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Dell's Ubuntu Ultrabook Now On Sale; Costs $50 More Than Windows Version
nk497 writes "Dell's 'Project Sputnik' laptop is now on sale. The XPS 13 Developer Edition comes with Ubuntu 12.04 pre-installed, and costs $1,549 — $50 more than the same model running Windows. The Ubuntu Ultrabook is the result of a skunkworks project to optimise the open-source OS to run on Dell projects, to create better laptops for developers. The idea of the project was to create a laptop for developers, based around 'the idea that developers are the kings of IT and set the agenda for web companies, who in turn, set the agenda for the whole industry,' Dell said." Reader skade88 points out a positive review from Ars Technica.
Did anyone expect better from Dell? They have a history of doing this with Linux laptops.
Thats because all the pre-loaded bloatware on win machines practically pays for the MS license.
'the idea that developers are the kings of IT and set the agenda for web companies, who in turn, set the agenda for the whole industry,'
So what they meant to say was: Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
I am officially gone from
Are you frickin' kidding me? If I'm going to spend nearly 2 grand after taxes on a laptop, then I expect something better than what I can expect to get off the shelf at walmart for $400.
I can totally see Microsoft threatening Dell's volume license if they sell the Ubuntu version for less than Windows. Maybe not in any way that would be outwardly anti-competitive, just the old mafia strategy of telling Dell you would hate it if something bad happened to their volume license.
Yes, sir, that would be a real shame.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
If developers' technological preferences really set the agenda for the whole computer industry, a lot of things would look different.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
'developers are the kings of IT and set the agenda for web companies, who in turn, set the agenda for the whole industry,' Dell said."'
Dell further clarified that "We also think developers are so stupid that they'll pay us an extra $50 rather than buy the Windows version, wipe it clean, and install Ubuntu for free."
So, if I buy the Linux version, I'm paying $50 to skip:
* Download an ISO (and wait).
* Convert it to a bootable USB image.
* Find a spare USB stick and shove the image on.
* Open the installer, click a bunch of stuff and wait for the install.
It's not hard. Typically takes maybe 0.5 to 2 hours depending mostly on the speed of your internet connection and whether you can find a spare USB stick.
Still, you can pay $50 to avoid an hour's work. Seems reasonable.
Especially to the crows of "time is money" whiners who claim that they only don't use Linux because of the time taken to set it up.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Alright, so they've put Ubuntu, a free OS with free applications on their computer instead of Windows. So why is it more expensive then you ask?
Well the simple explanation would actually be because it doesn't have Windows. With Windows you get the so called bloatware or trialware which is included with the installation at in almost 100% of the cases.
The software in question is there as marketing from the companies who've created that software and they pay DELL and other OEMs for the opportunity to have it installed on their machines. Hence if the operating system doesn't support their products and they can't be installed it means that they won't buy this "ad space" and that in turn leads to DELL losing out on money.
That is the simple answer to why OSS laptops are more expensive than Windows laptops
They are adding value by "making sure the drivers work", and potentially (though it's not explicitly stated) funding/providing developers for two community software projects:
profile tool and cloud launcher - but noted they were still in early stages.
"The idea behind the profile tool is to provide access to a library of community-created profiles on github, such as Ruby and Android, to quickly set up your development environments and tool chains," he said. "The cloud launcher enables you to create 'microclouds' on your laptop, simulating an at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud."
That appears to be the extent of the added value. I'm not sure I'd pay an extra $100 for it versus installing ubuntu myself (assuming OS-free hardware is minus $50 for the windows tax), but good on them anyway.
If I were to buy another laptop, I'd buy another ASUS Republic of Gamers. I have the 17" version from ~2 years ago, and it's ran linux out of the box extremely well since day 1 (barring control of the brightness of the keyboard backlighting).
It was also $1500, but it was an i7 2 years ago with 8gb ram that could be upped to 16...no complaints!
13", 1.8 GHz i5 (up to 2.8 GHz), 8 GB, 256 GB, US$1599.
Not trolling, asking seriously: how much difference is there between an i5 and an i7? A 2 GHz i7 Air (up to 3.2 GHz -- a little higher than this XPS) is another $100.
Also, from the Ars article: "All of the additions Dell is bringing to Ubuntu 12.04 are available for free (as in beer)." So could you just buy the Windows version and configure it yourself to save $50?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
These days I can't see myself handing over $1,500 for a laptop. I could buy three copies of my last laptop (which I use for development work and gaming) for that much. I don't care if it's $50 more or less than the Windows version, I want to know what about it makes Dell think anyone is going to pay that much for a laptop.
because it's UBUNTU! maybe canonical had pre-agreed to buy a bunch of them or something. maybe they were going to give them away and claim them as business expenses. or some weird shit like that.
one thing is for sure - nobody is going to pay more for having ubuntu pre-installed, out of principle if not anything else. maybe someone is crazy enough that they'll pay more in the hopes that windows license isn't paid on the machine already.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Microsoft tax is -50.00 USD. I am confused?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Or, it demonstrates that there isn't a lot of competition in the market for manufacturer-optimized linux-installed laptops, and that Dell is using the lack of competition in that market to extract rents. The idea that prices can be expected to closely mirror manufacturer costs is correct so far as the expected long-term result in a competitive market where no player is pricing based on influencing some other market, but its not necessarily true in the short run, or when there is little competition for a specific class of good, or where there are market participants that are using one product to draw people into another market.
Supporting Linux is not free.
Neither is windows of course, but the point is, they don't just preload it, they test it and they have to be able to tell customers exactly how things work and so forth.
This requires a special treatment.
Buying a computer without any operating system should be cheaper, buying a computer with an internally developed system should be more expensive.
Nope, don't see the problem here.
same here. for that money you can get a GP with 16 GB of ram, and an 8 core cpu, and full hd screen.
new sig
Take a look at this System 76 laptop:
https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/lemu4
With comparable specs it comes to $1008, upgraded from base model:
3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor ( 2.40GHz 6MB L3 Cache - 4 Cores plus Hyperthreading )
8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB
256 GB Crucial M4 Series SATA III 6 Gb/s Solid State Disk Drive
As for differences:
Dell is 13.3 in, System76 is 14 in
System 76 is 2.5 pounds heavier (4.5 pounds total)
Am I missing something else?
Microsoft is essentially paying a large builder like Dell to put Windows on the systems. Linux, on the other hand, has no one paying Dell, so that $50 premium probably represents the loss those marketing dollars.
Bearded Dragon
Be careful when you phrase things that way. You could crash the Swedish stock market!
Everything is better with chainsaws.
So, if I buy the Linux version, I'm paying $50 to skip:
No.
You are not paying to skip anything.
From the sound of it, you are paying for a slightly customized Linux build with a lot of really well thought out features, like work "profiles" that load software tailored to certain kinds of work - the example given was Ruby developers.
Between Dell making sure the drivers work well with all of the hardware involved, and doing custom improvements over Linux tailored to developers you are not paying to skip anything - you are paying just $50 more to make sure you have a really good developer laptop.
This is the first non Mac laptop I've been interested in for years. This is a really, really smart move on the part of Dell and I can't help but think we'll see more things like it with PC makers looking to edge away from Microsoft somewhat now that MS is competing on hardware.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How many times have we heard about Linux non-server products from major vendors that never showed up in retail channels? Dell. HP, and ASUS have each done that more than once.
"Ultrabooks" are just overpriced "netbooks". I rather liked the EeePC line, which is now dead. I have three of their netbooks. Remember the Eee PC X101, for under $200? The industry has stamped out low-end netbooks to boost profit margins.
These days I can't see myself handing over $1,500 for a laptop.
Well, surely it depends on what you do. Currently, I'm marginally mobile, which means I need a desktop replacement so I can move it if need. It's a beast: a lenovo W510 which is quite tricked out. It's very fast, ha tons of ram a good internal screen and can drive a large monitor. And it's portable in that it can be moved if necessary. And the battery life is OK.
I also have an eee 900, which cost something like $500 when it was new. I wouldn't want my $1500 laptop when I want my $500 one and vice-versa.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Everyone calm down. It's only $50. Imagine for a second if it were $50 cheaper than the Windows version... All of Dells usual idiot customers would show up, find the computer, do a search for the model... see this linux thing... "Save $50?!?! Hell yea!" and order it... Once it arrives and they boot it up and try to install their casino poker game... they call up Dell support... "What do you mean I can't install this?!?!"
Dell NEEDS to put a barrier between the average customer and a product that could cause them a lot of support costs. They need to do their very best to make sure that only people who know what they are buying get this laptop. Money is the easiest way to do that. If you don't want to pay the $50, just order the windows version and wipe it when it arrives. It's not that hard.
The only issue I have with it is the screen resolution. Either it needs to be cheaper or have a better screen. PC makers are getting better at copying Apple but screen sizes have stagnated way too long especially now that they're charging more for ultrabooks.
There are two thigs that make it costing more than Windows unsurprising.
...) the device support situation will hopefully change to the point where (at very least) good documentation is publicly available for most things.
Firstly the cost of Windows to manufacturers like Dell is much much much lower per unit than the likes of you or I would pay personally, and they get a kick-back for every bit of crapware they install on it for you which could easily make the Windows+crap solution zero cost. The crapware is not available for Linux, so they lose that couple of $/unit.
Secondly, if they have done as much work as "the result of a skunkworks project to optimise the open-source OS to run on Dell projects, to create better laptops for developers" might imlpy, then that sort of work to any decent quality level costs a fair amount in experienced man-time. Most chipset/device manufacturers produce their own Windows drivers that are (eventually, usually after a few revisions) fast and stable, but produce very little or nothing at all for other OSs such as Linux. This means that anything not yet fully supported and optimsed by the mainstream kernel woudl need work from Dell's team - and it may not be easy work as often public documentation for such things is sparce or otherwise lacking (or simply not available: they may have had to pay for access to some information).
This isn't about creaming money of us silly Linux people - it is about not doing work for nothing (which is fine for individuals and small groups who are making use of what would otherwise be spare time, but very difficult to get passed your shareholders when you are a publicly listed company).
As Windows gradually loses market share due to the number of devices (I'm including everything here, not just desktops and laptops where Windows is still very much king) running other options (Android, iOS, Linux,
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- Wireless card
- Video
- Onboard ethernet.
Just find something that has solid drivers. I think the big problem is that most people simply don't do a small amount of research before buying their gear, then get pissed that they have to jump through hurdles to get it working under linux. This isn't linux's fault. It is the crap hardware manufacturers who also don't release their specs. The nice thing is that stuff that is well supported in linux also likely works much better in windows too, so you win regardless.
In the case of dell, it wasn't difficult to swap out the crap (broadcom) wifi card for one that is well supported (even with kismet frequency hopping) for my dell d830 several years ago. I also chose an Nvidia card at the time, because I had good experience with Nvidia and linux on my workstation. I'd assume Dell still has these options?
...and how much is your time worth to reload Ubuntu and make sure that all the drivers for all the Apple stuff works, or rewrite the drivers which don't work.
There's no magical Apple component that makes it better. Yes, the screen is nicer on the Air (though no better resolution), but it's also likely that the battery life will be significantly sub-optimal (as it is when you put Windows on an Apple device - the optimization goes out the window).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I was expecting a review, not a quick run-down of a few features.
years of bitching that OEM's don't sell Linux products and everyone is forced to buy one with as Microsoft license. Now a decent machine comes out and you bitch about the price. Instead of bitching about it, how about embracing the fact that Dell took the time to hire people to design and support a small niche market. Or be happy that Linux is gaining ground in the market.
For a full-featured machine, price is inversely proportional to the weight. A doubling of the weight is a real non-starter for anyone who actually has to carry around a laptop.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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If you're spending $1,499 on a laptop, another $50 isn't going to be a make it or break it thing. There could be many reasons for extra price. The cost per unit to get everything polished for Ubuntu is probably what increases the price.
If Dell can sell a polished Ultrabook experience that runs Ubuntu and they can market and demonstrate value over using Windows then this will sell. You can't sell an operating system using cost as a criteria on a $1500 laptop. The people buying it just don't care about the $50. Nor would they be swayed if the Linux version was $50 less.
If so then I don't see a big deal about it even if its not Dell doing the support. If you have to do your own support then well...
Seriously how many big companies actually even attempted to bring some sort of Linux distro (except for android) toi the market? I personally have no opinion on Dell as a company and the three Dell system that I've bought all worked ok (My Inspirion 1720 is going strong after 6 years of non stop usage) but at least they're trying and putting their resources to semi promote Linux.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
"based around 'the idea that developers are the kings of IT and set the agenda for web companies, who in turn, set the agenda for the whole industry,' Dell said.""
damn skippy they are. Smartest thing I've heard all week.
If I'm going to spend $1500 on a laptop I'll just get a Macbook Pro and dual boot the thing with Linux. At least that way you're getting a really good screen with high resolution and good support if you need it.
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The mass market Windows laptop can be produced and sold in the millions, with very little effort.
Walmart.com, for example, finds it worthwhile to keep about 300-400 different flavors of the thing in stock --- and can reasonably expect to see a good return from after-market sales of hardware, software and accessories.
Sales of a customized "Developer's Laptop" --- whatever that may mean --- will be microscopic in comparison. It is not an easy market to reach, harder still to satisfy, with not much to show for all the effort you put into it.
Here it is: http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/campaigns/xps-linux-laptop.aspx
Heh... that space-related url says "Enterprise D" :-)
This one works, too: http://dell.com/sputnik
Also: http://linux.dell.com/ currently redirects to their non-user-editable Linux Engineering wiki. They really should make it easy to get from there to the page selling the Sputnik laptop. Because yes, hackers often just guess urls for common services instead of bothering with a search engine.
coding is life
Anyone remember how IBM/MS finally killed CP/M by making it cost several times more than msDOS on the same hardware?
Not saying this is the same, but its not all that different either. Setting up for failure. "see we tried"..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Am I the only one who isn't really concerned about the whole "how much is it in relation to Windows" thing? Personally, I won't be buying this thing for several very good reasons, but that just isn't one of em. I want to buy a nice well supported laptop that was built for the OS I choose to use. I could care less if that laptop also has a Windows version, as well as what the price of the Windows version is.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
A more important reason to pay for this SKU is so that the bean counters at Dell see that there is money in selling computers with open source software.
Dell is a spreadsheet run organization. If the SKU doesn't do the volume, or make money, they don't do another version of the SKU.
Getting the Windows version and loading your own build is shooting the movement in the foot.
13-inch: 2.9GHz
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB 1600MHz memory
750GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Built-in battery (7 hours)2
In Stock
Free Shipping
$1,499.00
Sorry, and thanks for the warning. I wouldn't want to impact the financial industry.
Microsoft tax is 0xFFFFFFCD USD. I am confused?
Is that better?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
And those developers started moving to Apple laptops en masse (as a capable UNIX system that also runs Photoshop and Omnigraffle and ...) a decade ago...
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/02/03/11/1542218/how-mac-os-x-is-changing-the-mac-community
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/08/11/17/1920206/why-developers-are-switching-to-macs
geek. lawyer.
On identical hardware, Asus sells Ubuntu laptops for $38 less than the Windows 8 laptops: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2012095/two-new-asus-laptops-offer-an-ubuntu-linux-option.html So why can't Dell? I think the obvious answer is that Asus is not nearly as beholden to Microsoft as Dell.
I bought a Lenovo E530 and dropped in an extra 8 GB so I'd have 16 GB in my 3rd gen i7 laptop. All under $1000. If a quad-core Sandy Bridge i7 with 16GB of ram and 1 TB drive can't get it done, I'm not sure what an extra $500 will buy you. I've never paid more than $1000 for a laptop, and have gotten some pretty great ones (and some terrible ones - Toshiba Qosmio - the 18.4" screen drew me in, but the rest sucked).
Learn to love Alaska
When you bought clean systems and installed your own OS? Me neither, but apparently it was quite common a long long time ago.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
First, the are losing the revenue from bloatware, no sympathy there. More to the point they have added costs of driver development and support for an additional model. That means additional staff, resources, time and so on.
More to the point they have to support the thing for people that /aren't/ the slashdot Linux using crown (who would have simply installed Linux on their own anyways and is unlikely to contact them for anything other than a hardware failure to begin with). These support costs involve training staff on a new operating system and how to troubleshoot it. There are also far fewer customers to distribute these costs to.
To be frank it wouldn't surprise me if Dell loses money on these laptops for a few years while they build up the resources, staff, KB's and the like to get the program going to begin with. That being said it's a good sign that Dell is making a long term commitment to Linux as it otherwise wouldn't make sense to do this at all.
I predict this will bomb, developers will simply buy the windows version and install their own version of ubuntu on it saving themselves $50... What possible reason could anyone have for paying $50 more for the exact same hardware?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
That would make sense except that just the other day a Dell Laptop was $70 cheaper with Ubuntu Linux. Screenshots are included. I won't argue against a Ubuntu computer being worth more than a Windows box, but something is wrong.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Sorry but another 16:9 display failure ... Think I stick with my Lenovo Thinkpad X301 running Linux MINT out-the-box without any extra drivers via ppa's and has a 13.3" 16:10 display @ 1440x900 :)
I can pay $50 more. But only if that will mean, at least $50 will be taken away from Microsoft. I don't care where it will go (baby mulching machines running OpenBSD would be fine), just not back to Microsoft.
The problem that I see with this, someone is still feeding Microsoft even when users are voting with their wallets against Microsoft.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I read TFA where is says the new laptop is for sale now, but it's not listed on their website anywhere. http://dell.com/xps13 and all you see are 4 models, and all include windows 7 home premium. There is no option for another OS.
Search for "xps 13 developer" from within dell.com and you get three links to their wiki containing press releases about this new product.
If I'm actually doing "developing" linux on the laptop (in a mobile context) then I want the highest pixel count I can get. Ideally I'd want something like 2560x1600 on a 17" display.
The retina display mac doesn't actually count because linux doesn't run well on it and even with small text you're limited as to how much you can fit on a 15" screen and still have it be readable.
There used to be quite a few 1920x1200 laptops, but nobody makes them any more so the best current option is 1920x1080.
Given that, 1366x768 is seriously crappy.
Or use their Cyber Monday code X?TWNHV1G8VMCB and get $50 off. Not sure how long that code will work, but it's good for $50 off any order about $700.
Sure but there are two option here.:
1) Push the changes upstream which means someone can buy the windows laptop and load the OS after the fact.
2) Maintain a fork of the OS and all the repositories etc...
The first of these is inconvenient for users. The second is a show stopper for some of us. I bought an EeePC several years ago with some custom linux disto and that lasted about 2 months before I downloaded and installed a proper version. You just know Dell isn't going to be supporting this for any serious amount of time nor to the extent of upstream.
Intel has done more to support this than Dell ever will, and their changes are all upstream and already included. In fact, I'm curious what Dell has actually done.
The amount of money Dell gets from crapware vendors more than offsets the Windows license. If you have no crapware, you pay more money.
Go to the apple store, select the macbook and tick the "256GB SSD" option, the price will jump up $500. (probably, the NZ Apple store charges $640NZ for the 256GB SSD which is $520US)
Intel HD 3000 /4000 GPU at that price as well?
The SSD is a nice touch, but the RAM is still weak. Remember, developers need RAM, because debugging with symbols and whatnot tends to consume two to ten times more RAM than running the ultimate release. The Core i7 is a step in the right direction (when building software on a machine, more power is better), and a 13" screen isn't me, but does appeal to many developer types because it makes the laptop more portable / lightweight.
For reference, my development laptop has 16GBs of RAM, and I wouldn't mind one with 32 GBs. My main (tower) machine is at 32 GBs, and will be upgraded to whatever the next maximum is, whenever Asus releases a new board which supports more memory.
One thing that could make this laptop 'sweeter', but isn't necessary depending on the specs, would be the FirePro or something similar from Nvidia. That might appeal to CAD engineers and various creative types.
But with regards to the RAM, a 8GB offering is about two generations ago. Hell, if they could stick 64GBs into the laptop, I might have reason to take a much closer look at this laptop (but do they have the weight to demand it from a motherboard company?).
I am John Hurt.
$50 more?
Meh. Wake me up when you can order a Dell laptop without any OS installed at all....
The real reason is they'll get 10x the volume in calls about why it won't install Office 2010 and some stupid facebook games. That costs a lot of money in staffing.
By the way, smart enough to use Linux = smart enough so not buy form Dell so I'm not sure they necessarily have a solid business plan there regardless.
The laptop was mis-priced due to a bug in Dell's system, one of the engineers on the project tells me. It's now $1449 , as you can see at http://www.dell.com/us/soho/p/xps-13-linux/pd .
Can the title here please be fixed?
|/usr/games/fortune
I've always thought laptops were a poor buy really - the cost and compromises you have to make never seem to give you as good a deal as you can with a desktop. For example, it's hard to get a lot of RAM in them (2 SODIMM slots seem to be the limit), many of them still come with HDDs when the cost of SSDs has been dropping like a stone, you can't change the screen (plugging into an external one is the only way around the often poor screens), the screen resolutions are often low (a $1549 laptop has only 1366x768 res?), trackpads are often awful (external mouse usually needed), the keyboards are cramped and they're often too heavy to do much more than move them around the house.
When I bought my last laptop, I actually just made it a desktop replacement for a year - wired mouse, keyboard and external screen stuck on one desk. If I could have switched it on with the lid closed, I'd have never even had to open the lid to use it :-)
I've got to question how much coding work the average Linux developer does on the move to justify a $1549 laptop rather than a much higher spec'ed desktop. I spent the same here in the UK (which has prices about 20% higher than the US typically) on a whitebox i7 machine with 32GB RAM, 256GB SATA 3 SSD, 3TB HDD and a 24" 1920x1080 monitor with 64-bit CentOS 6.3. A spec that handily beats almost all of the laptop's specs by a wide margin in a much more comfortable environment (full sized keyboard, mouse and screen) for development. I've got various portable devices (laptops, netbooks, tablets) and I've *never* developed on any of them whilst on the move. Also note that I bet either that dev laptop doesn't get a UK release or when it does it won't be much short of 1549 *pounds* in the UK :-(
If I were going to buy a laptop nowadays, I'd probably go for a touchscreen one and use it as a games playing/media consumption/Web surfing device. And if it needs to go out of the house, that'll be a tablet instead (Nexus 7 for high portability or Nexus 10 just for the screen :-) ). I really can't see how you can do serious development on anything other than either a desktop or a laptop attached to external superior devices like I said I did for a year.
In the case of this Dell it's the small size, weight and SSD that makes it cost go up, just a pity it doesn't have a decent resolution screen.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
This has been fixed folks. The laptop is now 1450$.
No wonder Dell's business is drowning... Windows actually costs Dell an OEM license. Linux costs them little or nothing. if anything the Linux versions should be $50 cheaper.