It's funny when gizmodo writes nonsense like Vista is the reason people switched to Linux or Mac OS. Those ignorant writers just don't get that Apples OS market share is less than 2%. GET IT, 2%? And Microsoft's market share is about 98%. Yea, I understand Apple is paying this ridiculous writers to write bad about MS, but try to understand that not the PC users are freaks, no, it's the MAC users who keep on criticizing and not understanding that the WORLD (business, games, movies, music(NASA, Wallstreet, Pentagon, Warner, Universal, Mayo Clinic, GM, GE, Toyota, Samsung, UBISOFT, EA, Intel, SONY,...)) is ran/made on and by PC's. And a recent research showed that the average mac user is 54 years old. Yea, keep on criticizing me, and telling me that I'm a dumb freak, but you know, you are wrong. The statistics are saying that you are a 54 year old freak using a useless OS.

PRO7

ya have to agree, one of my machines did have vista isues at laucnh but apparently was due to some shoddy ati drivers, since i got new ones things are much smoother! NOT MICROSOFTS FAULT, thats ATI/NVIDIA's idiot drivers fault.

Also SORA57, the 360's failure rate was NEVER 30% that was proven to be a complete farse, it was some idiot at ebgames that said his stores failure rate was 30% and microsoft later said that while they did have an issue it was no where near the reported 30% and more in the lines of 4-8% which is only slightly higher than the industry standard of 3-4%... and that was back before they made the corrections in 2007

Also since when is the 360 loud, do you people play your game systems in some form of bubble with no noise around you or whie your mom and dad are outside the door and your trying to sneak a game with the volume on mute or something, because i dont even play with my 5.1 on and just the tv speakers and i can't here my 360 give it a rest, its louder than the wii but its no where near as loud as you azzes act like.

phantam

Oh and I should add...
My friend and I tried to install Leopard on his Mac and when we insert the disc, it tells us to click a button to restart the Mac and being the installation process. So we click the button and the Mac restarts, but ejects the Leopard disc without installing anything. Oh right, buy a Mac, cuz it "just works."

Pffffffft. My a$$.

berribrand

@OldSchoolGadgetLover:

If you personally knew 10 people with Wiis and knew that 3 of them failed, then your personal experience would indicate that there was a 30% failure rate. Other factors would have to be measured to, but as an example, that's how it works. Since the major retailers nationwide are reporting that 30% of their Xbox 360s are being returned for RRoD syndrome AND the manufacturer itself (MS) comes out with a billion dollar program to repair those machines, you have your answer. It's not about whining. It's about statistics.

Sora57

@lizard_king

lets just hope ur wife isnt reading this post right now

Sheemo44

How were you unable to find a pc that could connect to the internet and allow you to enter text through a web form? I'd say any pc made in the past 10 years should work for that.

Was it really a problem with Vista or were you using third-party software that third-party manufacturers didn't update for Vista? I haven't run into any software that wouldn't run. If there is an issue, you can always run it in compatibility mode.

Only Vista issue I had was with FlashMX-- I had to disable aero when that was running and even that was done automatically by checking a box on the shortcut. I blame Adobe for being greedy bastards. They could have taken care of their customers by offering a quick patch.

flumbo

we're talking 2007 and in 2007, new xbox360's are fixed, i have ne and it runs fine hel i have one also from a day 1 launch party that works fine. The fact they extended the warranty to 3 years makes their grade go up.....

people like syaing the world of 360's with rrod is still raging, but i know many people with 360's and out of probably 20 of them 2 had a rrod ... and 1 of those was because his da*n AV cable was disconnected.

Good games on a GAMING platform is whats important and the 360 had that in spades this year.

---

As for vista, i have it on 4 custom build computers all running 1-2 gigs of ram with decent video cards actually their a bit old, only 1 of the computers is dual core, and 2 of them are 3ghx p4's... and all 4 of them run vista flawlessly... the issue is stupid ass oem's preloading crap on vista... why do oem's need to install software to manage the wireless network clumsily if windows vista does it for you without extra software.??? Do i really need to buy an OEM that has 2 copies of AOL installed and other crapsoft.

Then theirs the other major issue with software today especially on OEM PC's

WHY ARE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMS SO HORRIBLY SLOW! If i install Norton on a computer it immediately becomes 40-50% slower, this is with vista and xp but its more pronounced with vista, while god forbid i say it onecare atleast doesnt take the PC to a crawl, yet norton is on every preloaded oem computer hence the computer are DOG SLOW

phantam

@OldSchoolGadgetLover:
On THAT note, Vista works great for me (and for many many others). Yes, it didn't work perfectly when I got it in February, but these days, drivers and software are designed for Vista. A "D" seems harsh. It seems Giz is still judging it based on Vista's performance earlier in the year vs. today.

berribrand

@PwnySlaystation:

Agree. RRoD has 30% failure rate and that should automatically make the highest rating possible a C for that category. The fact that MS has manned-up and increased the warranty is definitely a smart move-- but does not erase the inconvenience of sending out your Deadbox and waiting for its return. And the noise...Why does everyone forget the screaming of the "cooling fans"? (In quotes because if they actually cooled the machine, the chipset would not heat up and produce the pretty red lights arrayed in a circular pattern)

Kudos for on-line functionality and quality game library. Could have had a slam dunk with XBox, MS, but you blew it and should get a C.

Sora57

@slingblade: You know, anecdotal evidence of hardware problems is complete BS for proving how reliable a product is. I know 3 people that own Wii's. One of them (my boss) had a defective one. Does that mean the Wii failure rates is 30%?

People tend to communicate (read "whine") when things go wrong, not when things work properly.

OldSchoolGadgetLover

Agreed- I'd mark Xbox 360 down to a "B" or lower for the hardware problems.

ARP

@calaverasgrandes: "(a)Microsoft does software reeeeaaly well" -- If he meant in the same way McDonalds does hamburgers really well, then I agree.

sumocat

XBOX 360 division gets A-? Dudes running around with 9 (lost count of that famous dude) or more broken 360's shouldn't have to deal with that. That's ridiculous. And if all the problems are ALWAYS the RRoD, then something is seriously wrong.

slingblade

I just finished setting up my fourth Vista machine for the house - my wife is getting a new laptop for Xmas. My past experiences with Vista have been absolutely trouble-free, setting up a Media Center under the floor of the living room (silent HTPC) in the basement, my own PC (A four or five year old nforce2 based Athlon XP machine) and an identical machine for my wife, which is to be passed to my dad after Xmas. All of the machines have different uses, none have had a hitch of problems. If not for the constant reboots from updates I have confidence that I would easily break my own personal record of 92 days of uptime on the HTPC

However those are all custom built - with the new laptop I may encounter the same issues as other have. We will see. My own theory is a lot of people have heard of issues and have insisted on XP because they were entirely happy with it - I know I was. Really, the only thing pulling me to Vista was Media Center.

Lizard_King

I went to a Microsoft developer event a little while ago. NDA forbids me to say where and when. The host wouldnt stop hitting the same tired points over and over again.
(a)Microsoft does software reeeeaaly well
(b)Microsoft doesnt do hardware

We all know the first one is a crock. I mean maybe in comparison to some DB developers and game publishers they can be called diligent? But yeah Vista is a sluggish pile of poop.
The second is an outright lie. keyboards, mice, Zune, Xbox, not to mention the much touted Polycom killer- Roundtable (which I have yet to see on Giz?).

calaverasgrandes

@PwnySlaystation: Last I checked, MS extended the warrentee period to 3 years (damn good) and the newer units don't have the same failure issues?

Can anyone substantiate a 30% failure rate on Xbox 360 boxes these days (or even in the past)?

OldSchoolGadgetLover

Anything with a 30% failure rate doesn't deserve more than a C

PwnySlaystation

Great review! Spot on! I couldn't have said it better myself. Email it to billg@microsoft.com!

zombo

LOL i believe the 360 and wii have both proven that the "motion controller" is a GIMMICK, a web browser would be interesting but once again is a gimmick, its a GAME CONSOLE not a webtv...... and a keyboard and mouse... why exactly? its not a computer its a CONSOLE.

And they are making huge steps, the video marketplace, the new interface and the new design for navigating, DIVX AND XVID support that i've heard and seen is a good bit better than even the ps3's new support. Not to mention a price drop i believe was this year as well...

all strong things, topped by a very strong game lineup makes the 360 king of the hill in the end.

Microsoft followed the same tactic they ddid with the Zune... the 360 is a Gaming/Entertainment platform, hence the deep video and gaming experience, without the "extras crap like a browser" ... as they said with the zune that was made for music, its made for music and thats what their going to make it the best at.... the 360 is for games and video... and from what ive seen its the best at videos and games of all the cnsolesbest of both of those. just like the ipod classic vs zune the zune blows it out of the water.

phantam

I'm not a fanboy, but my vista works fine. Sucks trying to network with an XP - that's my major gripe. Once you do some customization to the OS to make it run smoother (and remove some of the non-essential services from starting on boot) it's pretty stable. I don't think I got a BSOD to date, and I've been playing around with it for a while. I still like XP a lot, so maybe the whining is because XP was such a good system by the time Vista came out that people were disappointed with the new OS offer.

froggy

they better do something soon because people are starting to get tired of this RROD nonsense already. i mean i have been waiting for more than a year to get one but untill they don't get rid of that chip am keeping my money

snitch29

@devwild: And if you accept that excuse, you need lessons in how to handle a customer service call.

Always remain calm and polite, always take notes, writing down the name and operator number of everyone you speak to, always escalate to the next tier regardless of hold time, and never take "that's not covered" as a final answer.

OMG!!! Ponies!!!

People keep claiming that the 360 has a three year warranty - it does not, it has a three year repair/replacement policy specifically and only for RRODs.

And of course, the latest generation's only reported failures so far aren't actually a RROD, so they aren't covered after the standard warranty runs out. A simple firmware change gives Microsoft an out on their promise.

And I agree, the failure rate is too high (evidence I've seen points to higher than the 30% claims if you leave out machines <6 months old) for an A-, and it has taken too long for Microsoft to respond to serious design issues in a satisfactory manor (you don't just keep sticking on bigger heat syncs and pray for the best). The 2007 machines are not all safe, and there are still defective units on the shelves.

devwild

@Sheemo44: heh. She doesn't do the gadget blogs....maybe I oughtta block the URL in the router as a precaution? ;-)

On the grading, Im thinking A- is FAR too high for the 360, and it currently is my favorite gaming system. While the past year has seen improvements that are deserving of a higher grade, the failures, though not confrimed at 30%, were high. Failures happened to people doing things properly - Plugged into a line conditioner, plenty of ventilation, etc - even though production and a warranty upgrade helped quell the issue. Let's look at the upgrades they COULD make - how about letting users use a Keyboard and Mouse (PS3), an official controller that detects motion (Wii or PS3), a web browser, etc. There are improvements to be made. An A would signify they are doing things right - there is a LOT of things done right, but a LOT of room for improvement. The Xbox 360 is great, and this year has seen improvements, but not A- Great.

Lizard_King

they had their reasons, intel waned to own the design of the xenon processor... microsoft wanted to own it themselves so they could pick their own manufacturers down the road and reduce cost themselves to lower the console pricing...

ibm allowed them to do that apparently intel and amd wanted to hold the ownership to themselves.

phantam

you got to handed to M$$ the X360 games are great, better than any other console outhere, but Dude the Hardware sucks B**ls really. if apple had dump IBM because the old G5 processors where screwing everything up why did M$$ pick that up?? if they would had use a intel chip it would have been king of consoles without a dought

snitch29

@phantam:

Very well put.

dead_red_eyes

@phantam: FYI, more and more CC salesmen were called into the conversation trying to find someone who knew more about the Media Center aspects of the platform. All were hardcore Xbox 360 gamers, but none had used the Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender.

whootowl

@phantam: Ummm... I totally agree with you and you are almost 100% spot on. But my Xbox 360 (a release day purchase) is a little loud, fan wise. Maybe a fluke, but I've heard others talk about it too.

But thanks for summing up a lot of things so well.

OldSchoolGadgetLover

Yes, the RRoD are a pain in the ass - but I just sent in my 360 and got it returned in 3 weeks. Paid absolutely nothing. I think that Microsoft gets the credit it deserves: fixing a serious problem with (relative) great speed and costing nothing extra to consumers besides lost gaming time. And the Zune is cool. Still don't know if I want a Zune or a iPod or something else. Hrm. Other than those 2 highlights, Microsoft looks like that same old grumpy beast it's been for years.

budash2

My guess is that Wilson owns an Xbox 360, an ipod (free from el-jobso) touch, iPhone, and ofcourse Leopard on a Macbook bro... otw, Vista won't have gotten a D. Another person's shortcomings is another person's glory huh?

What a biased post?

mr_oshodi

lol as my frinds told me when we were talking about it, people dont go on boards to say their 360's are working... ther online playing halo/cod/gears/masseffect/pgr4 etc :)

my point is if it was 30% and microsoft is at 10m that means that we should ahve close to 3 MILLION users online bitching that their 360 is broken.

phantam

@phantam:

While I agree with you on the majority of your post, I'd have to disagree with you on the last part.. There are a few gaming sites where staff members have had 3+ 360's break on them.. One even has 9 I believe. I'm on my 3rd one personally, but have only had 1 RROD on me (the 2nd) the first one's DVD drive wouldn't open unless I pushed in on the middle of it.. it wasn't a huge issue, but I decided to get it replaced anyway. my 2nd 360 RROD when Crackdown came out. Now I'm on my 3rd and it's been trucking along just fine. I have about 5 or 6 friends who have 360's as well who haven't had a problem yet. But yea, the only stories you're going to hear about on sites or forums is when one actually breaks then you're going to get a flood of people who have the same issue commenting about it.

PlasmaMachine

so get a wii... oh ya the games get boring after 2 days

so get a ps3... oh wait the games are all old, or play like crap

ahh back to a 360... ya they probably suffered a rrod for their cables not being connected knowing the idiot sales clerks at CC... besides the point why does it take 5 salesmen to answer questions on a game console?

And did they actually suffer the rrod or they had to deal with a customers rrod... because if they had a 360 themselves i dont see why they would need 5 to answer questions on it....

Customer abuse? a 3 year rrod protection warranty is now abuse? keep the damn machine ventialated and it will last forever mines 2 years old and running flawlessly and i have played dozens of games, and pretty much every demo, whats the secret? simple, its sitting next to my tv spaced so that the top/side/back holes arent blocked and suffocating the damn machine

phantam

I was at CC last night to purchase an Xbox 360. Five salesmen were gathered to answer my tough questions. Four of the five have suffered RRoD, at least two had RRoD on the new HDMI design.

I think a C would be very generous for a design that fails so frequently under normal use. But then, I come from the safety-critical design world where even one failure garners an F.

Bottomline, I could not purchase an Xbox 360, which would support the perpetuence of consumer abuse.

whootowl

I can't wait to see Sprint Nextels year end report card, lol, i heard the company is Firing people left & right and Loosing customers by the thousands daily at the same time. maybe the idea of being Rude to the customers was not a good idea after all. it might do the trick for the IRS and other government agencies because theres no other choice, but not good for business

snitch29

its not statistics and it wasnt a major retailer, it was a single eb games shop ... it wasnt like best buy came out and said it in a corporate news letter.

and a billion dollar program was made to stop the idiots like you from whining, but there you go microsoft offers an un-precidented warranty for the troubles of the users, and instead of being happy people whine that it's not enough.

And i'm sick also of people saying that they have a friend that had 8, 10, 100 360's die on them... yet it's never the person its always a friend of a friend... when in reality 9 times out of 10... that "friend" is a story they red on engadget or gizmodo abou 1 idiot that kept breaking his 360 and then complaining.

8x360's all dieing on 1 person would be the biggest statistical insanity to ever exist even if their was a 30% failure rate... what they all ended up going to that 1 person????

phantam

@PwnySlaystation: That about sums it up.

And Sora, when the leader of their gaming division says there is a design flaw in all of them (the moboard etc) thats not 30% in the end it is a 100% defect rate, about 30% get returned to stores because they can be, its realisticaly more like 68%ish but a lot of people don't bother with a warranty. And then you have the refurbs and the "fixed" ones breaking, because you put the broken parts in there instead.

When your best method of fixing a design flaw is wrapping 3 warm towels around a piece of $450 electronic something is wrong and you do not get a A-. Vista was done better than 360.

I don't know why people don't dig the zune though. It is amazing =)

Zaos

LIZARD_KING: ya... but what microsoft does that the others PS3 and WII is... have the most wicked game line up of 2007!

And when it comes to a GAME CONSOLE, thats what sony seems to have forgotten, they can add theyr folding at home, and a web browser but in the end its supposed to be a game console, and thats what microsoft nailed.

In microsofts case their heavy target is games and video, and microsoft managed to nail both and nail them perfectly in my opinion

phantam

@phantam:

Dude, I personally know 5 friends with Xbox 360s and 3 of them returned them for repairs because of RRoD. Not anecdotal, not heard from a friend of a friend, but me-- going into their homes and being told by the owners directly. Why do you think MS is prepared to spend $1 billion on repairs? Because the failure rate is reported at about 30%. And if you don't hear your fans blowing, you are lucky or deaf. Every other one I've played roars. And no, moron, I haven't tried to play quietly because my parents might hear-- I haven't lived at home for decades. Did you even read my first post? I tipped my hat to XBox for what they did right, but only a Fanboy like you would ignore all evidence that a serious hardware problem existed in 2007. And that's what this is about-- 2007. Still lots of bad units on the shelves-- they don't all die at once (Dead_Red_Eyes take note).

Having said that, the 3 friends with RRoD all got their units back in less than 3 weeks and all seems well so far.

Sora57

Just to be clear, I am NOT faulting the Xbox or Microsoft for the lack of those features I mentioned above. My opinoin is that as the other consoles add features or gain marketshare for specific features, then MS should take notice.

With the failures I see no reason for an A-.

Lizard_King

Good job Giz, I agree with the grade. I also think that when you put a Microsoft post up for the grabs, the readers go wild (in either direction). FWIW, I have had quite a few Vista machines. The first was nothing but problems (a Dell Precision Workstation 690). My most recently my XPS 720 is working wonderfully and I just got an XPS 420 which seems to do great as well. The media center is really nice. As for XBOX 360's, my original purchase died with the RRoD but was replaced. Since then it is working great, even with all the abuse it has been getting from Halo 3. I also have a Zune, it sucks. I have not tried the current generation but why bother, I love my iPhone. So all in all, I would say you hit the nail on the head...

andrelix

lol ... LEICAMAN: Mac's ENTIRE SHARE... PAST FUTURE AND CURRENT, is ~5.8% from memory, but guess what.. VISTA ALONE< a brand new os just released is over 6.4% overall.... meanwhile from memory XP holds a marketshare of somewhere in the range of 87% ... so how exactly is mac making leaps forward growing sooooooo fast... if a VISTA OS that JUST STARTED OUT A YEAR AGO, is already outselling all of the mac osx computers currently in use in the world?

phantam

@phantam: When customers, myself included look at the PS3 for features otherwise unavailable on the Xbox, you have to wonder if they are doing everything they can to make this the uber game machine they claim they have.

I agree you can dilute the 360 until it is not even seperated from a home computer, but not having the ability to have those features when other game consoles do (to their advantage) is a little bit blind-sided.

I think the Wii has proved that motion detecting controllers can be amazing.

The marketplace is great, but the blades are becomming a damn mess. howzabout some customizing of the organization.

Lizard_King

@PRO7: Boy are you fact-impaired or what?

Apple's market share is over 6 percent, is growing at twice the rate of the industry, and well over 12 percent in the laptop market. In colleges and universities, it's more like 40 to 50 percent and growing.

The military and intelligence agencies are big users of Macs. As is research and biomedical and all sorts of other areas of many industries. Music, video and graphics industries may be alone in being dominated by Macs, but Macs are finding their way into other industries slowly but surely.

Your 98 percent Windows nonsense is just that. Besides, UNIX and Linux are hardly 0 percent.

Here's a quarter, get a clue.

leicaman

@Lizard_King: That's like saying the Wii should be knocked down a few pegs
because they didn't include a kick ass processor like PS3 and Xbox 360, and a conventional controller for people who want to use one of those.

Companies tend to go in a given direction they think is important, and focus on that, not try to focus on being all things to all people, because that tends to lead to failure.

And could someone pony up the proof that the failure rate for the Xbox 360 is / has been 30% or anywhere near 30%? Except for the EB games store worker that started all of these rumors?

If not, stop saying it. I don't care about your neighbor, your 5 sales people, your fictional friend who bought a dozen systems all of which died... because when you sell millions and millions of anything, even a small percentage of failures equals 10s of thousands of bad units, which is a huge number (50,000 units per million sold for 5% for those of you who don't seem to get this concept). That's a lot of units, and a lot of people complaining, all of whom tell others who tell others about their system failures. It doesn't prove that the failure rate is 30%, despite what you might think.

OldSchoolGadgetLover

@Tomahawk214:

Actually the 3 RRoDs I am personally familiar with all happened AFTER July 2007. So in my view, 2007 was worse thand 2006. The machines are getting OLDER, you know. And the amount of money put aside ($1.1 billion-- and don't forget that little .1 equals another 100 million) by MS indicates the true size of the problem in their own estimation. If it costs MS $500 to repair and return an XBox 360, how many 360s would add of to $1.1 billion? Over 2 million. Just saying...

Sora57

@Sora57:

There was not anywhere near a 30% failure rate in 2007 everyone here knows that. Just because the warranty didn't expand until July doesn't mean the months before that in 2007 were riddled with problems.

Tomahawk214

@Tomahawk214:

The warranty coverage was expanded officially in July 2007. The problems were not well worked out in 2006 and therefore the Giz grade is too high and so is yours. Agree on all other points.

Sora57

@PRO7:
2%? that was true like ten years ago. Almost everybody I know is rockin a mac these days. There disengenuous ad campaign seesm to be working. Folks that dont know much about computers (and are paranoid about virii/hackers because of hollywoods depiction of them) are jumping on them. Musicians too since logic got cheaper. The only people I know who dont have or want a mac are other IT guys like me that need serial ports and shizznit.
PS out of laptops I would guess they have closer to a 20% share.

calaverasgrandes

You can't dock the 360 points for problems in machines from 2006. They had the problems well worked out in the 2007 machines, and this report card is on 2007. The 360 deserves a solid A. It's had a kickass line of games, an online service that wipes the floor with Sony's or Nintendo's, and the excellent flow of XBLA games.

I give Vista a B. I've had problems running some games but they were easily fixed. Other than that I love Vista and it has runned seamlessly on this comp.

Yeah i'm an MS fanboy, but I have my reasons, at least MS doesn't grip on to their software and try and totally control and monopolize everything someone does on it (looking straight you Apple.)

Tomahawk214

@phantam:

Finally we can agree that XBOX nailed it as a game console and has the best games for 2007, and online service is spot on. I still think Giz' grade of B- is generous because of the hardware problems.

Sora57

@phantam:

So you're saying that because a single EB games shop whined, MS blinked and gave up $1 billion? Don't think so. Read some of these comments-- even people agreeing with you on some points also point out that they have had their box get RRoD. It exists. It was a problem and MS offered up the 3 year RRoD plan as a result. Don't stick your head in the sand, you are likely to get run over by facts.

Sora57

Zune really has 11% market share? Funny, I've never, ever met a Zune owner and I work with a ton of gadget freaks. I've never met anyone in person who actually even wants a Zune. They're a joke, to the point that I assume people who talk them up on the blogs are just plain astroturfing.

mullingitover

I've recently had the pleasure (yes, pleasure) of using Vista on my work laptop - and I'm very tempted to make the transition on my PC at home, too. The interface is sleek and (dare I say) inspiring, the performance has been snappy and the system has been absolutely rock solid. I really am starting to wonder if all the Vista hatred is more of a smoke-screen now that the dust has settled with early driver issues.

Time to let it go and start appreciating the beauty, people.

ProfessionalGun

I don't see what apple has done that is so innovative. All they do is come up with the same product, with a new look every year. There OS's don't work on old hardware just like Vista doesn't work on old hardware yet nobody seems to mention that about Mac's OS. I'm not saying MS is innovative either, but I don't think they are less innovative than Apple by any means.

It seems to me like its the popular thing to hate on Vista and MS in general. I just upgraded to Vista not long ago and haven't had one problem. I was hesitant at first because of all the negative reviews, but after switching I no know that everybody that hates on Vista is an idiot that doesn't know what they are talking about and only hate on it because its the popular thing to do.

OPT1MUSPR1ME

@LEICAMAN

You seem to be the one that needs to get a clue. I work in the military industry and the military almost always uses some form of windows and they are making an effort to go to linux, but that has been going on for a while and hasn't gone much of anywhere. So, before you tell someone else to get a clue, you should know what you are saying first.

OPT1MUSPR1ME

As everyone else said, giving Vista a D is too harsh. Come on, I've been running Vista since Beta 2 and I've had almost no issues at all! My brother is running Vista on his new laptop and he's also happy with it!
Come on, Vista is a big update over XP. Personally, I'd NEVER EVER go back to XP. Espacially because of the lack of the Vista "folder search" feature.
I'd give Vista at least a B+.

NightBlade

It's four days until Chrismukkah.

I propose every one double-up on the mixed drinks and just calm down. I partly blame Gizmodo for posting two Apple/Microsoft "report cards" on the same day for all the vitriol.

Settle down, stop name calling, stop making stuff up, and relax. It's a blog.

OMG!!! Ponies!!!

@Sora57: It's kind of hard to argue with people who don't know what "anecdotal evidence" means. It means yahoos (people like you) who tell stories of their personal experiences which are pathetically limited, and then extrapolate or generalize those pathetically limited experiences into what you consider an educated opinion, one that allows you to estimate the quality of a product line.

Now you know 5 Xbox owners, and 3 had to return their systems. I think you are exaggerating for effect, because you don't strike me as the type of person that has that many friends, but let's for the sake of argument say that you are telling the truth.

There are about 8 million Xbox 360s in the US right now. So you know the status of 0.0000625% of them. In scientific terms, you don't know shit.

Now a sample size of... let's say 5% of the units could be taken seriously. So if you would simply go out and make 400,000 more Xbox 360 owning friends and find out if they ever had any problems with their consoles for us, and then count up how many did have problems, divide that by 400,000, you would have an estimate of the failure rate that most people would think is "in the ball park", and you would no longer be living under the pathetic misconception that you know anything about the quality of Xbox 360s... which would be nice.

Let me know how you make out on that.

OldSchoolGadgetLover

For me, Win Mobile is not so bad. You've gotta remember that every operating system has it's own arcanities. Even if WinMob looks somewhat like windows, it's wrong to expect in the back of your head somewhere that it should work like it.

I have no problems with the "problems" mentioned by most (such as the close button not closing, and "difficult" multitasking). I've been using Win CE derivatives since the original HP 620LX (WinCE 2.1? Don't remember), upgrading from a successsion of their DOS handhelds, and it's truly not a bad OS -- once you know it fairly well -- but you just can't expect it to work like Windows. The problem is that it's mostly used on devices where people feel that they shouldn't have to learn anything in order to be able to use it....

Same deal with the move from XP to Vista. Please someone do some research and write an article that shows the Groundhog-day nature of major OS updates, because the exact same things were being said when XP supplanted Win2K, and so on....

Mandatory_Field

@ProfessionalGun: The beauty of truly sad, slow performance? Or how about DRM embedded at the kernel level? Perhaps the obnoxious UAC prompts? The rampant over-engineering and under-planning? The pointless moving of options that have been in the same place since Windows 95?

Oh, wait, you're talking about Aero, aren't you? Yeah, Aero's nice, I suppose. Too bad it slows things down even more.

HeartBurnKid

@mullingitover: Had two in my office. Middle-aged women - hardly gadget hounds.

Both were immensely pleased with the Zune.

OMG!!! Ponies!!!

@sumocat: Agreed. The only thing Microsoft does well with their software is market it. They stopped innovating in any sense of the word a long time ago.

HeartBurnKid

@leicaman:

Boy, are you fact impaired?

The military/intelligence communities Macs? You haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about. Mac market share is probably around 5%, but their user share is still lower. 3%ish.

Businesses aren't going to start adopting Macs anytime soon because of Exchange/Office. Also, its very difficult to manage 10,000 Macs on a network.

Also, their server product is shit compared to MS.

Vista D? My ass... Seriously? D?

Admiral Ackbar

An OS has to Operate my System. My System has a large suite of apps for which I have made a substantial investment. My System also includes peripherals for which I have made a substantial investment. The best OS for my System continues to be XP. Neither Leopard, Vista, nor any Linux distro, not matter how slick, can satisfactorily operate my System. I'm not willing to spend what it takes to replace my System.

My System will eventually evolve when the ROI crosses some threshold. That threshold is not yet on the horizon. No alternative OS solves any substantial problem for me. There's a lot of impressive new ways to do the same old things, but IMHO nothing compelling.

whootowl

@LEICAMAN
@CALAVERASGRANDES

The MAC market share grew for 3.23% @6.61% since apple has moved to the intel platform (the only reason for the growth is bootcamp-WINDOWS XP). Still, the World is ran on PC's (WINDOWS), and it will always be that way.

PRO7

About Vista, sure you might have had problems with it, but for a blogger to chose a machine where the keyboard might not work??? crazy

Also, its great that your dad enjoys mac, my dad enjoys linux, just because you get more free games with linux.

At the end of the day, vista is a bigger step for microsoft than the step apple took with their operating system, so deserves higher mark than D...

Microsoft took the biggest step of any company with vista, kudos to them for it.

I would rather xp, or linux, but D? they deserve a B, if not an A

prodigal_son

For the most part I agree with a B- grade, what with vista and all. And I understand this is an apple "fanboy" site, but Ive personally owned a xbox 360 since september 2006, and Ive never had any problems with it. If you know how to take care of your electronics your not going to have problems.

Im glad gizmodo recognized the xbox 360 for its accomplishments and didnt cop out on its grade. Anyone that argues the 360 doesnt deserve an A- is simply forgetting that its purpose is for GAMING. And that is does very well.

pevans34

What's the big problem with WM. I have a WM phone and I love it. It does everything, and it has 3G support. I don't see the gripes with windows mobile. Giving it a D is nonsense.

1jaxstate1

@andrelix: Since when the hell should playing your "games" be considered abuse? If the damned machine is a game console, it should not friggin fail when I pop in a game. Failing for absolutely no logical reason is unacceptable. Is using your regular telephone on a daily basis and then one day you pick it up to dial and it's dead considered abuse? F no. That's what it's job is.

@pevans34: That's funny, cause from what I remember and continue to see. MS is set that the 360 is a gaming machine AND a media center. All their videodownloads, planned IPTV and garbage and stuff point to it.

slingblade

I am not impressed with Gizmodo'd Zune 2 B+. I think Zune deserves much more, considering Zune 80, which started appearing at stores.

Why Gizmodo still compares Zune with iPod Touch? I thought it was decided already that they are in different product category. Decided by Gizmodo editors, BTW.

I would not get into the rant of why Zune is so great, but I would still mention the very positive welcome of Zune 80 on all forums. Add the WiFi, big screen and personalized engraving, and you will see that Zune is really a big deal. I do not see the reason why it was given such a low grade here.

Well. I see the reason... Steve Jobs gets A, that's why...

OldPunk

If you say something enough it's got to be true right? Vista sucks has been repeated enough *cough* by tech bloggers punch drunk on the Cupertino reality distortion field *cough* that it's now considered conventional wisdom. It hasn't been that way in my experience at all, but I've given up on trying to convince people otherwise. Most of the people I know who knock it have only used it for a very limited time - or not at all (much like Mac bashers.) So there's no point in trying to convince them otherwise.

Ron-Mexico

@OldSchoolGadgetLover:

Yes, thank you for precisely restating the definition of anecdotal evidence, which I used appropriately. I notice you totally skirted the issue of the amount of money put aside by MS indicating the true size of the problem in their own estimation. Like I said, if it costs MS $500 to repair and return an XBox 360, how many 360s would add of to $1.1 billion? Over 2 million. Name calling is a pathetic tactic employed by people who don't know how to properly defend their side of a valid discussion. I'm done here, as I've made my point, and all you've done is embarrass yourself in the process. Obviously you care deeply for your Xbox 360 and I shall leave the two of you alone. Enjoy the holidays.

Sora57

I dunno.
I'm really glad that they're still actively supporting WinXP, but I don't know when I'll be running Vista-esque hardware so I feel a slight disconnect.

Other than that I'd say they're trying to make improvements across the board, sure.

strider_mt2k

About the Army and Macs, srry for posting and engadget link ;)

[www.engadget.com]

Aberracus

I've been running Vista since launch on an Dell XPS M1710. The only problem I've had is a trojandownloader virus in my registry, which meant reformatting and reinstalling everything. I did have to summon some patches from Dell to make some of their third party softwares work with Vista, since they were designed for XP. Other than that, I've been very happy with Vista.
Oh yes, after using Vista for awhile, XP looks ugly now. I still use it on my work laptop.

randlsa

@Sora57:

One last thing, I do see a grammatical error in an earlier post, which could explain a couple things. Blogs and comments on blogs aren't usually the best places to rely on good grammar or spelling, but leaving out a word or two sure can totally change your point. So, me culpa. When I wrote "Not anecdotal evidence," what I meant to type was "Not someone else's anecdotal evidence." Anyway, I made 4 points (XBox360 in 2007 was the best gaming system, best on-line, had loud cooling fans, and bad hardware reputation), and OLDSCHOOL went postal because he agreed with me on 3 out of 4. If that means I know nothing about XBox then I guess by your own standards you know even less, OLDSCHOOL.

Sora57

@Sora57:

Actually, you did use anecdotal wrong. You said your experience was "not anecdotal," and then described your own anecdotal experience. Not the smoothest of moves. OldSchoolGadgetLover did get kinda rude, though. $1 bil is a big ticket item and Microsoft was selling 360s at a loss to begin with. I think you are right in saying that means Microsoft knows there are a lot of units still out there that could be problematic so they put that money aside for it.

Before you know it, the 3 years will be up anyway and not long after that we'll see the Xbox720 release. Think it will come with an integrated HDDVD drive or Blu-Ray?... J/K

chaney1

@Sora57:

Your comments below are the only ones I am refuting, as I think you are right on the money about everything else, just to set the matter straight.

And in the spirit of the holidays, I apologize for getting so heavy handed in my comment to you. Chalk it up to a bad day, hangover, and long work hours. I'm sure you feel bad for implying that I'm stupid, too.

Agree. RRoD has 30% failure rate and that should automatically make the highest rating possible a C for that category.

Actually the 3 RRoDs I am personally familiar with all happened AFTER July 2007. So in my view, 2007 was worse thand 2006.

The 1.1 billion is an amount "set aside" for the extended warranty that MS so graciously offered. How much of that money has been spent? It's any body's guess. So what does that prove about the actual failure rate? Nothing.

I can see now that you were hanging your hat on that figure, and it was your "proof" of the 30% defective rate. The 3 units you saw returned was just the gravy on top.

1.1B is an very large amount, and MS came up with it to make the current owners comfortable that they would all be taken care of. They did so at a time when people were all guessing the failure rate was as high as 30%. Perception is reality. So since gamers / bloggers started throwing around 30% failure rates, MS set aside enough money to cover a 30% failure rate to make those early buyers feel good (no Xbox 360 owner will be left behind!).

So, to reiterate, I'm more of the type of person that needs some kind of real numbers, and actually I crave those numbers. 30% seems WAY high. I wouldn't mind if someone did prove it was 30% (or higher), by the way. I'm not emotionally vested in MS or any other company (except my own).

But I'm tired of people throwing out 30% like it's some kind of proven "fact".

So if you ever do get any real evidence that the failure rate is 30%, feel free to publish it, and rub it in! It won't hurt my feelings or anything though.

Merry Christmas (eve)!

OldSchoolGadgetLover

I am so tired of people hating on Vista. Yes I had problems with my Vista copy when it first came out but that was because of Adobe and Nvidia not providing a worthwhile driver. I remember back when XP first came out everyone was complaining about incompatibilities and it was not until SP2 did it become the "OMG this is so great" OS. Before SP2 it was a spyware magnet that lagged behind Windows 2000 in performance. I remember many people "going back" to Windows 2000/98 back in the day. Vista is now a good OS and when SP1 and SP2 comes out we will see it come into its own and people will forget about XP just like they forgot about 2000 and 98. (we dont talk about ME)

As far as xbox goes I am a huge fan, but I have gone though 3 of them. That being said it is still the only choice for any gamer over 12. Wii is a gimick it has like 2 or 3 good games that get old. PS3 sucks, the controller sucks for FPS, the online is subpar, only a few good games, it just sucks.

As far as Apple is concerned, I just bought the ipod touch and I love it. Simply amazing, but I have my issues. First of all it has a LOT of dead/frozen pixels on the screen (8 so far) which is unacceptable for a 400 dollar product. This just proves that everyone has early release issues. Leopard has its problems I hear also. So lets not be so hard on Microsoft.

djdalby

@OldSchoolGadgetLover:
I appreciate your comments, and in retrospect agree that I was hanging my hat on the 30% figure that has been thrown around a bit-- even though there is no real evidence of the figure being anywhere near that high. And I apologize for any harsh words or implications I may have thrown your way. It was a rough week here as well.

Thanks for your holiday wishes, and I hope you and your family also have a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. All the best...

Sora57