Dale Clarke wrote: > The Problem is that Tesco tried to get on the Acer Aspire One Linux > bandwagon selling it at £170, but have had huge returns (see Acer Forum) > as people have not liked the linux frontend. This in my opinion will > leave a sour taste in Tesco's mind towards Linux and can be put squarely > in Acer's backyard as they do not provide enough information about the > product and have done it with a very beta type setup. > > /After writing the above I thought I would ring our local Tesco this > morning to check and their response was that they have sold all > theirs within 1 days last Monday and have had no returns, so maybe > sold to Linux user's, but the person said that as like Argos they > cannot provide software or hardware support so just do refunds, > slightly different if you went to PC World etc.../ > >
That's a bit disappointing. I can't help but think that some people buy these things because they're cheap and see having a laptop as being cool. I know a few people who have no use for a laptop and bought the cheapest laptop possible when they could have bought a much better spec desktop for the same money. Then there's also the problem that lots of people perceive computer = Windows. > Microsoft were clever in not providing any CD based software due to the > amount of people asking for refunds, as they did not want the Oem. > Especially with early Vista users and customers returning to XP, now you > cannot get a refund as you cannot prove you have not run the software. Yep, plus there's the fact that if a hard disk dies and the customer doesn't make a set of recovery discs they'd have to fork out for another Windows licence (or badger the manufacturer for discs). I know someone who's been caught out on this. > There should be and always be a refund slip in every computer in which > you can get a refund on the Oem if you do not require it, this way > people would realise that they are paying for the software and that it > does not come free with the computer, as it was found out in a survey in > Computer magazine that people perceived. I could see this working as long as the customer was required to Activate Windows. By default Windows generally comes pre-activated when it's preinstalled. If however it wasn't activated and the customer had to do this, then the customer could maybe choose not to Activate Windows and request a refund. Otherwise what's stopping them asking for a refund and continuing to use Windows. > I personally now run Ubuntu 8.10 on my One with adjustments and it is > now a great package, especially with SSH now being a standard kernel > addition. > Cool. I'm really tempted to pickup an Aspire One. I'm in the market for a new laptop (my Thinkpad is just getting too old and slow now even with Ubuntu Lite). Not sure if I should stump up £170 for an Aspire One or pay the extra for a cheap Dual Core laptop. Rob -- [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
