Adventures in wireless

This is a blog about hardware. But sometimes it’s the software that really gets in the way. I spent time last night setting up a wireless router for a friend who recently purchased two shiny new computers. One, his machine, is a MacBook Pro. The other—which we’ll call “hers”—is a new special edition HP Pavilion 6000. (It’s a Pavilion dv6338se for those who are interested.)
I got the router up-and-running in a few minutes with no drama. But getting each of the computers to recognize and then log into the wireless network was another thing altogether. The Mac was took roughly five minutes. I used the Airport utility, found the network, plugged in the WEP key and soon he was surfing the Web and reading his e-mail. The Pavilion, which has Microsoft’s Windows Vista Home Edition installed on it, was another thing altogether. At first, Windows couldn’t find the network. The Mac found it right away. The Pavilion instead found several other wireless networks in the neighborhood, just not the one I wanted. I ended up manually configuring the network, which after more machinations involving changing multiple settings, eventually got the Pavilion on the ‘Net as well. I’m sure that there’s probably a technical explanation for why it couldn't find the network in the first place. But the point is that if someone who has worked with computers for years can not figure out how to configure a wireless network in less than 30 minutes, there’s something wrong going on. (It's possible said person needs more training as well. But I thought Vista was supposed to take care of that.)

Now for the Chipland-related content:  The Mac, which has a 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, was faster in every regard. It booted more quickly, loaded applications more quickly and, of course, got on the network much more quickly. This is the machine I would have purchased myself, if I was in the market for the ultimate in both cool factor—I liked the metal case—and ease of use, particularly I if had no regard for cost.  
The Pavilion, with Advanced Micro Devices’ 1.8GHz Turion 64 X2, was visibly slower than the Mac on reboot and in loading applications. But not so much that I couldn't live with one as my everyday computer if I had to make a decision based more on price. It is a good value for the dollar in my eyes. Some will argue that the MacBook would offer a similar value. I agree. I’m keeping my commentary to the two computers I had the opportunity to test. I think that if the Pavilion had come with more memory, say 2GB versus its factory-installed 1GB, it would probably would have been a little bit closer in performance to the Mac. That, in a twist, makes Windows Vista a friend to chipmakers, including both AMD and Intel as well as memory makers. That's because, with Microsoft Vista, you’re going to need all of the system performance (and the patience) you can get.