Yeah, what's with the Microsoft stories?! It's not like they've shaped/reshaped the industry described in half of the sections on this site...

Why are you guys geeking over HD-DVD and Blu-Ray?! The next big thing is downloadable content integrated into MCE systems/servers. In not much time, diskettes will be a thing of the past. Microsoft doesn't give a damn about either format because, quite frankly, there's no point in investing in something that's going to be obsolete in 5-10 years.

Looks pretty, but why the hell didn't this get the 65nm upgrade? If I remember correctly, with the 65nm upgrade/more efficient manufacturing system, the price was supposed to drop by now...the premium box should have dropped in price, this should be $400.

feel as though I'm replying too much... The score can bottleneck on silly things. IIRC, my processor/memory/graphics/hd were all in the 4-5 range, but my gaming graphics is 3.1 (laptop). Therefor, my score is 3.1. I run every Aero option on with no performance issues whatsoever. In this sense, the score is somewhat meaningless. My PC's gaming abilities has nothing to do with day to day functionality if I don't game. What really effects those things is the processor, memory, hd speed etc. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but I find the OS to be much more efficient than anything else I've ever ran (considering what it has to offer).

Your score is 4.9 and you see performance issues? I'm rocking a 3.1 and thought Vista screamed compared to XP.

I purchased my HP DV2035US back in June of '06, and it runs fairly well on XP, better on Ubuntu, decent on OSX. I picked up Vista Home Premium for dirt cheap at school, figured I'd give the quad-boot a shot. Needless to say, my XP partition is no more. I don't know why everyone dogs on Vista so much. I'd consider myself a fairly intensive PC user, and sans some led quicklaunch button I never used in XP, I haven't seen a single compatibility issue with Vista. The OS runs much faster than XP, looks/functions much cleaner than Ubuntu+Beryl, and frankly has tons more software support than OSX.

Take it from an OS aficionado who triple boots into Ubuntu+Beryl Linux, OSX, and Vista, it's my favorite for a reason. (Though I'm posting this from Ubuntu).

Not to mention the fact that every American has to drive a gas-guzzling SUV and own 10 guns by the age of 18.

Let's keep those stereotypes rolling.

You guys are forgetting that the VGA outputs 1080p, and there are a decent amount of sets that support it.

HDMI, gimick or not, is obviously what the industry is moving towards (today, at least). To stay competitive, MS had to jump the bandwagon.

Microsoft! What a bunch of a*#holes! This would be like Sony releasing the PS3 for a much lower price, redesigning its chipset so developers can actually work with it, installing a 10+mil owner base, and releasing 100 games to make up the gap! Oh wait....

Illogical syllogism, Nick.

I saw this, and decided to photoshop a stereotypical girlfriend, probably adequately labeled, in place of the PS3, maybe donning the title "You Decide 2007: Average Weekend". Unfortunately, Vista just crapped out because of activation b.s. (I even legally purchased it!) and I've been too busy with school to call up Microsoft and fix it. So no Vista means no Photoshop means I'm running Linux and using it's equivalent, The Gimp. 10 seconds into the edit I said "screw this".
Maybe I'm way off the point, but I love Microsoft's marketing stance here, wtf were they thinking with the Vista activation process?!