I never thought I’d say this but I’m using my Vista machine more than my Mac these days!
Why?
Well, there are a number of reasons - the Vista machine is a Vaio SZ3. It is small, light and has a significantly better battery life than my 15′ MacBook Pro so I’m far more likely to take it with me when travelling.
Having said that, the keyboard on the MacBook Pro is far nicer to type on. The MacBook Pro is waaaaay quieter, and the screen on the MacBook Pro at 1440×900 is significantly better than the Vaio’s 1280×800.
So again, why have I started to use the PC more?
I think the answer is Cleartype. Cleartype is a font rendering technology developed by Microsoft which makes onscreen text easier to read.
By definition, I read enormous amounts of text every day online. If I look at the same text on my Mac and PC, I can’t really discern any difference. But when I read for hours at a time, I definitely notice that I prefer reading on the PC screen!
Other tasks like audio, video or photo work, I still do on the Mac but, for now, most of my reading is done on the PC.
Is this a slippery slope?
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Unexpected as I was…
Yes it the answer Tom - you can leave now
keith
I’m using Vista for all the wrong reasons. I simply haven’t had free cycles to back up all my data and reinstall XP, so for now I’m stuck with using a beautiful OS that is as usable as a jar of honey - d’oh!
small, light and has a significantly better battery life sounds like my 13.5′ MacBook (2.16Ghz) and guess what, with Parallels, it does XP also.
Good point Branedy - I haven’t tried Cleartype in Parallels on my Mac - that’d be an interesting comparison.
I wonder if Parallels even supports Cleartype?
Tom - love the headline and good to hear you’re using it and that ClearType has such a noticeable impact. Hadn’t really thought about that but if you’re enjoying using the SZ3 now, I can’t wait to show you Vista on the Vaio TZ12 I have when I come over to Cork.
Not massively powerful (Centrino Core Duo @ 1.2Ghz - but with 2GB of RAM) so for doing typical work (email, PPT etc)it’s great. The real killer is it comes with the option of a 32gb SSD flash drive rather than 100GB disk. As you’d expect, that means it runs quieter, faster and battery life is astonishing. On max battery it delivers 7hrs. You can also add an additional 32GB SSD in the express slot. Still comes with DVD drive, built in webcam etc and weighs in at 1.19kg…oh and it has a “chiclet” iBook style keyboard though could do with beign backlit like an MBP.
I think the smaller and lighter the better for notebook. Sure it should be fast as well!