just mean.
Screw that i running ultimate on an aspire one and everything runs smoothly. At least offer home premium as an option. This is really bs on MS part.
I have a feeling that the wallpaper not being changeable means that you can't have several different wallpapers to change between in a single theme, like you can in the other versions of Win7. I seriously doubt that you're limited to the wallpaper they load into the computer at build.
most of the things in that list aren't a big deal. directaccess? remote desktop?
static desktop background is pretty lame though. and no media center sucks.
i dont understand why they would make the starter version cost more than xp pro. that is just horrible marketing and it is going to cause more division between products and force microsoft to extend support for even longer in the future. DROP XP ALREADY
Forget the wallpaper, the biggest thing is the lack of Aero. Are you kidding me? Have you *tried* using W7 without Aero? The new taskbar is absolutely useless, there's no previews, you're forced to revert to the old taskbar. And it's ugly as heck -- everything is this awful shade of light blue-lilac. I should know, trust me -- I'm running it. I still prefer it over XP, it's a fantastically good OS. But for the layman, people who don't know how to revert to the old taskbar, this is going to be absolutely *painful* to watch.
Crawdad, much of the stuff you listed as "No" for Windows 7 Starter requires the Ultimate edition anyway and isn't available in XP Home or even Windows 7 Home Premium, so you are not losing anything vs XP Home and gain the rest of the Windows & features that you didn't post.
That said, Home Premium should also be on option, not just Starter and have to pay another $79.99 to Microsoft to upgrade to Home Premium. It would be cheaper to just buy an OEM Home premium DVD from Newegg than to pay $30 plus $79.99 later.
This is ridiculous, who is going to pay 'extra' for Win7? Dell, go screw.
Everybody.
Hey, you've been doing the same thing for apple for years.
The problem with the word 'everybody' is that it only requires one counterexample to render its sentence false.
True, but I couldn't be bothered typing "the vast majority of people apart from a tiny number who still want to use XP or who want to strip Windows off and use Linux or a hacked version of OS X".
Now look what you made me do. Tut.
HP offers Windows 7 Premium for $50 extra on their Mini 311 model.
this was all over the newspapers' ads this weekend. engadget, you're begind.
Hmm, good thing I'm getting Windows 7 Home Premium for $30 via my old college email address. Don't have to mess around with such an obvious rip off like this.
well what else did you expect from dell, quality products haha i think not!!
Does Mark just get automatically low ranked by people or what?
yeah because he's an arrogant prick!
We're talking about Dell here. The company that charges $150 to upgrade to 6gb of DDR3 1066 in the XPS 9000. It's ridiculous that they get away with that kind of price gouging, but as long as people don't know any better and spend money on it, nothing is going to change.
Jeez. You guys take things so personally around here. The correct and polite response to Mark would have been "Hey, that's pretty cool. Good for you!" There's no reason for all this hate. Yes he comes off a little arrogant, but you all need to stop taking everything he says so personally.
Sokay Mark. I'm not angry or jealous. In fact, I find your information usefull as I am about to go into college myself. I'll certainly look for a reduced price Windows 7.
Dear Dell and everyone else,
XP. NEEDS. TO. DIE.
Stop pandering to the cheapest of the cheapskates.
Gotta say, OS X is pretty decent in some ways. I'll probably be getting a mac here in a month or two.
Not when the alternative is a $30 price jump for something so lousy as Starter Edition.
no kidding, don't they want people to switch to 7? This certainly won't accomplish that.
I'm fairly sure windows 7 is $30 better than XP. Not really a big deal.
No, it is, because charging any amount more, be it one dollar, five dollars, or thirty dollars, prevents the proliferation of Windows 7. It's holding technology as a whole back. Microsoft should charge the same for XP and 7 if they really want the world to move on.
Point taken. I don't understand why they even continue to even sell XP.
They continue to sell XP because outside of engadget most people prefer it. Why would a company stop selling a product people want in favour of one they don't?
Besides being cheaper, XP has several features that Win 7 Starter Edition lacks.
It’s been reported that MS is charging $50 for the Win7 Starter licenses. MS were forced to settle for less revenue with XP by virtue of the fact that most initial netbooks came with Linux and they were losing some marketshare and revenue. But XP won’t be an option for too much longer and the return rate on netbooks with Linux was pretty high, so MS isn’t in the same position.
Or get iiView A2
If it was $30 bucks for home premium I'd be worth it. How about free for starter since it's so basic?
Yeah, I mean the XP that comes with netbooks is the full version, so why should the crippled version of w7 come at a premium?
Funny because last week my roommate and I were at Wal-Mart and they had accidentally stocked their electronics cage with Acer Aspire One netbooks which included a "Windows 7 32-bit Starter Edition". Although, when they tried to ring it up it said SALE NOT ALLOWED and they all started huddling around the register scratching their heads. Regardless, This Thursday you'll be able to pick up the Acer Aspire One 10.1" model netbook with Windows 7 starter for $289 and their XP model which currently sells for $289 will go down to $249. If you go in now and see any in their cage in the electronics department you can ask them to put it on lay away or at least hold it for you if you want to be guaranteed one. My roommate has one on hold at the Wal-Mart down the street from the house.
With that being said, I've been running my beta copy of Windows 7 Ultimate on my Acer Aspire One netbook since the day build 7000 was available for download. It works like a champ so I can only imagine the "Starter Edition" of Windows 7 will perform nicely.
•Ship without an Operating System. [Subtract however Windows costs]
I hope to see that someday. In stores and Online.
much*
Great minds think alike..
I hope to see it federally mandated for all vendors, including Apple.
That is what I like so much about clevo/compal resellers, like Xoticpc, avadirect, or powernotebooks.
That and the price.
Clevo has some sweet laptops for some sweet prices.
Not going to happen. That's like saying you should be able to have it ship without a hard drive, or a CPU, or RAM. It may not be a physical components, but the operating system is still a critical part of the computer itself.
Having Windows installed doesn't prevent you from installing something else, or simply doing a clean install of Windows again itself to get rid of the crapware. And it wouldn't cost less to not have it either. No operating system = deviation during production = more costly to manufacture.
the beta win7 I put on there works fine on my asus 1000he.
Say the same thing in a year ;)
Where's Vista?
*cries*
In the dumpster out by the back. Good thing he lost a lot of weight recently or he wouldn't have fit in one.
"In the dumpster out by the back."
Where he belonged in the first place.
Also, Win 7 Starter is $30 more than XP?
With how crippled Starter is I can't imagine why any intelligent person would choose it over XP. XP at least allows you to take advantage of most of the features of a netbook.
Oh well, I'll probably just install Linux. Fits my needs perfectly!
ew, your mom
uh yeah I'd gladly pay $30 more on a $300-400 item to have an OS that isn't 8 years old.
as a side note is there a decline in linux netbooks? Most I see in sales are running Win now
XP is no less functional now than it was 8 years ago. Plus this is the heavily crippled Windows 7 Starter Edition we're talking about.
home premium runs perfectly fine on my old ass dell inspiron 1150 from 2004, i imagine any netbook today could easily run home premium instead of starter...
The issue is licensing fees. One major reason OEMs chose Windows XP is because Microsoft offered it to them for cheap (under $15 by some reports). This is why the price difference between Linux and Windows based netbooks ended up being minimal. Now Starter Edition will cost more than Windows XP, but still less than the standard Home Premium license. For netbook manufacturers aiming for a certain price point, that's a bit deal.
I suppose Dell could offer Home as an upgrade, but then I'm certain they would much rather sell you a *regular* laptop with it preloaded.
This licensing pricing problem is the opening Google needs to get Chrome OS in, assuming they can release it in the next year. Unlike the various current Linux offerings, the regular consumer knows the Google name and trusts it.
Even at +$30 for Win 7 Starter, Microsoft is not making much money if any at all. They're just trying to maintain market share. The question is whether or not it's truly worthwhile. I don't blame them for trying to recoup the investment, but the feature crippling seems arbitrary.
Windows 7 Starter
Maximum physical CPUs supported 1
Home Group (create and join) Join only
Backup and Restore Center[37] Cannot back up to network
Multiple monitors No
Fast user switching No
Desktop Wallpaper Changeable No
Desktop Window Manager No
Windows Mobility Center No
Windows Aero No
Multi-Touch No
Premium Games Included No
Windows Media Center No
Windows Media Player Remote Media Experience[38] No
Encrypting File System No
Location Aware Printing No
Remote Desktop Host No
Presentation Mode No
Windows Server domain joining No
Windows XP Mode[39] No
Aero glass remoting No
AppLocker No
BitLocker Drive Encryption No
BranchCache Distributed Cache No
DirectAccess No
Subsystem for Unix-based Applications No
Multilingual User Interface Pack No
Virtual Hard Disk Booting No
Ok ,it’s a crippled Os, but there is a market, let’s face it WE want the extra bling but there are those out there in the world that only need the raw controllable basics, schools, emerging markets ,the poor and lets give credit,,,,,,,,AN ARMY OF HACKERS! , who wants to bet this “starter” snot gets whipped real soon ? any takers?,
Umm, how much of that long list is even available in Windows 7 Home Premium, much less XP Home?
A list of only items cut from Home Premium for Starter edition would be more useful.
XP users will be SOL when Flash, IE and Firefox stop working. The time is coming...