Nearly every Sunday, I take a stroll through the local BestBuy here in West LA. It’s become somewhat of a tradition for me to do this. I use the time to see what new gadgets have made it out to the market. We often talk about the latest consumer electronics and computers here at Krunker, but many of these items don’t make it out to the market for months on end (if ever).

It was on today’s stroll through BestBuy that I was reminded that Windows Vista was launching for consumers this week. I had in many ways forgotten about this – primarily because I’ve been using Vista for several months now (Microsoft launched Vista for business folks late last year). In fact, Vista is very well integrated in my home office these days. Two of my three main systems is currently running Vista and I have plans to upgrade the third system to Vista shortly (I need to figure out what I need backed up!).

Thus as I strolled through BestBuy today, I noticed a number of machines not being displayed – presumably being upgraded to Vista or being replaced by models which have Vista installed. I noticed Vista enabled products being displayed left and right.. and more notably, I came across the new HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC on display. Now THIS was something I was surprised to see. The PC was on display at CES 2007 earlier in the month and quite frankly, I was impressed with this all in one family oriented PC. I’ll be honest - I wouldn’t personally get this PC since everyone in this family has their own system BUT if I did want a centrally accessible system, I would consider this system (or an iMac).  So, if you want to see the TouchSmart IQ770 PC first hand, head on over to your local BestBuy – they have them on display!

But let’s go back to the launch of Windows Vista this week. While I will probably gloss over this event during the coming week, it’s important to note that this is a BIG moment for Microsoft. Remember – Vista has been in development for YEARS. We’ve been living with Windows XP for over five years now and in many ways, we’ve gotten used to that OS. Vista represents a portion of what Microsoft originally set out to do many years ago. Yes, many features have been dropped along the way, and many new things have been introduced along the way. While some may wonder what Vista ultimately brings to the table, do not forget that there are indeed many new changes big and small within Vista. It’s not perfect by any means but it’s certainly a worthy upgrade for those ready to jump in.

I suppose I say this because I’ve gotten used to the new OS now. For my purposes, it works just fine. All of the applications that I care about work under Vista and more importantly, Windows Media Center is pretty darn sweet under the new OS. Of course I still have my share of complaints (I would love it if the ghostly blurs during video playback would just disappear but it’s something I can live with for now).

All this talk is making me think that I should really finish my Vista analysis one of these days! Ok back to the topic of my BestBuy strolling..

I also took some time to check out that new LG multi-format player (the one that plays both HD and Blu-ray – model BH100).

Honestly, I thought it was one of the more boring designs on display. Couldn’t they had added some spice to the looks? I thought about picking one up.. until I saw the price tag of nearly $1200. Yeah. I think I’ll wait a few YEARS.

There wasn’t a whole lot else of major interest. Maybe I’ll turn this into a regular column for Krunker – my weekend trip to BestBuy – what do you think?

My ultimate goal for this BestBuy trip today was to find the Wii.. and yes. I failed.

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