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Windows 7 Benchmarks Part II: Some Second Opinions

PC Pro echoes InfoWorld's sentiments to some extent, stating, "And the net effect? Surprisingly little. At this stage of development, over a year from release, Windows 7 looks almost identical to Vista."

They also offer up an interesting observation, which at first seems to be a contradiction. They state, "Yet Windows 7 does already offer one compelling advantage over Vista: it’s fast. Both our senior pontificators were struck by how nimble Windows 7 feels after you’re used to its predecessor. As Tim Danton writes, 'Vista was never this nippy. You press on an icon and it leaps into action. . . . I can’t remember using any new OS that was this quick.'"

They point out that the average user doesn't care about benchmarks -- they judge the package by the performance (the wrapping). Improving this is something PC Pro calls an "inspired move". It may be something Apple realized some time ago with OS X, but then again, Apple always grossly underperformed against Windows in key sectors like business software, security, gaming, and the most important metric of all -- price.

PC World (carrying a ComputerWorld piece) offers a second perspective on this new OS which promises to add a zippier interface to Window's solid underlying layer. This publication again echoes the sentiments of the others, stating, "Microsoft would like you to believe that Windows 7 is going to be the next great desktop operating system. It's not."

However, another ComputerWorld reviewer, while agreeing with the repeated theme that base benchmarks are similar to Vista, says that this time Microsoft "gets it right". The author points out the dramatically improved (and less annoying) UAC feature. They also mention the improved networking support, and other significant improvements.

First, many will question why these veteran computer publications are choosing to test a pre-beta, essentially alpha software, when it’s obvious that performance in the finished product may be dramatically different. While the merits of such tests are certainly debatable, the fact that the Windows 7 release date is likely less than a year away does give an understandable justification for such tests. Further, criticism of Windows Vista's pre-betas closely mirrored the criticism of the finished product, as can be seen by perusing past reviews.

But how bad was Vista really? Honestly, Vista was a pretty good OS. The vast majority of DailyTech staff have at least one Vista machine in the house. While the OS certainly had its limitations, it brought dramatic improvements to the Windows GUIs and security. The OS's biggest problem, for the home user was something Microsoft can't be blamed for -- poor hardware partner support.

Finally, and most importantly, something has to be done to allow the OS to run leaner and use less memory and system resources. Otherwise Windows 7 will likely miss the boat on adoption in two key sectors -- netbooks and the business community. And this would be truly a shame, since Windows 7 looks to offer a number of tempting features.