On Mon, 2011-01-17 at 11:41 +0000, Sean Miller wrote: > In which case there is something amiss, is there not? > > Because they could buy a laptop retail from PC World for £299 by > simply walking in, spend 5 minutes restoring a disc image and then > sell at £399, £450 or whatever they do with a HEALTHY profit. > > So what advantage is the China/Taiwan thing gaining them? > > Unless, of course, they're overcharging. And it's actually costing > them £150 to build these laptops and they just know that Linux > advocates will pay anything to be seen to be "supporting the cause". > > In which case, they don't deserve our custom. As we're being used.
we all make choices about where and why we want to buy things including IT equipment - personally I choose to use refurbished/recycled where ever possible for both my business and personal use as this keeps the landfill down If there was a high profit in doing what you suggest - then someone would be out there doing it If you are just interested in buying the cheapest laptop with the spec you require then that's fine, do your own research and buy from a bigger company - if you want a laptop that has been checked to make sure the components work with Ubuntu or whichever linux install you want plus support if things go wrong - then buy from a specialist dealer you will probably pay more because they will be a smaller company but they are not 'using' you just offering a more select service It's entirely your choice but don't assume that because the price is higher for a product the company is always making more profit (they may pay their workers higher wages, have higher standards, not squeeze their suppliers on price as much as the large companies, not make economies of scale the large companies do) It's your choice Sarah -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/