All new laptops are offering Vista.
Is it too early to buy a new computer considering that many programs and their software are not yet compatible with Vista? Many are still in Beta form.
How long should a person wait until Vista is more user friendly?

All new laptops are offering Vista.
Sorry they AREN'T !
Off the shelf machine do tend to, but a it of searching around and you can find XP easily.

Personaly I'm waiting for Service Pack 1 before I start to use it in any serious way, got a test machine running it tho'.
Judging by their current time scale about 12-18 months.

Vista was released with the largest listing of supported hardware and software of any Windows release. Unless there is something specific you want to run that isn't supported, then I don't think you will have a problem.

As Ben said you can still get an XP equipped lappy, but not from retail.

I thought this might also help:

Windows Quality Online Services: Windows Vista Hardware Compatibility List (http://winqual.microsoft.com/hcl/)


If you're a bit unsure what to do,click on getting started,at the bottom of the page.

Windows Vista Hardware Compatibility List
The Windows Vista Hardware Compatibility List is currently only compatible with Internet Explorer 6 and above. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to remedy this situation.

That tells me all I need to know about Vista Compatibility.

Oops... I use Firefox,and had forgot about IE6,being... er... IE6 :D

Apologies if I sound like an idiot.It is Sunday afternoon he he.

Sorry Cap.