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HP joining venture with Microsoft to launch ‘Courier’ tablet

HP will team up with Microsoft to launch a tablet this Wednesday

Hot off the press is an article by the New York Times highlighting the impending launch of the “Microsoft Courier” (or at least something based off the concept) tablet this Wednesday by Steve Ballmer (Microsoft’s CEO) at the Consumer Electronics Show. Looks like there’s gonna be quite a bit of drama as HP (as in Hewlett Packard) and Microsoft team up to launch a tablet way before Apple’s tablet even comes out of ‘vaporware speculation’ status! Go team Microsoft! This upcoming tablet will be a ‘HP device’ (although what sort of branding it will receive is still a mystery. Will it be branded with Microsoft or HP’s name?) will have multimedia functions, including a reader feature, and a touchscreen (size unknown) supporting multi-touch input.

HP Pavilion dv7 featured in Microsoft’s latest ad

The HP Pavilion dv7 was recently featured in Microsoft’s latest “Lauren and the under-$1000 17 inch laptop ad“. As usual, many Apple/Mac fanboys are screaming and trying to enforce “Windows PCs are rubbish”, yet again. Is that not surprising? Somebody actually said the $699 HP Pavilion dv7 is a, quote, “crappy budget notebook”… excuse me? The HP Pavilion dv7 is a very capable notebook – you can watch videos, play games (intensive ones included) and do a whole lot of things on it; it’s nowhere CLOSE to being a “crappy budget notebook”. Did anyone read about a certain brand’s PC hard disks failing because of using the built-in speakers at a loud volume (hint: it’s not HP); now they are the real makers of really cheap notebooks, in all senses of the word.

Back to the point… people should just face the facts: ANY other notebook PC is priced much lower, with better specifications, than an “equivalent” Apple Mac/Macbook computer. True, even I would agree that the advertisement may be somewhat “stretched” in the sense most people won’t shop for their notebook based on screen size alone, but here’s a real life experience from me: A friend of mine, Steven, has been looking for a decent notebook PC priced around $900. He’s in college right now and wants something that he can use for documents, surfing the web and also for watching movies as well as some gaming (he wants to be able to run games like Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty 4 and 5 at decent quality settings and frame rate).

He’s not asking for a massive screen (in fact he prefers a 14 to 15 inch LCD as a nice compromise between portability and screen viewability) but he’s quite particular about the graphics and gaming part there. Here’s a comparison of the HP Pavilion dv4 notebook PC versus the unibody Macbook (click for larger):

Upper left: HP Online Store, Lower left: Apple Online Store, Right: Excel comparison table (As of March 30, 2009)

A HP Pavilion dv4 with a 2.4 GHz processor, 3 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard disk, 512 MB Nvidia GeForce G105M graphics and 14 inch screen would run you roughly $925.
A Macbook (Unibody model) with a 2.4 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard disk, 256 MB Nvidia 9400M graphics and 13 inch screen would cost about $1600!!!

Turns out a *similar* Macbook would cost almost $700 extra while having inferior graphics, a smaller LCD and 1 GB RAM less than the HP. Hey, point proven. And the higher you go, the larger the price difference between a Windows computer and a *similar* Apple computer.

He’s already checked out other “Windows PC” options and likes the HP Pavilion dv4’s build quality and design better versus the others; and is currently waiting for any additional/potential “summer specials” before springing for the notebook.

UPDATE (April 2009): Steven finally bought a laptop after much comparison and shopping around; he got a good deal on a HP Pavilion dv3000 and went for that, instead of the dv4 he was planning for.

Happy birthday Steve Ballmer!

Steve Ballmer turns 53 today, days after his comment about “Apple tax” last week.

By the way, here’s a toast to more Windows market share and better Microsoft software (*ahem*Windows Mobile 7*ahem*)

P.S. More HP stuff and write-ups to come in a few days

No, don’t release Windows 7 yet

As opposed to those making petitions and screaming and yelling for Windows 7 to be released (aka in a “I want it, and I want it now!” manner), I don’t think Microsoft should release Windows 7 that quickly yet. Sure the Beta of Windows 7 looks, feels and seems to run pretty well thus far and lots of people are satisfied; now anticipating the launch of Microsoft’s new operating system more than ever. But why not wait a while more for further testing and any (more) bugs to be ironed out to perfection so we actually have a STABLE operating system in the end when it launches.

Why the rush for Windows 7 to be released? There’s already the beta version available of 7 available for download and you’ve already waited two years since Vista (seven to eight years if you’re coming from Win XP), what’s a few months compared to that? I’d go with Microsoft taking their time to perfect Windows 7 instead of releasing it in a hurry, in a clumsy manner.

Windows Vista is laggy. Right…

It’s been almost two whole years since Windows Vista was released and more than two years that we’ve been hearing the endless criticisms and statements shooting down the operating system. No doubt Apple’s “Get a Mac”  ads (whose nature subsequently turned into “constant anti-Vista preaching”) have played a large role in diluting people’s minds and implanting the idea that Windows Vista is crappy. Most of the time, many small issues in Vista get over exaggerated into huge problems.

And what’s worse is that majority of these Vista-haters probably have not even used Vista before! – the idea in their head just came from word of mouth from friends, the net, comments in some of the so-called “technology magazines/websites” or some of those ridiculous Get-a-Mac ads. The most they do is probably walk into a computer shop, use a PC or two running Vista (use as in move the mouse around for a bit, click on the start button, open Internet Explorer) and conclude “oh it looks pretty… but it’s probably slow and useless anyway”.

My first experience with Vista was somewhere in February 2007, not long after the final release by Microsoft, where I had Windows Vista Ultimate running on a then-new HP notebook. From that point in time until now, I have been using Windows Vista and have never looked back. During my 23 months with Windows Vista, I have not had many issues with the OS at all; aside from the system coming up with an occasional dreaded blue screen of death during my attempts to run some ancient games (read: 1996-1998 games) and incompatibility with Norton Internet Security 2007 at the initial stage.

I’ve also been able to run Photoshop CS3 (and quite recently, CS4) and many, many modern games smoothly on Vista…. umm, not to mention multi-tasking (running many programs; plus some heavy ones like Photoshop with multiple RAW images loaded) is part of my daily life. Hey whaddaya know, no crashes, my system isn’t laggy, and I haven’t got a BSOD since my last attempt to run a 1997 game 13 months back. All in contrast to the usual Vista stereotype.

I had “another one of those days” again this week, when I was using my HP Compaq 6510b (yeah it’s an old notebook, anyone care to sponsor me an Elitebook? =) and was approached by some guy who happened to see my Windows 7 wallpaper which became the conversation starter. Apparently once you get an impression of something, it sticks in your head, even if you never tried it before.

Dude: Hey is that the latest Windows?
Me: No, it’s just Windows Vista with a wallpaper which says Windows 7.
Dude: (looking confused) So this isn’t the latest Windows? How come this (points to “Windows 7″ on the screen) doesn’t say Windows Vista?
Me: It’s just a wallpaper I downloaded from the net.
Dude: Oh… anyhow, I heard Windows Vista is horrible.
Me: It’s not as bad as people say. I’ve been running it fine for almost 2 years now.
Dude: But it’s slow right?
Me: Not exactly, unless I’m running a few huge applications at one go… in which case, any PC would run slowly.
Dude: Then it must be laggy in something, like playing games…
Me: I play lots of games at home, mostly on their highest settings on Vista and they still run quite well in fact.
Dude: That can’t be right. Windows Vista is huge and slow.
Me: Have you personally used Vista before?
Dude: No, I just heard from people that it sucks.
Me: That’s not always true. No doubt it uses a little more memory, I think it’s still as usable as previous Windows versions.
Dude: But in the end, it’s still laggy, isn’t it?

Oh bother! The era of insane, sometimes completely false, anti-Vista sentiments will soon be over… I hope Windows 7 will turn future conversation pieces of the world from “Windows Vista sucks” to “Windows 7 rocks”.

Microsoft Store is open!

The Microsoft Store is now open. Located at “store.microsoft.com”, the official store by Microsoft sells their software (that includes Windows OS and Microsoft Office suites), Zune media players, XBox 360 games and hardware (mice and keyboards with their famous ergonomic wave design).