Oct
21
posted at: 4:56 PM
Windows 7 drops tomorrow, and like a few others in the press, I am excited. Sure, I've been using it for a while now and can speak first-hand that as a laptop guy, this is a long awaited improvement. There are three key features that I'm especially excited about.
First, faster booting. This doesn't just mean booting from powered off, but coming out of Sleep and Hibernate. This is actually incredibly fast and makes zipping from one meeting to the next much easier than before. There was actually a point when I was on Vista where I was going to meetings with my laptop open so that I could avoid putting it to sleep. I'm happy to not be having this problem any longer.
Next is the consolidated UI. I'm one of those crazy power users that always has at least 15 windows open on my desktop at one time (you don't even want to see how messy my desktop is!), so having these consolidated into easy to reach icons saves me a lot of time from having to remember where I put that window.
Lastly -- and this is the big one -- is better management of resources for notebook battery life. Windows 7 is smart enough to power off things like your network card if you aren't using it to help you save battery life, and is more battery effecient than previous version of Windows. This is huge, since the netbook market is really starting to emerge and having an OS that is well-optimized for ultra-mobile devices is going to be key in gaining netbook sales.
I've been in the market for a new laptop, as my Dell Inspiron from 2006 is beginning to show signs of its age, and have been playing around with the Windows PC Scout which has a great configurator for new Windows 7 laptops. I'm not sure if I'm going to pony-up for that 19 incher, but I could definetely see a new netbook in my not-so-distant future.