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• Windows 7 Versus XP: Which Belongs On Your Netbook?

  With Windows Vista having never received more than a lukewarm reception (at best), many eyes are now turned towards Redmond in anticipation of Microsoft’s next OS. The company says it has learned from its mistakes and promises to do better this time around with Windows 7. Since it will come pre-installed on most new desktop PCs and notebooks once it is released later this year, Windows 7 will inevitably gain a certain installation base. The situation was different when Windows Vista was released, as many users chose to stick with Windows XP for the time being. That won’t be as much of an option this time, since most companies no longer offer XP. Of course, manually downgrading will still be possible if you have an installation disc and a valid license. On the other hand, Windows 7 is generally being seen in a much more favorable light than Vista anyway. It looks like a lot of users may give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. But what about the netbook space? So far, this class of mobile computing device relies on either Linux or Windows XP as its operating system. Considering that the latter was released over eight years ago, it’s understandable that many users are looking for a more modern version of Windows to run on their mobile computing companions. Although it’s possible to install and run Vista on a netbook, we've tried it and it’s not exactly a fun experience, with the system feeling sluggish and overburdened. Besides, most netbooks only come with 1 GB of RAM, which is decidedly too little for memory-hungry Vista. In May, Microsoft opened the doors to its Release Candidate 1 of Windows 7, allowing users to download the preview and take it for a spin. Of course, the software giant is hoping to establish a firm foothold in the netbook market with its newest version of Windows, promising that Windows 7 will run much more smoothly on the lightweight hardware than its predecessor. Naturally, that piqued our interest. How would Microsoft’s newest OS fare on a current netbook? What’s the everyday user experience like? And, of course, what do the benchmarks say about performance compared to Windows XP?

• At first glance, one might come away from our benchmarks with the impression that Windows 7 is just as slow as Vista and that nothing much has really changed. However, looking only at the benchmarks doesn’t give you the full picture either. Subjectively, the release candidate feels quite snappy. Even with only 1 GB of RAM installed, the pronounced slowdowns that plague Vista on the netbook platform were extremely rare. So unlike Vista, Windows 7 may very well develop into an alternative to XP for netbook hardware. After all, performance isn’t exactly the primary concern of this platform, although newer and more optimized drivers should give it a boost. We are a lot more critical of battery life under Microsoft’s newest OS. Even with its huge 59 Wh battery, Windows 7 shuts off much sooner than XP. This is beyond disappointing, since a newer OS should come with better and more refined power saving mechanisms than its eight year old predecessor. Then again, they won’t do any good if there aren’t any drivers to take advantage of them. See a pattern here? This is where Windows 7 currently falls short. Microsoft and the hardware vendors have their work cut out for them. We can only hope that Intel won’t only release optimized drivers for its “revamped” Atom platform based on the GN40 chipset, but will also provide newer versions for the aging 945G chipset found in the majority of netbooks in stores today. Aside from that, Windows 7 provides a much more pleasant user experience on a netbook than Vista ever did. While its updated user interface adds several new features, Microsoft has also made many changes under the hood that aren’t as visible to the user. Where functionality and feature set are concerned, the new version has the upper hand anyway, if not now, then in the future. At some point, newer technologies will no longer be made available for Windows XP via patchs, hacks, or service packs. Also, since Microsoft has already terminated mainstream support, companies are less and less likely to provide drivers for new products that work with the aging OS. Like it or not, the future belongs to Windows 7. Hopefully, IHVs share this view and will provide newer drivers even for older hardware. If you’re interested in trying the release candidate of Windows 7 for yourself, you can download it for free directly from Microsoft after registering. A word of warning: we don’t recommend pulling Win 7 RC1 from P2P sites, as several versions have been shown to be infected with viruses and malware.

• We wanted to use a current netbook as our test platform for this review and settled on Acer’s Aspire One D150. Although it is still built around Intel’s aging 945GME chipset, it does use a slightly faster version of the Atom processor, namely the N280 running at 1.66 GHz. Beyond that, the Aspire One D150 is a pretty standard netbook. It features a 10” display, integrated Intel GMA 950 chipset graphics, 160 GB of hard drive space, 1 GB of RAM, LAN, WiFi, Bluetooth, and the usual complement of USB ports. It comes with Windows XP Home Edition SP3 pre-installed. During testing, any tools and utilities installed by Acer were disabled or uninstalled. After ensuring the drivers were up to date, we put the little Acer through its paces in a number of benchmarks. Next, we performed a clean install of the 32-bit version of Windows 7 RC1 from an external optical drive and repeated the benchmarkds. Since Microsoft provides a wide variety of drivers right on the installation disc and via Windows Update, we originally intended to perform testing using those versions. However, it turned out that some of these drivers were badly out of date and were holding back performance. Installing the most recent Vista drivers greatly improved the situation, which is why they were used for testing instead. There is one drawback to this approach, though. With Windows 7, Microsoft has continued tweaking its Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) originally introduced with Windows Vista. Compatible drivers enable certain desktop effects and acceleration features, even providing the basis for GPGPU computing (assuming the GPU features such functionality). Windows 7 uses the most recent version of this driver model, WDDM 1.1. The latest graphics driver available on Intel’s support and drivers page during testing only supports WDDM 1.0. From a performance standpoint, we therefore recommend installing platform and graphics drivers manually and not relying on the versions provided by Microsoft. As newer performance-optimized releases become available for Windows 7, you can always switch to that version.  Windows 7 Performance CheckModelAspire One D150ManufacturerAcerDisplay Size (Resolution)10.2" glossy (1024 x 600), LED backlightHard Drive ( Capacity, Manufacturer, Model)160 GB, Western Digital WDC1600BEVT-22ZCT0, 5,400 rpmBattery Capacity59 Wh / 5,800 mAhCPU (Code Name)Intel Atom N280 (Diamondville), 1.66 GHz (HT)ChipsetIntel 945GMEMemory (Number of Modules)1024 MB DDR2-533 (1 x 1024 MB)GraphicsIntel GMA 950 integratedAudioRealtek ALC272XWebcam (Resolution)1.3 MpixelConnectivityUSB 2.0 (Number and Location)3 (2 right, 1 left)Display Connectors (VGA/DVI/HDMI/S-Video)1/-/-/-NetworkingAtheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 10/100 PCI-EWiFiAtheros AR5007EG 802.11 a/b/gCard Reader (Formats)SD, xD, MMC, MS, MS ProPC-Card/ExpressCard-Slot-Bluetooth (Generation)2.0Operating System And DriversOperating SystemWindows XP Home (SP3) Windows 7 RC 1 (Build 7100)Platform DriverIntel 9.1.0.1012Graphics DriverWindows XP: Package 14.32.4 Windows 7: Package 15.8.3.1504