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Dell Ships Gaming Systems Sans Bloat

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the not-a-terrible-move dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Dell has followed up and put their money where their mouth is after HardOCP panned them last year for selling 'gaming systems' that you could not even install some popular 3D games on due to the bloatware on the system. You can now get clean installs on some XPS Dell systems. Dell is running a 'You Spoke, We Listened,' header on their site." From the article: "It seems that Dell has taken our criticism (and our readers as well) to heart and has made the much sought after move to offer select XPS systems with "limited" pre-installed software. We phoned a Dell sales representative late Monday, and he confirmed that the installation is completely clean, except for the included anti-virus program. As explained to us by Dell, There is no AOL installation, no "media jukebox", and no ISP offers to weigh the supplied operating system down."

4 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. I gotta say. by rwven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My number one grip with buying a prebuilt system versus building my own (cost aside) is that they come with so much crap on them. When i bought my gateway laptop, it took in between 3 and 5 minutes to boot up when it was new. After i cleaned all the misc crap off of it that i'll never use, it took about 45 seconds or less. I vote that pc manufacturers give you the very basic installation and then give you a DVD that has everything else on it. You stick it in and it gives you a nice menued list of things you may want to install.

    A person who just spent 1500 bucks on a new laptop isn't going to be wowed when their new laptop is taking longer to boot than their old one...

  2. Parent is not flamebait - windows subsidy is real by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    You're not paying the Windows tax - the spyware & adware & crippleware companies that Dell bundles are subsidizing the Dell to a far greater extent than Microsoft taxes it. I should know - I worked for a crippleware vendor who kicked back 20 - 50% of our upgrade revenue (depedning on the OEM) to the OEMs who let us install our crap.


    With these gamer systems, Dell's margin's are high enough tha they don't need this subsidy; but for the most part, noone in their right mind (even Dell) would be paying Redmond taxes if someone else weren't paying them to do so.


    That's the real reason Windows can never get serious about combatting spyware -- OEM support for windows depends entirely on the ability to hide deceptive spyware on the systems.

  3. You What??? by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 5, Insightful
    'You Spoke, We Listened,'

    Okay, where's my AMD X2 Processor? .
    .
    .
    .
    I'm waiting...

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  4. Re:Still I ask by jpmkm · · Score: 4, Funny

    If the USPS is delivering mail at highway speeds then I think a 20% increase in fuel usage is the least of their problems.