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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drothgery" data-source="post: 2995380" data-attributes="member: 360">This isn't a Windows vs. Linux vs. OSX thing (though in the real world, almost everyone runs Windows on desktops/notebooks, and almost everyone who doesn't runs OSX; despite the orignial poster not intending to upgrade to Vista, I'd bet a lot that he'll end up doing so or buying a new machine with Vista preinstalled and running it). Normal business apps (office apps, web browsers, email clients, etc.) will not be 64-bit exclusive within the lifetime of a machine purchased today (especially if you're buying on 3-year corporate replacement schedules), and don't gain any performance advantage from being 64-bit right now. If OpenOffice and FireFox are any different in this regard than MS Office, IE, and Safari, it's news to me.Now, if you're a programmer working with server apps, someone who does tons of media encoding, or using some other app that gets a lot out of 64-bit (and if you are, you know it; the original poster doesn't seem to be such a person), it's a different story, but typically you don't use a notebook for that kind of stuff (you use a desktop, and if you've got the funding, you use a dual-socket workstation). There are certainly applications where having 64-bit capability helps. And if you're looking to keep a machine for a long time, it's definitely a nice-to-have because 64-bit exclusive stuff probably will start trickling into the mainstream in three to five years. But it's not worth paying extra for, sacrificing 32-bit performance for (P-M and Core Duo are generally faster than Turion and Turion X2 in 32-bit apps), or dealing with non-Intel chipsets for.But if you're using exclusively 64-bit apps today, then I'll have to refer you to something one of my computer science profs wrote across the board in large, friendly letters on the first day of a Human-Computer Interaction course. "You are not normal." And don't assume that other people are even remotely like you.</blockquote>

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