Dell to Start Selling Vista Notebooks This Weekend

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Dell announced today that this weekend it will begin taking orders for Dell desktop and notebook computers pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista.

According to Dell they've logged 100,000 hours of testing for all of us to rest assured the OS works properly with the systems their shipping. In a press release Dell claims the following:

• Engineers have logged more than 100,000 hours testing and validating the software on Dell hardware
• Dell has experimented with more than 500,000 different product configurations to help ensure the combinations work
• Sales and technical support employees have spent more than 215,000 hours in training to make sure customers purchase the right systems that will take full advantage of the new operating system and help customers with questions as they transition to Windows Vista.

Just remember, when configuring a notebook 1GB is the minimum you'll need, and 2GB is recommended with Vista -- it's a bit of a memory hog. Pricing will remain the same for new notebooks, there is no pricing premium added with the introduction of Vista. For more information visit www.dell.com/vista

Keep on eye on the Dell.com site the Vista configuration availability tomorrow. The initial roll-out of Windows Vista-installed systems will be in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. Additionallanguages will be available in the weeks ahead.

 

Good to hear. Should be interesting to see how the forums change with all types of new questions and how-to-guides coming up. Hopefully the express upgrade programs can start shipping soon so the more experienced users can leave their impressions and help those who need it.

~ Brett

 

Sounds great.

Wow, it ends up that you'd get Vista faster by just buying it on release. Some of these express upgrade programs are quite shady, especially the one Averatec employs. We won't expect to see our "free" upgrades ship until the end of February.

 

I wonder what is notebook's starting cost for pre-loaded Vista. I bet I will paying over $1,000, thats w/o 2 GB of RAM. Oh well, I guess I have to find out tomorrow.

JC

 

That was a bit quicker than expected. I thought they would spend half a month getting MediaDirect, drivers, and the bloat ( ) working properly...but looks like they already did that, or maybe it's that just getting the bloat to work is enough...
...as of now, Friday, Dell Notebooks still say Windows XP pre-installed.

 

i think that's why microsoft released vista back in november for corportate/company purchase. it gave them the time to prepare to offer vista on their machines the day vista launches.

 

Dell has updated their site with Vista preinstalled now.

 

Yup...Ultimate is a $170 upgrade for the M1210. Ouch.

 

Go ahead and configure a m1210 and get this hilarious message when you try to add the built-in webcam:

Errors:
Windows® Vista does not support A/V Communications Package selected.

 

They've updated the UK site with Vista too.

And they're going to rinse us for it. I'm after either a 6400 or 640m, and the options they have Vista on are stripped down from the similarly priced versions that had XP.

So you get Vista 'for the price of XP' but they strip down the rest of the spec.

Niiiiice.

EDIT: On the phone, Dell sales people say they don't come pre-installed with Vista. I did a quote, using the config number on the site, but the Vista pre-install didn't transfer only, she'd only do it with XP Media.

And now on the site, the Vista machines are there, but not displayed with a price. Not sure what they're playing at, but i guess they're not really ready yet. Especially if the sales people don't have a clue.

 

I would wait for new technologoes to fully become avaliable before rushing in to buy a new notebook for the sake of Vista.

Santa Rosa, and new Notebook GPUs look very promising. I reckon the launch was at a bit of an awkward time.

 

I wouldn't even think about installing vista until service pack 1 comes out -.-

It's slow as hell on my dad's comp and his is twice as fast as mine.

 

Shouldn't the price of notebooks go down a bit now. As now we don't get a 'free downgrade' option to Windows XP from Vista. Dat is getting 2 OS for the price of 1.
I'm still using Windows 2000 on my notebook. I have xp installed as dual boot but never use it.

Wait till the notebooks comes with intel n thing (new wireless chip ), santa rosa and competitive features/pricing from other vendors too.

What OS(s) you running on your multi-boot machine.

 

HP did the same thing Dell did. They're now selling Vista in computers to match what Dell has done.