Windows 7 is expected to be better than Windows Vista. What I’d like to see are real world performance comparisons with Windows XP. What’s keeping me away from upgrading XP are two things: performance and DRM. So Windows 7 would have to improve on both fronts.
Before you ask, between work and home, on a daily basis, I use flavours of Windows from XP Home to Vista Ultimate, Mac OS X Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard beta and 3 of the latest Linux distros. I do believe that’s sufficient grounds for me to compare.
Guess which ones I end up using the most? Ubuntu with KDE 4.2.2 and Mac OS X Leopard. I’m sorry, but Windows anything looks dated in comparison. The Mac has its uses and between the two, the only place I cannot escape using Windows is to play games (for now). I have found that has actually started affecting the games I choose to buy - I will not buy a game that does not support Linux, unless I really really want it (going by the quality of games these days, that is a rarity). Sure, I’ll fire up Windows to check out a demo if I don’t have anything else to do, but that’s a rarity too.
Honestly, I do not see the need for Windows these days. I have even stopped using Picasa because digiKam is so amazing - it has automatic DSLR lens correction built in! So unless anybody can give me a damn solid reason for Windows 7, I’m going to keep using my combination of Linux (for the most part) and the Mac (for my mobile computing) and will keep recommending that combination to everyone I meet.
