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No Linux IdeaPad For Lenovo's US Customers
narramissic writes "When Lenovo's new IdeaPad 'S' series netbooks hit stores in October, U.S. buyers will only be given one option: Windows XP on the IdeaPad S10 (making it not so much a series as a single offering). Meanwhile, people in most markets Lenovo serves, including Singapore, China and the U.K., will be offered both of the company's new IdeaPad netbooks (the S10, which has 10.2-inch screen, and the S9, which has an 8.9-inch screen), and the choice of either Microsoft Windows XP or a Linux OS. Before you start feeling too sorry for yourself, consider the price tag: the S10 will sell for £319 (US$629) in the U.K., but in the U.S. the starting price is $399." Liliputing (a cool site for anyone interested in sub-notebook computing) has posted a few bits on the IdeaPad, including some short videos.
Reading through the summary, at first I thought that the fact that it was only available with XP was supposed to be a good thing. Then I got further and realized it was being compared to XP + Linux, not XP + Vista.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
it's "Linpus Linux Lite". Based on the name alone, I say good riddance.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I foresee a black market in Linux system restore discs...
Of course then the dual cores will start coming out later in the year, but I doubt I can wait until then, especially at these prices.
the S10 will sell for £319 (US$629) in the U.K., but in the U.S. the starting price is $399
I've noticed this sort of thing about several electronic devices, anyone know why they charge so much more in the UK?
i have a roll of electrical tape.
"the S10 will sell for £319 (US$629) in the U.K., but in the U.S. the starting price is $399"
Why is this, does it cost more to ship it to Europe or is it we're supposed to subsidise the US market?
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Let's see... I don't get the opportunity to spend $629 for something useful, but instead I'm invited to take $399 and throw it away!
Actually, we usually get screwed more on the price. More often than not, UK folks end up paying in pounds what US folks pay in dollars.
The Linpus distro has been around for more than 10 years. I ran it when I was in Taiwan. You can get the install dvd or live cd here: ftp://ftp.linpus.com/dists/LL96/iso/
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
so, no Vista option?
Do I see a trend or is it a plot?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
To buy an Asus EEE PC. Not that IBM has a bad reputation with respect to being Linux compatible, but it was nice to have it come installed and just work out of the box.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Ehhh...Lenovo had a chance of replacing ridiculously small touchpads found in all netbooks with a trackpoint, ending up with THE best netbook on the market.
Instead...they're only average/good... :/
One that hath name thou can not otter
Perhaps MS explicitly or implicitly threatened Lenovo with patent infringement if it tried to sell a Linux-based product in the US. More likely than not, MS patents would only be enforceable in the US.
I'm not saying any MS patents are really worth anything, but large businesses would bend over backwards (or forwards?) to avoid lawsuits.
...there would be some business for an enterprising American to act as a proxy buyer for Europeans who are tired of being overcharged for consumer electronics. Even with shipping and import duties it is usually much less expensive to buy stuff in the US than over here in Europe, but more and more US retailers refuse to do business 'overseas'. The same goes for many sellers on auction-sites. Which I find particularly strange as it is not that hard to use an escrow-service to make sure both parties keep to the deal.
There are companies which provide something like this service but they charge so much that it negates the advantage of buying in the US...
--frank[at]unternet.org
When is someone going to release a laptop with a Cortex A8/9 CPU? If you build it from the same sorts of components as the Pandora console, but a better keyboard, a bit more RAM, and slight bigger screen then you could keep the power consumption and cost really low. Of course, it wouldn't run Windows, but since hardware manufacturers are starting to remember a time when software allowed them to differentiate their products, maybe this isn't a bad thing...
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I think the level of health and social services provided by the UK government compared to what is provided in the US will give you a clue.
Robert Heinlein created the acronym TANSTAAFL, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". I would add NFHCASSE, "no free health care and social services either".
I can see someone creating that distro now, just for the hell of it.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The price difference is so massive that it really will be worth importing one from the US, even if (bloody) customs slap import duty on it.
In fact the difference is so much that I wouldn't be suprised if small companies imported them from the US in bulk and undercut their fellow sellers.
I thought the price difference was because they could sell more in the US than in Europe? the whole bulk-buying reduces costs strategy
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
So now XP's $399. And you get a free computer with it. Considering how much Vista costs, that sounds like a pretty good deal...
I do wonder though, if they didn't confuse Euros prices with Pounds ... because that price is outrageous.
For comparison, a MSI wind would set you back around 400 Euros in mainland Europe which corresponds pretty well to the 600 Dollar price tag in the US.
I never noticed it before, but Chinese people really look silly in Western clothing. Of course, there are a billion of them, so MMV.
looks like i will go buy my notebooks to america. buy 4, get plane ticket for free, still make money. :)
included: free adrenalin on the border where they can legally take the notebooks from you without any reason. (hey, you'd still happy for not ending up in the luxurious guantanamo hotel, indefinitelly, legally and secretly!)
america these days, cheap and dangerous!:)
buying notebooks in america - it's like the migration of salmon!
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(manually emulated sig-line)
I heard someone say that IBM has a patent on trackpoints and is somehow stopping other companies from using them. Presumably they passed the rights to this in some form to Lenovo with the laptop business, though.
The
Well, then Lenovo could just give another model more classic/non trendy look and...a trackpoint...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Lenovo also isn't offering the latest version of the Thinkpad T/X series (T400, T500, X200) in Linux, yet. I imagine the primary reason is that Intel hasn't yet written drivers for the Intel 5100 wireless chipset.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
This is the same for ALL EeePC in Japan. No Linux, only XP.
Lots of Sony models used to have trackpoints. Maybe some still do.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
What the *&^%*&^# is going on with the price diff between Europe and the USA?
Is the USA some kind of a small impoverished third world market that requires much smaller prices?
As a European, when I see this kind of price diffs and the devices are introduced in Europe way after the USA (many times nearly when the next version is due (in the USA)) I just opt out of what would otherwise be a sure buy.
So, companies. If you want my euros, please stop treating me like some kind of stupid 3rd class customer.
I seem to recall (can't find any references, sorry) that it's the technology in the IBM trackpoints that was patented rather than the idea of a trackpoint itself. They use strain gauges rather than moving parts, which I seem to remember makes them far more accurate than the competition.
I could be making all this up - it's been a few years.
Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.
So did Toshiba and so did Gateway- I still have a Gateway 486 handbook with a pointing stick
However they don't work the same as the IBM trackpoint/nipple/clit mouse, and are inferior enough to give anyone a foul impression of them in general.
No Vista? F that: if I'm buying a new machine, it needs to have an up-to-date OS.
The Lunix thing... no big deal. Although it is highly hilarious that not even IBM, with their multi-billion dollar investment and years worth of anti-MS FUD, still doesn't feel confident enough with Teh Lunix to actually sell it. It reminds me of Sun not using Java for their in-house projects. Guess they don't like eating their own dogfood.
At least those are still IBM and have well-known hardware. It also helps that they have none of the drawbacks of the ideapad/eee wrt quality and do have some of the missing pieces of the ideapad.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Dell Latitudes (at least some of them) have trackpoints as well.
Plus, obligingly xkcd.