Windows 10 can install on a typical 2005 PC? I'd be surprised if that's the case.
Anyway, the point of the article isn't that five years is all that long, it's that Android's two-year policy is despairingly short.
Anyway, the point of the article isn't that five years is all that long, it's that Android's two-year policy is despairingly short.
I have Windows 10 running dual boot on my Dell Inspiron 530s from 2005. It's a Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz. I don't run Windows 10 full time because it's a little sluggish, but it works ok.
(I did upgrade to an SSD + 8GB RAM + Nvidia GT 610 but everything else is 2005).
On the same note, I also have Kubuntu 18.04 on the same machine. Now this is my daily driver. Runs Chrome, plays Youtube etc. and everything else just fine. Things are extremely responsive. It's almost inconceivable to think I'm using a 15 year old computer in 2020 as my main machine but here we are.
What everything else? You kept the CPU, motherboard, and case? That's not a "typical 2005 PC" anymore.
But the original was also a low-end Dell PC. With these upgrades, it would be a higher-end 2005 machine.
The performance boost was unnoticeable with the added RAM and video card (primarily for driving dual monitors -- the GT 610 was a cheap $70 card, not a high end card by any means). What really changed the performance was the SSD -- which I added much later -- now that was noticeable.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifica...
1 GHz CPU, 1GB ram, 800x600 display, 32GB drive. Those are not 2005 specs, those were easily around in 2000.
The boot time (to the first app running) is likely due to Nvidia blob, but who knows?
It's harder to look up RAM numbers, but AMD launched a 1600MHz CPU (and a few others above 1GHz) in 2001.
Windows 10 really needs an SSD
I got an 11" Dell Inspiron with a puny A6-9220e (1.7ghz, 2 core) CPU that is roughly comparable to an Atom, but with a somewhat better GPU. Replaced the HDD with a SATA SSD. Thought it would be a cute little beater netbook.
For all intents and purposes, it's just not usable unless that real-time protection is turned off. Things freeze up for multiple seconds while clicking any button, apps take dozens of seconds to launch, etc. With real-time protection off, it's pretty decent - good enough for web, YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, whatever.
Unfortunately, Windows turns real-time protection back on automatically after a certain amount of time. Apparently you need Win 10 Professional or higher to permanently disable it via group policy or something.
I had it on a 2006 Sony VIAO laptop until last year. It ran better than Windows 8 with 2GB of RAM. Slow without an SSD, but tolerable as downloader/media server.
Some of the OEM drivers (bluetooth, fingerprint scanner etc.) had stopped working in Windows 8 (it was an XP laptop that I upgrade to 7 onward) because Sony stopped supporting them.
The hilarious thing was that in Windows 10 those started working again with builtin drivers from Windows.
I could probably have kept the laptop around longer, but I went on an ecycling binge last year and got rid of a lot of tech crap that was just lying around.
Pixel 1: Release Date October 2016, Last Update Dec 2019 (3 years, 2 months)
Pixel 2: Release Date October 2017, still current (2 years, 8 months and counting). Android 11 beta also available. If it is kept updated throughout the 11.0 cycle, that will be ~4 years or so.
Pixel 3, 3a, and 4 are newer but also still current.
Android 8.0 (released August 2017) was updated this month: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/build/+/refs/tags/...
which is what we are comparing here.