Valleywag
The reason to buy Dell's $800 Ubuntu notebook, according to a freetard New York Times piece today, is that it beats Microsoft-equipped machines on price, because the buyer doesn't pay for a Windows operating system license. But how much is that license? Fifty bucks.
If you're truly looking to save your cash, Dell's entry-level Windows model is a third cheaper than the Penguinmobile — $499 versus $774. Its Windows Vista Basic is hardly the "stripped-down" operating system Times writer Larry Magid claims — see this checklist. It'll run iTunes. It'll play DVDs without choking, unlike Magid's Ubuntu test unit. Spring for the cheaper laptop and your savings will more than cover an upgrade to Vista Home Premium ($30), a gigabyte of RAM ($50), a legal copy of Office 2007 ($149), and a double cappuccino for me as a reward for saving you from this sort of alterna-chic foolishness.
Comments
you know why its a third cheaper? did you look at the specs? the entry level windows model comes with 512 mb of 533 mhz ram, 60 gb hard drive, a single core amd processor, a crap battery, and a crap 54 mbps wireless card.
the ubuntu model has 1 gb of 667 mhz ram, 80 gb hard drive, a dual core intel processor, a less crappy battery, and a decent wireless card
it's too bad you wasted 30 bucks on vista home premium, that requires at least 1 gb of ram to operate.
The main thing you will "save" with the Linux machine is the headaches you will have with the Windows machine as the Windows registry eventually fills up memory, becomes corrupted and features of the laptop cease to function.
@backdoorangel: You can run Premium on 512, only the Aero interface is slow and best turned off. But hey - $50 for 1GB, added to the list! Thanks, backhandedly.
@Paul Boutin: I like how you skip right over the $70 for an 80 GB hard drive and the no-way-you-can-buy-it second processor core. That's very clever, what you did there.
Comparing hardware between the $500 model and the $800 is missing the point. If you want to max out your hardware for 800-ish, get the 17-inch model. It has an ATI card and you won't have to play your games in an emulator.
My point is that the article hawks Dell's Ubuntu boxes to the mainstream consumers who read NYT Circuits not as having better software than Windows, but as being the big new way to save money. One that involves switching to an entirely new operating system and applications. What do you save? $50 out of $824. For a writer as everyman-focused as Larry Magid, a publication as reputable and powerful as the New York Times, and a company as value-oriented as Dell, it's a stretch deserving of ridicule.
50$ is nothing to slouch about, thats a whole extra 1GB, after all. =p
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