Windows 10 can apparently work impressively well on older hardware, delivering a smooth performance with no hiccups.
The latest version of Microsoft's popular operating system, Windows 10, is set to make its official PC debut on July 29. Microsoft made significant efforts not to increase the system requirements — pledging to make Windows 10 run flawlessly, even on older devices that are currently running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
Windows 10 should work on most devices currently on the market – including older systems – without raising any issues. Ahead of the new OS's public release next week, the folks over at Softpedia have tested the software on an Acer Aspire One to see how it fares.
The Acer Aspire One hit the market seven years ago, which means it's quite an old device by today's standards. In terms of specs, the Acer Aspire One Softpedia used packs an Intel Atom N450 processor running at 1.66GHz and 1GB of RAM, with an HDD of 320GB.
"The result is surprising to say the least, as installation not only went impressively fast but Windows 10 also works fast as long as you're not launching a very demanding app such as Photoshop," Softpedia points out.
According to the report, the basic system requirements for Windows 10 are quite reasonable. First of all, the system would need to have a SoC or processor with a clock speed of at least 1GHz. The 32-bit version of Windows 10 will require 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage space, while the 64-bit version of the OS will need 2GB of RAM and 20GB of HDD storage space. In terms of graphics, the system would need to feature DirectX 9 or newer, as well as WDDM 1.0 driver. Lastly, the report also mentions a minimum display resolution of 1024 x 600.
Softpedia noted that it took roughly 15 minutes to perform a clean install. Setting up the user account will go quickly and smoothly, and the whole process – the installation and the user account setup – takes less than 20 minutes.
Upon completing the installation and user account setup, Windows 10 automatically installed the necessary drivers and changed the resolution to 1024 x 600 pixels, the default resolution of the seven-year-old Acer Aspire One.
Windows 10 reportedly made the device perform better than it did on Windows XP, the now-defunct OS that came with low system requirements.
The Acer Aspire One shows its age when it's time to boot — taking roughly 40 seconds for Windows 10 to get a "cold start." The results are nevertheless quite impressive. For more details, check out the video below.
