I would hope that the laptop gift does not affect anyone’s opinion and since the notebook was given with no strings attached I think it is possible that a ethical blogger could give a fair valuation of Vista on a free notebook. As someone that runs a hardware site, I put a lot of faith into the citizen journalist/blogger and I really think people are capable of reporting without bias. I can’t speak for all the bloggers though, but it seems like Microsoft did some screening and some quality bloggers got the notebooks.

Their opinions will inevitably be affected in some ways though. The fact of the matter is that a $2200 notebook is going to run Vista a lot better than a beat up old Dell from two years ago, so these people will be seeing the best of what Vista can do, not necessarily how the majority of users will see it. I don’t really have a problem with that- this is something that is quite common in hardware/software reviewing.