Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Windows 7 on my Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC

So I installed Windows 7 (pre-beta) on my Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC. I must have had very high hopes because I was so disappointed. Windows 7 so was so much slower than Vista on this machine. I was expecting quite the opposite because of all the buzz that Windows 7 was so much faster than Vista, especially for netbooks. I have Windows 7 running on an old desktop and it seems to run OK. I'm not extremely impressed, but Windows 7 seems to have some nice features associated with it. Of course, I realize that this pre-beta is still extremely preliminary, so I'm willing to give this another try with the next build of Windows 7.

I've now uninstalled Windows 7 and I'm waiting for the next version before I do this again. In the meanwhile, I'll be running XP tablet and I'll probably reload Vista since I've split the partition on my hard drive.

7 comments:

  1. Dr Kim, I'm a computer guy out of Harrisburg PA with a Samsung UMPC - Vista (2GB RAM, 60GB HD, etc). I finally dumped Vista for WinXP Pro and things are good. There were some programs that I just couldn't get to run on Vista (MS SyncToy, VMware Inf Client, and the MS Origami to name a few). I got tired of trying to get these programs running and got tired of seeing the hard drive light constantly flashing and not knowing why.

    Anyway, I didn't have the disks for WinXP Tablet (Have to get them from Samsung so that will never happen) so I just loaded WinXP Pro w Sp3 etc. Things are going great now and I'm even willing to try the Windows 7 out on this.

    I have read other reports of Win7 being very slow on UMPC but maybe with the 2GB of memory in this one it might be different. I'll let you know how it turns out.

    Thanks.

    stew

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  2. Good luck. I currently have a triple boot setup: XP, Vista, and 7. I'm mainly using XP because even 7 is disappointing on this slow CPU.

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  3. Dr, does your UMPC have 1 or 2 GB of RAM (orig XP (1GB) or Vista (2GB) machine)? I'm hoping the 2GB of RAM I have will make a big difference w Win7 even with the slow ATOM processor.

    Are you using a memory card to "expand" the memory with Vista's "memory boost" technology. I would suspect that was carried forward to Win7. I don't know exactly what that memory is used for but the access of it has got to be faster than going to the hard drive.

    stew

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  4. I have 2 GB of RAM. However, the processor on the original Q1U is not an ATOM processor. Instead, it is a very slow Intel 800 MHz processor that will clock down to 600 MHz during idle periods. I don't have the Q1U Premium (Q1UP) that has a 1.33 MHz processor. On the Premium model, Vista and Windows 7 should run OK.

    Samsung has a new Q1EX coming out that will have the VIA's 1.2GHz Nano processor. That should also run Vista and Windows 7 OK.

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  5. Dr Kim, I loaded Win7 on the UMPC Ultra I have. It runs about the same as Vista, might be a bit better but is still carrying some of the Vista baggage on flashy screens, more moving windows, etc. It is running w 2GB RAM, 4GB ReadyBoost, and the IntelCore Solo 1.33GHz CPU.

    Also the slide bars and status bars are larger to make touch a bit better but I don't use that and it just takes up more room on the screen and takes away from reading area.

    I haven't started loading any apps yet. I'll let you know how that goes.

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  6. You have an advantage since you have a 1.33 GHz processor. I'm stuck with the slower 800 MHz.

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  7. Well, Win7 is running fine. I loaded SyncToy and it runs under Win7. When I loaded under Vista I couldn't get SyncToy to run.
    Things went South when I loaded AVG Anti-Virus Network Edition. CPU usage went to 100% and stayed there. Win7 blue screened a few times until I was able to remove AVG. I'm now running with no anti-virus software and Win7 is back to running just fine.
    I don't blame AVG because this is still just a BETA version of Win7 and AVG hasen't released anything for Win7 yet.
    My next program load is going to be OpenOffice so we'll see how that goes.

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