[ubuntu-uk] Windows Free Laptops

[Dale Clarke]

The Problem is that Tesco tried to get on the Acer Aspire One Linux
bandwagon selling it at £170, but have had huge returns (see Acer Forum)
as people have not liked the linux frontend. This in my opinion will
leave a sour taste in Tesco's mind towards Linux and can be put squarely
in Acer's backyard as they do not provide enough information about the
product and have done it with a very beta type setup. 


        After writing the above I thought I would ring our local Tesco
        this morning to check and their response was that they have sold
        all theirs within 1 days last Monday and have had no returns, so
        maybe sold to Linux user's, but the person said that as like
        Argos they cannot provide software or hardware support so just
        do refunds, slightly different if you went to PC World etc...


Microsoft were clever in not providing any CD based software due to the
amount of people asking for refunds, as they did not want the Oem.
Especially with early Vista users and customers returning to XP, now you
cannot get a refund as you cannot prove you have not run the software.

There should be and always be a refund slip in every computer in which
you can get a refund on the Oem if you do not require it, this way
people would realise that they are paying for the software and that it
does not come free with the computer, as it was found out in a survey in
Computer magazine that people perceived.

I personally now run Ubuntu 8.10 on my One with adjustments and it is
now a great package, especially with SSH now being a standard kernel
addition.

Dale
 On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 08:22 +0000, Stephen O'Neill wrote:

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> On 14/11/08 08:04, Sean Miller wrote:
> > I agree with this, but surely rather than support folks who are
> > charging over the market price for machines we should be encouraging
> > the major players to provide just that - laptops without Vista?
> 
> 
> Whether the machine is overpriced depends on more factors than the raw
> numbers on paper - build quality, component quality, service and even
> ethical concerns carry different weight for different people. That is
> why I say it is unfair to immediately say that the Tesco machines are
> better value.
> 
> What the retailers mentioned in this thread have done is said "here's
> our standard pricing model, and here's it reduced by the value of a
> Windows license".
> 
> Tesco haven't done that.
> 
> You can obviously choose to pay for the Tesco machine, that is perfectly
> valid. However what would make more sense would be to write to Tesco and
> point out that what you perceive to be a competitively priced machine is
> still over-priced because it comes with a £50 license that you won't
> use, and can they please come up with new ranges to take account of that.
> 
> You may still choose to buy the machine with the license, but if you
> don't inform the retailer of your thoughts then you're still wasting money.
> 
> - --
> Stephen O'Neill
> w: http://www.thefloatingfrog.co.uk/
> e: squid at thefloatingfrog.co.uk
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