Dell backflips on XP

[Humpty]

DELL will once again let home PC buyers choose between Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows XP when they purchase new machines.

 

Dell, like many computer makers, stopped offering XP on most home desktops and laptops soon after Vista launched at the end of January. By late March, the company said only two models aimed at home users could be configured with XP. The option still existed on many models for business users.

 

But on Dell's IdeaStorm website, where visitors can post suggestions for the company and vote on the ones they think are important, a plea titled "Don't eliminate XP just yet" racked up more than 10,700 votes.

 

"We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings," Dell said in a web posting on Thursday.

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[DennisD]

That sounds like good news to me Humpty.

[New_Age]

That's actually VERY GOOD NEWS. Vista still needs work believe ME when I say that. Good for me though, I can just buy my parts online and have them shipped and I can just build my on computer with xp on it

[CTskifreak]

Good move...this is smart so they can get all of the driver bugs worked out. This has been a smart move..just like offering no OS or Linux on their machines.

 

AJ

[rridgely]

I can understand this decision. Dell is one of the major manufacturers of the most low end cheap computers for the home market.(sometimes they get as low as $300 including an lcd monitor. What do you expect?) I wouldn't doubt them sending out pcs with 512mb ram and a 2ghz processor running vista. Well if your running vista its going to be pretty slow but if you ran that on xp it would be somewhat fast, so which would you want?

 

The "sweetspot" for vista is a little more than what the cheap computers are at right now. Same thing happened with xp though, which is why you will find people with a 1ghz processor and only 256mb of ram. If you would just put in another 256mb of ram or more it would run so much better. But at the time (getting close to 6 or 7 years now, wow) ram cost more than it does now.

[Andavari]

Dell doesn't just make low-end PCs, they make some up level stuff too!

[Newhotness]

kinda off topic here, but i'm sitting here watching Swordfish and the uber computers they are using are Dell. Not that this is reality, but I agree with Andavari, Dell makes some pretty solid comps too. I've had nothing but success with my Dell's over the years, all you need to do is get rid of the pre-installed crap and you're set.

[rridgely]

They definitely do make some highend stuff as well. Their XPS line is pretty nice and they now own alienware.

Lets just see what computers they start shipping with xp again though. Do you think its going to be those dual core ones with 4gigs of ram or the ones with AMD semprons and 512mb of ram and onboard graphics.

[Andavari]

You know that's the reason some people call Dell to begin with which is to have the system custom built, if someone was going to live with some low-end crap they'd be better off to just go get something at Wal-Mart or wherever else they can grab something off the shelf.

 

I for one haven't ever just taken a Dell base unit, it's like a car if you want options you have to pay for the upgrades (no free lunch)!

 

I had my Dell system built with factory upgrades (kinda like Chevrolet building you a tuner car off a base model):

Processor, hard disks, ram, video card, sound card, monitor, etc.

[rridgely]

I agree with you 100%. All I'm saying is you tell someone who knows nothing about computers that your can get this computer for $300 or this one with extra blah blah blah for $900, which do you think they are going to pick? That $300 pc running xp is going to be reasonable but I have a feeling if you put vista on it, its going to be pretty bogged down.

 

Give it a year or two and the cheapo computers that come with vista will be fine. Of course there will be better, but that wont matter to most folks.

[Andavari]

Give it a year or two and the cheapo computers that come with vista will be fine. Of course there will be better, but that wont matter to most folks.

I wouldn't even trust a high-end computer at this moment with Vista on it.

[1984]

I bought my desktop direct from IBM and have been very happy. Its almost 6 years old, and at the time i paid 2000 for it and its been turned on for almost the entire 6 years, and nothing has burned out yet.

 

I'm actually kind of torn between getting my next one from IBM or building it myself.

[New_Age]

I've had my AMD Athlon Xp 2000+ 1.67GHZ processor for about 3 years and I'm willing to upgrade to a 2.0 or 2.2GHZ CPU. Only found on Ebay and some websites though

 

Have 1GB of RAM so I'll be set for Vista in about a year or two once the prices drop.