Comments on: Dell Follow Up

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:20:34 +0000

@Crystal – That doesn’t sound good. I think this business of using the printer cost to offset selling Vista is crazy, why are Dell subsidizing Microsoft’s broken product in this way? If people don’t want to buy it they shouldn’t have to, this bundling and forcing them really annoys me. There are ways to reclaim the Vista license fee apparently as long as you decline the EULA and do not boot Vista at all. It’s complicated though and you need to document the whole process clearly with photo evidience. I’m not an expert but I know some people have succeeded. One guy I know is even going to court over it. The best I can do is point you to some articles I’ve seen online:

http://blog.danieldk.org/post/2008/01/26/Dell-refunds-Vista-and-Works-license-fee

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3632861,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_refund

I do wish you the best of luck with this and I’d be interested to find out how you get on in future, please let us know

By: Crystal

Crystal — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:23:08 +0000

I’ve just ordered a Dell XPS laptop and requested it to ship with no OS. They declined. I called up the OFT regarding issues I had with the invoice Dell sent (£51 for a ‘free’ printer, while the laptop cost £51 less than quoted over the phone – sneaky) and Dell have already refuse to cancel the order as I agreed to pay the overall price.

I WILL NOT use Vista as my traffic modelling software does not run on Vista and I have an XP license (like everyone else).

I am not in a hurry to use the laptop (thus I will not open it when it arrives until I sort this out) but is there ANY way I can get my money back for the Vista license??

Thanks for your help.

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:54:12 +0000

Yeah I’ve considered trying to reclaim the Windows license but it seems a bit tricky and not everyone succeeds you have to be really careful not to boot the machine with Windows on. Some people have done it and documented the process well though. That machine on Linux Emporium is really great and I’m probably gonna go for something like that next. This hopefully won’t be for a year or so though, my bank account couldn’t take it

By: Daz Fuller

Daz Fuller — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:45:41 +0000

I’ll head over and have a look then thanks, to be honest style isn’t a selling point for me which is probably why I’m still not sold on Apple’s products.

Another option I suppose would be to buy a regular laptop and then try claiming the windows license fee back, depends if I’m feeling up to the challenge.

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:31:42 +0000

@daz Have a look at the Linux Emporium I was impressed with their range and also the prices when I looked at their stuff yesterday. They do mostly Thinkpads which aren’t the most stylish machines in the world but they have a 13.3″ widescreen Thinkpad on there with comparable specs to the m1330. It’s cheaper too at around £650. When it comes time to replace this machine I’ll be checking them out I think. Jono Bacon just bought a T400 and he loves it. They have the T400 for sale at Linux Emporium too. Worth a look I reckon, I’m gonna recommend them to everyone in the UK who asks me about Linux machines

By: Daz Fuller

Daz Fuller — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:06:25 +0000

I’m still looking at getting a laptop and was considering Dell, but with all this faffing around they’re doing I’m not so sure anymore.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:46:43 +0000

@Fab It is very odd, I dunno what they’re playing at (sigh)

By: Fab

Fab — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:44:05 +0000

This is really weird behavior on the part of Dell. This kind of fidgeting is very bad for business if you ask me. I wonder what’s up there…

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:19:32 +0000

@Daz Ah ok I thought the Mini 12 would still be available and I like that they have the Ubuntu option in with the main catalogue. If you get one of the printed Dell brochures they actually list both the 9 and 12 with Ubuntu by default which I like. I agree it’s odd to give worse hardware with the Linux options though since the software is free and it makes me wonder if this is part of their Microsoft contract, Windows machines must be higher spec. People keep telling me Dell are too big to be bullied by MS but think about it, how screwed would Dell be if MS withdrew their right to sell Windows? It’s a bit like a cold war situation, they both now they could hurt each other but nobody wants to shoot first

By: Daz Fuller

Daz Fuller — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:11:42 +0000

If you browse to the Mini 9 and Mini 12 through the main site you get the option of Ubuntu or Windows. Although the Mini 12 Ubuntu Edition is running a 1.33Ghz processor and a 40Gb Hard Disk Drive compared to the XP version which has a 1.6Ghz processor and an 80Gb HDD!

Why deliberately cripple a machine like that!