Discussions about the relative pricing of Ubuntu and Vista Dell offerings

[backdoc]

I thought about buying a new Dell with Ubuntu. I went to the Dell home page and saw a couple of prominent links for laptops. I clicked around and couldn't find any that offered Linux. I was able to find them, but not through the prominent links.

The Vista laptop was $789 for a 120GB HD, 15" screen, 1.8gig proc, and 256 MB ATI graphics. The processor is: AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-56.

The Ubuntu laptop was $749, but had a 80GB HD, 14" screen and an Intel video card (w/ and unspecified amount of memory). The processor is: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5250 (1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)

$40 is nothing to pay for 40GB HD and a bigger screen. And, to make matters worse, there is a big a$$ comment on the Ubuntu page that says, "Dell recommends Vista". What the fsck? I don't get it. Are they selling Linux boxes or not? Talk about half-a$$.

Needless to say, I was disappointed. I'm glad to see Linux being offered as an option from major players. But, this is only slightly better than not being offered at all.

I think I'll not buy right now. Or, maybe I'll check out HP's Linux offerings.

[stchman]

I went to Dell's website and it looks like Dell is making over $100 off an Ubuntu equipped laptop.

Here are the specs.

Dell 1525 - Vista Home Premium laptop
Dell 1525N - Ubuntu 7.10 laptop

I configured them as identical as I could with the exception of the 1525 has an Intel next gen wireless card (4965agn) and the 1525N has a 3945 card. The specs are below.

Vista Premium Laptop 1525

SYSTEM COLOR Jet Black
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5550 (1.83GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista ® Home Premium Edition
HD DISPLAY Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
VIDEO CARD Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
MEMORY 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
HARD DRIVE Size: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD Writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
WIRELESS NETWORK CARDS Intel Next -Gen Wireless -N Mini-card
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
BATTERY OPTIONS 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0

Price $799 before shipping


Ubuntu 7.10 Laptop 1525N

SYSTEM COLOR Jet Black
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5550 (1.83GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Ubuntu Linux version 7.10 with DVD Playback
DISPLAY Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
VIDEO CARD Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
MEMORY 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
HARD DRIVE Size: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD Writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
WIRELESS CARDS Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Mini-card
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
BATTERY OPTIONS 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0

Price $903 before shipping

That is a $104 price difference for essentially the same laptop. I did a little more surfing on the site and it looks like Dell is charging more for the Ubuntu laptops.

[Sam Lars]

I can definitely second your observation. I found the same thing recently when shopping for a new laptop. I ended up getting the following for about $800:
SYSTEM COLOR Jet Black
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5550 (1.83GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista ® Home Premium Edition
HD DISPLAY Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
VIDEO CARD Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
MEMORY 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
HARD DRIVE Size: 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD Writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
WIRELESS CARDS Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Mini-card
BATTERY OPTIONS 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0


Basically the same but with the biggest battery and hard drive. I put Ubuntu on it and it works great. I did consider letting them know that I would have gotten an Ubuntu system if it had had a better price, which it should since you're not paying for Windows...

[sdennie]

A lot of machines will include trial or time limited versions of software on it for Windows (a.k.a. Bloatware). The software vendors pay Dell to include their bloatware and it drives down the cost of a Windows machine. Logic dictates that a machine with a free OS would be cheaper than a machine with an expensive OS but, when you factor in the HUGE discount that MS likely gives Dell and the bloatware payoff from third party software companies, it may not actually be the case.

[stchman]

A lot of machines will include trial or time limited versions of software on it for Windows (a.k.a. Bloatware). The software vendors pay Dell to include their bloatware and it drives down the cost of a Windows machine. Logic dictates that a machine with a free OS would be cheaper than a machine with an expensive OS but, when you factor in the HUGE discount that MS likely gives Dell and the bloatware payoff from third party software companies, it may not actually be the case.

If the software companies do grease Dell a lot of cash to pimp their bloatware then I can see your point.

I do remember when the Ubuntu Dells came out they were ~$40 cheaper than the equivalent Vista laptops. Now it has swung $140 the other way.

I guess Dell is trying to make some cash. Oh well.

[stchman]

I can definitely second your observation. I found the same thing recently when shopping for a new laptop. I ended up getting the following for about $800:
SYSTEM COLOR Jet Black
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5550 (1.83GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista ® Home Premium Edition
HD DISPLAY Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
VIDEO CARD Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
MEMORY 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
HARD DRIVE Size: 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD Writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
WIRELESS CARDS Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Mini-card
BATTERY OPTIONS 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0


Basically the same but with the biggest battery and hard drive. I put Ubuntu on it and it works great. I did consider letting them know that I would have gotten an Ubuntu system if it had had a better price, which it should since you're not paying for Windows...

That is very similar to the Toshiba (A205-S5859) I just bought.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Toshiba-Satellite-A205-S5859-15-4-Widescreen-Laptop-A205S5859/sem/rpsm/oid/207722/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

$600, I could not pass up the price and everything worked OOB with Hardy.

[Sam Lars]

Yeah, it came with a bunch of stuff that I definitely don't need, like ISP offers, and a bunch of other stuff that I'm not sure if I need or not. I'm still not completely sure what I'm going to do for an antivirus once the free trial runs out. I'm definitely not paying $70 a month to secure Windows, that's just ridiculous... there are free softwares out there that will do the job.
And something interesting... it came with 32-bit Windows, which is weird, because I found out that it's a 64-bit machine. So of course I'm running 64-bit Ubuntu and it's working great.

[Sam Lars]

That is very similar to the Toshiba (A205-S5859) I just bought.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Toshiba-Satellite-A205-S5859-15-4-Widescreen-Laptop-A205S5859/sem/rpsm/oid/207722/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

$600, I could not pass up the price and everything worked OOB with Hardy.

Dell had some other options, too, but I opted for the extra RAM, hard drive, and processor.

[aidave]

Haha! Dell is offering us linux computers and what do we do? Complain about the price. This is priceless... :D

Look: to start up an new product line is sometimes quite costly. Prices will drop over time. Thats the way it works. (By the way: the issue seems to have already been resolved - or never occurred? - as some previous posts pointed out and i have experienced by trying just recently.)

Just buy the Ubuntu pc. This makes them show their is a market for linux pc's. If everybody buys the vista crap, Dell will have an excuse to drop the product line, "because there is no market for it".

Second of all: free software never was about price, it always has been about freedom. How much is that worth to you? We should support the vendors that are selling/supporting free software, so that our beloved free system gets more widely adopted. Maybe one day we will be able to walk up to just about any computer and use our favourite software. We are already starting to see free systems in schools, courts, ... (at least here in Belgium). And I believe that part of that success is because large companies like HP, Sun, Intel, Dell, and the like are openly expressing their support for gnu/linux as a powerful, stable and secure operating system.

I'm putting my money were my interests are: my freedom. And that means most likely my next system will be a dell.

peace,

Michael

I agree 100%, well put! To me it is not about the money either. I would happily pay $100 for Ubuntu. It is important, as an issue of human liberty, that operating system software be open source. This way governments and corrupt corporations cannot hide malicious code from us, to spy on us and cram stupid laws down our throats. Maybe I'm a little paranoid. But if you want to support Microsoft's philosophy, then buy a Vista machine, and install Linux on it. You might think you are sticking it to the man, but you are really helping line their pockets by purchasing Vista, even though, paradoxically, you may be saving yourself money. Vote with your wallets!

[sam_delta]

yeah, i rather pay to dell, than pay to micro$~

sam

[Raval]

A lot of machines will include trial or time limited versions of software on it for Windows (a.k.a. Bloatware). The software vendors pay Dell to include their bloatware and it drives down the cost of a Windows machine. Logic dictates that a machine with a free OS would be cheaper than a machine with an expensive OS but, when you factor in the HUGE discount that MS likely gives Dell and the bloatware payoff from third party software companies, it may not actually be the case.

Also. Dell would sell Ubuntu machines at a higher cost that the Vista ones to compensate for the lower volume of sales.

They need to make more per PC tp justify selling them.

I rather buy a pre-loaded Ubuntu PC from Dell at a higher price than a Vista machine to cast my vote saying people want Linux PCs and the number of people is a profitable one.

[RedRat]

I think many of you are missing a point here as to cost. First off, MS probably "sells" XP or Vista to Dell for far less than $40, basically what it charges its own employees. But I suspect that the extra cost of the Ubuntu machines is that Dell maintains a separate Linux support group, that does not come free. This group is separate from Windows and from the comments I have heard from around the internet it is very good at dealing rapidly with problems.

I bought a Dell 530n with Ubuntu installed and, through my own fault, had to install vanilla Ubuntu 7.10. The machine works very well. I have upgraded to Hardy via a download from the repo and Hardy with the addition now of the Nvidia-settings program now works like a charm. I am assuming that in order to get this compatibility with Linux, Dell has had to expend some money in engineering, this don't come free folks, there is no free lunch in this world. In addition, no question that volume is also involved, Dell has to maintain a Linux site and also purchase department, accountants want to cost out everything. So that they charge slightly more, is not surprising.