Slashdot Mirror

Dell does indeed sell inexpensive desktop PCs without Microsoft Windows. Dell n Series

So what features were removed -- colour screen? -- it never had one. In any case, the idea was never about eye-candy but simple practical business and educational use, and low power consumption. You, and "prostoalex" are comparing two quite different devices. The article cited does not mention the cheap Dell handhelds he linked to, apparently Prostalex imagines Indians can buy from Dell online and get them delivered by FedEx for the same price he can. Dell India doesn't even sell handhelds.

That sounds familiar...

S

The mini isn't even a contender - it's $500 price tag gets a more powerful workstation complete with monitor & periphals from a PC vendor.

Have you ever actually looked at the specs of a Dell or HP $500-$600 machine?
Dell Dimension 3000 $596
Looks something like:
2.4 Ghz Celeron D
256MB RAM
80GB HDD
48x CD ROM or a 48x CD-RW or a 16x DVD-ROM
Integrated Intel Graphics
Only USB2 ports
Case: Standard ATX case
OS WinXP Home
Apps: Wordperfect 2005, some craptastic re-badged Ulead stuff, Trial versions of Quicken, McAfee, etc

The periphrials:
A 17in standard CRT
A basic Keyboard/Mouse set

Mac Mini: $599
1.42Ghz G4
256MB RAM
80GB HDD
Radeon 9200 32MB
Combo DVD-ROM CD-RW
USB2 and Firewire ports
Custom Case, basically a Small Mini ITX case
OS: Mac OS X (10.3 now, 10.4 whenever it comes out)
Apps: iLife 2005, Appleworks, Quicken 2005

Now I'm not going to argue that a G4 would hold it's own against a P4 clocked at 2.4 Ghz in most cases, but the Celeron is a different beast, built for economy instead of power. I'd imagine that performance-wise we are at a draw, with a bit of a lean towards the G4 given the OS and Apps are built to exploit it's abilities.

On the RAM front, it would be nice if everyone was a little less stingy, Neither XP nor OS X runs well with only 256MB. Again though Apple has to get the nod based on the fact that the PC's integrated graphics is going to slice a chunk of main memory off the top, so instead of 256MB you are really only going to get 224MB

HDD we are at a draw, You can open up the Dell and add another HDD internally, or get a USB 2 drive (depending on how many ports you have open) On the Mac Mini, you can't add a drive internally but you can add Firewire or USB 2 drives.

Graphics-wise you have to give the nod to the Mac-mini, the 9200 isn't exactly a powerhouse, but it's nicer than the Intel solution, the fact that it has it's own memory is a big plus as well.

Optical Drives: Mac Mini you get the Combo drive, on the PC you have to choose between the CD-RW and the DVD-ROM.

Ports: Both have USB2.0 ports, the Mac has a Firewire port, if you have a digital video-camera this is certainly a plus. Firewire is also going to give you over-all beter transfer rates for external drives.

Case: The Dell is much larger, but gives you some flexibility with internal expansion (though even that can be limited, many don't have an AGP slot), the Mini is tiny and attractive to those without much desk-space, though you are stuck with only external periphrials.

OS: It's hard to compare WinXP Home and OS X, XP Home is compatible with pretty much every bit of hardware out there, though most hardware makers are supporting OS X now. You can't really talk about software compatibilty since you can get equivalent applications for either platform. In terms of Games, this PC doesn't have the "umph" to run most of the 3D games out there and the ones that it can run have OS X equivalents. Under the hood you simply can't compare the two, you would really have to compare it to XP Professional which is going to cost you an extra $80.

Bundled Apps: iLife simply dominates the competition. You aren't going to find the same quality of software on the PC without spending extra and even then...

Would be nice if Apple included iWork instead of the older Appleworks. Dell probably edges ahead here with WordPerfect.

Nice to get a full version of Quicken rather than a the Trial on the PC.

Obviously for the brand-new computer user it is nice to get the monitor, keyboard and mouse with the Dell, though chances are the user is going to want a better Display especially if they are limited on space. 15in LCD's are fairly cheap and 17-19in LCD's are coming down. The keyboard/mou

Hmmm, how about a $400 2.8 Ghz P4 machine with 17" monitor?

Like this

Show me a new dell configured with monitor, keyboard, mouse, OS, and complete productivity suite (sorry Works doesn't cut it) that can be had for $500 here in the US, let alone after it's shipped to South America.

Here in the US... Prices in Brazil are higher because of Brazil's import duties on US computers..

If you read what's being said they're saying that they're trying to provide software that is Free (no dependency on others) and create a market with competition.

Yes and with that part I cant fault them all that much, but when they wrap this around 'it for the poor' I have to laugh.. This is for Brazillian PC manufactures..

The guy appeared to be complaining that the iMac was a step backwards in that you had to buy a dongle to do what the previous Macs did without extra hardware and hassle.

That is absolutely untrue. You could still hook up a printer with no dongle. It just had to be a modern printer.

What do you think the utilization percentage of parallel ports is these days? There are over 400 computers in the building I'm in right now, and not a single one of them has something connected to the parallel port. Considering apple printers didn't use the parallel port before this, the percentage would be even less on macs. Not putting a parallel port on the iMac was a good thing. If only PC manufacturers would figure it out...

No way would Dell or Gateway get away with Apple's "We are forcing you to use only USB for your own good"...

Oh really?

I actually got out of the white box business for that exact reason. I point people to Dell's rotating outragous deals, the Sunday paper ads, or a link or site I may see on a deal site. They get an above average deal, I look all right because I gave them some good advice, and I am no longer bothered with their various PC problems.
My car and house work is shared pretty evenly give and take across all of my friends ;)

For some of us, it's mostly about the other non-gaming features such as music, photos, video, and Wi-Fi. The games are a very nice bonus.

At $250 plus $120 for a 1GB Memory Stick Duo, I would get more value out of a PSP than a Portable Media Center or an iPod. For playing MP3's, the screen can be turned off and battery life will be long enough (about 10 hours) to be an acceptable music player. For photos, the PSP's 4.3" 480x272 screen blows away the screens on the iPod Photo and other photo-viewing music players. For videos, the PSP can play MPEG-4 video from the memory stick. Articles from CNET and the San Jose Mercury News hint that the built-in Wi-Fi will eventually be used for web browsing and e-mail. As a baseball fan, I'd love to be able to download stats at the ballpark.

Having all these features in one (non-phone) device is attractive to me. At only $250, Sony is making me reconsider my plans to buy a Dell Axim.

Now I just go to Dell.com and pick out what I want. Easier, cheaper (you build me a system for the 229 I got my server for yesterday - I dare you), and frankly more stable than most of the crap I see out there with random motherboards bought as returns from Fry's (all at 5 dollars off)

Apple Powerbook 12-inch
4.6 lbs, 12.1" 1024x768
1.5 Ghz
512 RAM
80 Gig Drive
5 hour battery
8x SuperDrive DVD+/-RW
1 Year Warranty
$1700

I'm not really seeing the "my $2000 Mac is better than a $2500 PC!!11!!1!", basically if you don't mind trading less screen resolution, widescreen and a dual layer writer for DVI out and OSX, and throwing in another $600 (enough for 5 iPod Shuffles and a decent hooker), then Apple Powerbooks are for you. They're both good decisions, but I have not seen any rational way to make Apples cheaper than Windows machines with comparable configurations.

Started out with Commodores. First a 64, then a 128. On which I ran, among other things, GEOS.

Then went to DOS on a '286 (which I was required to build as an incoming freshman at NJIT in the late '80s).

A year or two later, I got my hands on PC/GEOS, and ran that on top of DOS until 1993-1994, since it was object-oriented and multithreaded and pre-emptively multitasked in 1990. (Coincidentally, it used Objective-C...)

Around 1994 I managed to download Linux floppies and started using that. By 1997, I was running it on a laptop, a year later, my wife had a Linux laptop as well (and I must say, classically trained ballerinas who use vi make excellent wives).

2001 rolled around, and my laptop - a 486-75 - was getting pretty long in the tooth, so I started looking around for possible replacements. I wanted something that could play DVD's, which at that point on Linux was no minor thing.

I noticed Apple's dual USB iBooks. I noticed that if I wanted dual USB ports, FireWire, and 10/100 ethernet, built in, on the PC side of the fence, it would cost me an extra $500. This made my brain hurt, since as everyone knew, Apples were supposed to be more expensive. But I bought one anyway.

And then another. And then a Power Mac G5. And the one of the iBooks got lost at the repair depot and we got an iBook G4 as a replacement. And then I bought a PowerBook.

The Power Mac is for sale (I'm not home enough to make it worth having any more), and when it sells, I'll buy a Mac mini for my daughter. The older iBook is also going to be for sale soon, and when it sells, maybe another Mac mini to replace a 2000-vintage Dell laptop I've got running Linux as a home "server." Dunno.

I switched from Linux to Mac because the Mac "just worked." Getting it to play DVD's required, well, nothing. I didn't have to install WINE to run Office. And so on. (And I say this as someone who thought nothing of working with another person to figure out the X modelines for my wife's Linux laptop, as someone who thought nothing of buying a SCSI scanner and being the first to determine that yes, it did work with SANE, and so on - I'm not a technophobe.)

I've stuck with Macs because for the most part, they continue to "just work." I deal professionally with Windows 95, 98, NT 4 and XP, Red Hat 7 through 9, Solaris, SunOS 4, SCO OpenSewer on a 100-pound Dell, and things even more abominable. A PowerBook with OS X is a very nice counterpoint to the vast majority of the above. (Coincidentally, it uses Objective-C)

You can get USB for NT if you really want it.

InsideOut's stack is by far the best available, but you can't buy it standalone. You either have to buy one of their Edgeport serial converters or try out the version that Dell has on their FTP Site.

I've also used this one from Bsquare , but it doesn't support Memory Keys, and it's old code.

There are a couple of other ones out there as well.

• People don't need expansion slots. Everything is built into the motherboard. If they really need something which isn't there, it can be plugged into a USB port. Expansion slots are a huge waste of real estate, and screw up your airflow too.

• People want good video performance. That means no shared memory for video. The only reason people buy these huge AOpen and Shuttle SFF's is that the Mini-ITX boards are saddled with lousy graphics. Put an ATi Mobility X700 with 128 megs of video memory in there, and customers won't want or need an AGP or PCIE16 slot. Now you can get away with no expansion slots at all.

Large enterprises should not use Windows because it is not secure enough, has scalability problems, and is controlled by a single vendor so it's not even *possible* to fork, should you need to.

Note that Dell and Oracle and Sun all have webpages describing their enterprise Linux support. If they were really concerned about Linux not being up to snuff, they probably shouldn't be offering it to their customers.

Good article from all the way back in 2004 regarding where this is actually pointed. http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=510 00391&flatPage=true

Would Sun rather see Linux go away? Sure, but they also believe in it enough to sell it. http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/v20z/index.jsp

These are quotes directly from they guy heading up EDS's strategic alliances. Not from members of the strategic alliance - has anyone asked Ellison if he thinks Linux is insecure, prone to unfriendly forking? Guess not. http://www.oracle.com/events/unbreakablelinux/inde x.html. Guess not.

Cisco? Well lets see they have linux running on some of their hardware, and apparently its good enough for their engineers to run http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/0216cislinux.htm l

So lets round out the list...

EMC - http://www.emc.com/products/systems/linux/index.js p
Dell - http://linux.dell.com/
Microsoft - http://www.mslinux.org/ Err, umm - ok maybe not.

The thing that supprises me is Dell's involvement. They are heavily investing in Linux servers.

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx /solutions/en/clustering_hpcc?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=b iz

Just a little tidbit that promotes Linux servers in their High Performance Computing Clusters.

Looks like Microsoft is wearing down Dell on the issue hoping that they can control Dell the way Intel does.

"Large enterprises should not use Linux because it is not secure enough, has scalability problems and could fork into many different flavours, according to the Agility Alliance, which includes IT heavyweights EDS, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Dell and EMC."

to:

EDS: Linux is Insecure, Unscalable?

Why not: "Sun: Linux is Insecure, Unscalable (except the ones we support)" or "Dell: Linux is Insecure, Unscalable (except the ones we sell)"

Mod article -1, Troll

"Something does smell bad in your story though, your Dell fried out, and it had no warranty? After only one year?"

Well, that $399 Dell Dimension 2400 has only a 90-day warranty. If you want the 1 year warranty, you gotta pay $20 extra. The two year warranty is $49.

But, in Dell's defense, it is a limited warranty. For all we know, he added some kind of non-Dell-supplied thingie to his computer which caused a problem. Dell's warranty will not cover you in those situations.

Judging from thesetwo pages, you're still paying a slight premium for NOT having windows pre-installed.

I'm just comparing the Dimension desktops. If any of the others are actually cheaper with Linux instead of Windows, please give me a link. I'd be happy to have you prove me wrong (which is why I bothered checking).

Judging from thesetwo pages, you're still paying a slight premium for NOT having windows pre-installed.

I'm just comparing the Dimension desktops. If any of the others are actually cheaper with Linux instead of Windows, please give me a link. I'd be happy to have you prove me wrong (which is why I bothered checking).

I use linux, windows, solaris and OS X. I have them each for different reasons. Linus however has been a UNIX guy from the beginning. It's like asking a Mac OS user to "just try windows, it's not that bad". Some people have their preference and as such use it. If you'd spent over 10 years working on an OS kernel it's doubtful you'd find the need to work in another OS since you have the one you're working on to your liking. I can do 95% of my work on OS X but I have a Thinkpad that I prefer. And I just bought this! (They said 1-2 weeks to ship but it shipped in 2 days!)

No offense, but you, sir, are a moron.

I am a proud owner of an Asus P4T-E (with an i850 chipset), w/ 1gb of PC800 RDRAM memory. I specifically chose RDRAM when I built the machine back in 2001, because the only other choice at the time was DDR-200/266 w/ the original i845 chipset, or PC133 w/ the same chipset. (if you recall, performance of the original i845 was less than spectactular)

All of my friends questioned my choice of RDRAM when building my system, saying I wouldn't be able to overclock (which i was, easily, P4 1.6a @ 2.3ghz w.o. any fantastic cooling solutions) and that I wouldn't be able to use that same memory when I upgraded (I haven't upgraded yet, but many of them have, and guess what? They purchased new 'go faster' DDR sticks when they bought their new board/cpu...)

As for your buddy being stuck w/ 128mb of RDRAM because of no local availability... Have you heard of this website called 'eBay'?? I hear it's quite nifty.

Oh, by the way... Dell still sells RDRAM

No offense, but you, sir, are a moron.

I am a proud owner of an Asus P4T-E (with an i850 chipset), w/ 1gb of PC800 RDRAM memory. I specifically chose RDRAM when I built the machine back in 2001, because the only other choice at the time was DDR-200/266 w/ the original i845 chipset, or PC133 w/ the same chipset. (if you recall, performance of the original i845 was less than spectactular)

All of my friends questioned my choice of RDRAM when building my system, saying I wouldn't be able to overclock (which i was, easily, P4 1.6a @ 2.3ghz w.o. any fantastic cooling solutions) and that I wouldn't be able to use that same memory when I upgraded (I haven't upgraded yet, but many of them have, and guess what? They purchased new 'go faster' DDR sticks when they bought their new board/cpu...)

As for your buddy being stuck w/ 128mb of RDRAM because of no local availability... Have you heard of this website called 'eBay'?? I hear it's quite nifty.

Oh, by the way... Dell still sells RDRAM

Actually so can Dell's. My experience with Dell server hardware has been nothing but positive. You can even get a non-OS dependent boot disk to flash BIOS (we run OpenBSD). Maybe ordinary consumer hardware is different, I don't know.

Let's break down the real facts, because it seems like SlashDot likes spreading da FUD..

If you purchase a computer pre-installed with Windows XP from a major vendor (re: Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. etc.), Windows XP will come already activated. Your Windows XP key is in the BIOS (as it already is in most Dell PCs), letting you reinstall Windows XP without activation over and over again as many times as you want.

When I bought a new Dell a few months back, I had to go online to activate the copy; with this new rule, I won't have to anymore. It'll already be activated.

Check out Ed Bott's blog entry regarding this. You can also read an article at Dell's site detailing the difference in "OEM" and "SLP" editions of Windows XP/2003.

Get the facts, people, before you start yelling that the sky is falling.

fixed link:

Dell's 286 Systems

You n00b, I bet your first PC was 32bits, Dell did sell 286 based computers at one point back when they were known as PC's Limited back in the 1980's, same company different name.

PC's Limited 286-8 / 286-12

I believe at the time their systems came with 1 year of free on site support. If their phone tech support determined there was a hardware problem, they'd send someone out to do the work.

It appears this option is still available as "At-Home Service".

Not sure what their support is currently like. They sent a guy to my house to replace my CD-ROM back in 1996 without asking too many questions.

Tech: What's the problem?
Me: The CD tray stops half way when I press the close button.
Tech: Ok. We'll send out a tech to replace it. Will you be available Tuesday from 1-3pm?
I think the conversation was a little longer, but it didn't take multiple calls or many hoops.

AMD lists several places to buy AMD64 systems, many of which offer the same optional on-site repair contract. Not sure who lives up to their claims, but for that I'll have to read the reviews as it sounds like few actually do these days.

For those of you that live in Canada, or are interested in importing Dell Canada has a fantastic deal running right now on the Dimension 2400. For $299 plus tax the system features a Celeron 2.4GHz, 256MB RAM, Windows XP Home, and an 80GB hard drive. Considering that a full copy of XP would cost you $100 by itself, this is an awesome deal! Shipping is also included in the price. This would be a great deal for those of you who want to keep your children away from your main workstation.

Dell Deal

Crap batteries.

I had a Dell Inspiron at my last job, and it became an AC-only unit after about two years. The batteries were only rated for a useful life of 500 charge/discharge cycles... stated right on the spec sheet, in fact.

Why is it always a competition?

If you find something that fits you and you're the only person in the world that likes it who cares if it sells 1,000,000 copies or 1, as long as you get what you like.

BTW, Dell will sell more shitty OptiPlex GX280's than Apple will sell mini's. Does it make them better? Or do the specs make the better? Or is it the price that makes it better? The reality is your opinion is what makes something better. Unfortunately you have yet to learn it is only better to you.

Dell will sell you a nice PowerEdge 6600 with 32G (or less) with Windows 2003 Server EE which happily and eagerly runs on and will take advantage of up to 8 CPUs and 32G of memory.

If he can get away with only 12G of memory he can run a significantly cheaper PowerEdge SC1425.

I say significantly cheaper, but not cheap as it isn't (figure $15k with the Win2003ServerEE license on the cheap one, loaded with memory, and easily twice that for the more expensive one.)

Dell will sell you one at only a 500% markup over cost.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx ?c=us&cs=555&l=en&oc=PE7250PAD&s=biz

...there all over the place:

Dell Itanium
HP Itanium
IBM Itanium

After years wanting a quiet PC I found a really easy way--I bought Dell Optiplex GX 270 SD. Dell has engineered the box to be quiet. It has a proprietary heatsink assembly over a Pentium IV as well as quiet Maxtor drive. I keep it on my desk and it's almost silent.

Also, it can be had really cheap from Dell Outlet

And you can send it back if it's too noisy--USA ONLY!!

Whoops, I accidentally posted only half a post. Her's the second half:

B) What about all the non-Windows boxes hooked to the network? And I'm not talking about Macs, I'm talking about all the little doo-hickeys that get hooked to the net like my printer, people's TIVO's, etc.

Well, there's no reason your OLD printer and stuff can't still work on an internal network. They just wouldn't be able to talk to the outside internet.

As for new stuff, there's a big push to start dumping Trust chips into pretty much everything that will be networked. Your 5 year old printer and webcam won't be supported by your ISP, but your New and Improved Network Secure printer and webcam will probably work fine.

If Dell said they were doing it it might be something to take seriously.

YES, I AGREE.

Only a few Dell models are currently Trusted Compliant, but as I said, not a single PC manufacturer will be selling non-compliant systems once Longhorn rolls out. Do you seriously think Dell is going to sell computers that can't fully run the new version of Windows? Computers that can only run the new Windows in crippled mode with a downgraded graphics interface? And you KNOW Windows will occationally pop up "error" messages complaining that it can't do X Y and Z becuase your hardware is incompatible.

-

Redmond doesn't do hardware. They let Dell and others do it.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category. aspx/dj?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs/

Does Apple do PDAs or Phones?

Why buy used, when you can buy new pretty good equipment, WITH a warranty, for these prices?

It's nice to see projectors finally coming down in price. The lowest price used to be the 2200MP Multimedia Projector for $899. Hopefully we will see more in the lower price range and maybe even under $500. The smaller size is definately a plus.

I'll join the chorus of folks who've pointed out that Dell has done this for, like, ever and that it's quite common in the industry. Best Buy, CompUSA and Circuit City each pay different prices to manufacturers and distributors for the same parts, too.

By the way, Dell's pricing strategy is primarily the reason that the first question you're asked on the Dell home page when you begin shopping is not "how much do you want to spend?" but "where will you be using it?".

At the large company for which I work, whenever we buy Dells, we simply have somebody buy them on a personal credit card and have them shipped to a home address.

There are plenty of games out for the Mac, if you're not some twitchy freak who has to have every cookie-cutter FPS that comes down the pike on the very day it's released.

In Mac-land, everything costs money. Every stupid little utility is crippled, time-limited shareware. Fuck that.

Yeah, you sure got their number. No Mac freeware at all, no sir! I must be imagining the 120+ pages of Mac freeware listed on VersionTracker.

Then, of course, there's the price of Mac hardware. For $1500, I can build one hell of a Windows machine.

And stop comparing your homebuilt whiz-bang PC to a complete system produced by a single manufacturer and covered by a warranty. The only fair comparison is a system built by Dell/HP/whoever.

By the way, you might want to edit your "Macs are too expensive" rant in light of the Mac mini:

$499 + $75 to upgrade to 512MB + $224 for a Dell 15" LCD + $51 for Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop OEM = $849 for a pretty capable little system, not including shipping.

I just bought a new computer from Dell, and, since I am a California resident, $8 was added to the price for the environmental impact fee. This fee was from just the LCD monitor I bought, which was $700 or so. That's a 1.1% fee.

When I buy a coke for 50 cents, I pay a 4 cent environmental fee, or 8%. The difference is that I can get that 4 cents back if I return the bottle--though in reality, it's just easier for me to drop the bottle in my recycle bin each week.

When customizing a system in which I decided to spend several hundred extra bucks for a slightly better processor and a couple more for more memory, this fee just seemed insignificant. It was lower than tax, and much lower than even shipping. I hate being "nickled and dimed" with government (and pseudo-government) fees (comprising 20% of my mobile phone bill for example), but in this case it just didn't matter to me.

I'm curious, though... since Dell already offers its own recycling program, why do they need to pay the fee? Or does California pay them part of the fee when they recycle the monitor?

I just bought a new computer from Dell, and, since I am a California resident, $8 was added to the price for the environmental impact fee. This fee was from just the LCD monitor I bought, which was $700 or so. That's a 1.1% fee.

When I buy a coke for 50 cents, I pay a 4 cent environmental fee, or 8%. The difference is that I can get that 4 cents back if I return the bottle--though in reality, it's just easier for me to drop the bottle in my recycle bin each week.

When customizing a system in which I decided to spend several hundred extra bucks for a slightly better processor and a couple more for more memory, this fee just seemed insignificant. It was lower than tax, and much lower than even shipping. I hate being "nickled and dimed" with government (and pseudo-government) fees (comprising 20% of my mobile phone bill for example), but in this case it just didn't matter to me.

I'm curious, though... since Dell already offers its own recycling program, why do they need to pay the fee? Or does California pay them part of the fee when they recycle the monitor?

But dell also has decent systems avaialbe to anyone who browses their site for less then $499 with a 2 year warranty as well. You just need to wait a week as the deals rotate all the time. Of course this will probably get modded as off topic or troll because it does not agree with the blind Apple fanboi view of the world.

A stock Dell Inspiron 8600 is $ 2,164
A stock Apple 15" PB is $1,999

A stock Dell Inspiron 8600 is $ 2,164
A stock Apple 15" PB is $1,999

Looking at the specs for current Dell UltraSharp LCDs (link may expire), viewing angle is the *only* thing Apple's LCDs have over the UltraSharps. I know earlier UltraSharp models were not as good as the current ones but were still better than Apple's. The brightness and contrast ratio of the UltraSharps are superior to Apple's LCDs and I think for most people those are more important values than viewing angle.

I'm comparing them to Apple Cinema Displays because I haven't found good information about the 'Book LCDs but I believe they're comparable. I think folks would have a cow if the screen on a new PowerBook was noticably superior to a new Cinema Display.

Certainly none of the desktop-replacement Wintel laptops I've seen have that little volume--they're gargantuan. In fact, the only thing that would equal it is, well, a Mac laptop.

Well, then, perhaps you haven't seen this little gem?

It's quite small. It's light - definitely NOT "gargantuan".

And, It's full-strength. I bought one a year ago to replace my Athlon 2000+ - and it's suprprised me at how adept it is at it. I run Fedora Core 3 on it, and with VMWare, I routinely run 3 or 4 OS's at a time - and it handles it all with grace.

It amazes me to see so much in such a small package. Complete with Gb ethernet, 802.11g, and just about every other connection option possible built in. (No floppy - but the macs you're comparing this to don't have one either, and in any event, I've never missed it)

And, it seems that my observations are supported by other indendent scrutiny.

So, what's that you say?

No, that's a --macMiniScore;

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features. aspx/featured_dp_notebook1_1?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

2.6 GHz, 512 Meg RAM, 30 Gig, 14 XGA

If you buy one of these instead, you get so much more. And if you remove the LCD (to use for other purposes), and cover the keyboard with duct tape you'd basically have a Mac Mini-ette...a streamlined PC version of the Mac Mini. And to boot, it runs on its own power! Take it with you! Bugger that!

If you don't think PC manufacturers could make a similar and more powerful device you are quite misinformed.

Please go away now Mac freak.