Select community leaders were given either a Ferrari 1000/5000 notebook computer, or a Velocity Micro MCE system for a long-term review.
Velocity Micro MCE or Ferrari?
The choice was hard but...
Velocity Micro MCE Box (picture below) with the following drool-ian specs:
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
- Dual 400GB SATA RAID-1 Hard Drives
- 2GB DDR2
- Lightscribe DVD RW
- AMD Radeon 1950XT 256MB
- AMD TV Wonder 650 HD Tuner
- Microsoft Wireless Media Center Keyboard
- Microsoft Media Center Remote
- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition
- 2007 Microsoft Office Professional System
Sweet, eh?
And this is before I even turn it on!
As they say in the 'hood,
Holla'!!!
Thanks to Microsoft, AMD, Aaron Coldiron of Microsoft, Nick White of the Windows Team Blog, The Hive and the Microsoft Communities.
A search online reveals that I am in pretty exalted company.
Nice.
But.... not all is well.
As usual, the haters are out with their flensing knives.
Totally discounting the tossers who got squat, some site owners who received review units are concerned about the perception that they (the site owners) were for sale, or could be bought.
???
A cursory review of the terms of the units is that the computers were for a long-term review of AMD's processors in conjunction with Windows Vista. It is also my understanding that the it is also the site-owners prerogative to give away the system after conclusion of the review.
So what is all the noise about?
The fact that it is from Microsoft?
A community leader who received a Ferrari unit had this very astute observation, "The fact that they can be given away by the site is overlooked since no one wants to give them away".
How true is that?
They would rather bemoan the fact that a unit is given, while daring all to attempt to pry it from their clutching fingers.
Go figure!
Edit: Michael J Reyes, CEO of The Hardware Geeks has just informed me that his review system has a Windows (Vista) Experience Index of 5.1Edit: Dana Epps has a thought on this issue here.