Dell Launches Linux-Loaded Precision 3540 Laptop Starting At ~$700 USD

[Britoid]

$700..
1366x768

What? Just get a Chromebook and put Linux on it at this rate.

[swagg_boi]

... in the meantime I'm stuck with HP Elitebook 755/745/725 series.

I've exclusively used Dell and Thinkpads for the most part but I scored an HP Elitebook 725 G4 on eBay recently because (at the time anyways) Lenovo only gave you one (single-channel) RAM/DIMM slot in their AMD-powered Thinkpads... Not bad HP! Unlike my (Intel-packing) Thinkpad X280 there's a physical Ethernet port (why was this removed??), dual-channel memory, and it's still small yet serviceable with basic hand tools. Like Lenovo, HP provides a hardware service manual as well. It got me under the hood easily to upgrade the NVMe and add in a "WWAN" 4G LTE card I still haven't actually tried

[Guest]

What about releasing laptops with an option to get them wihtout RAM and storage? A setup without a solid state boot disk is at the very least insane, and 4 GiB of RAM isn't much, especially when this thing ships with something as heavy as Ubuntu with GNOME. Don't even get me started on the display, I thought the dark ages of 1366x768 were over, even Pine64 manages to sell a laptop with a 1080p IPS panel for $99.

[vegabook]

Why don't they just release a laptop for ~£200 officially using boring hardware that is known to work well with Linux? It will be cheap, cheerful and may well become a cult classic.

Because at USD200 it would be terrible, as you well know. A decent SBC with 4-8 and x86 with something better than SD card costs well over 200. How can you realistically expect a full on laptop that is not totally junk to be less than that.

Most people actually want the device they use for hours every day to have at least some nod towards aesthetic and mechanical finesse.

[kpedersen]

How can you realistically expect a full on laptop that is not totally junk to be less than that.

For 200 quid and components like a gen or two out of date Macbook or 2015 Thinkpad would be very feasible and perfect for most users. Yes, not for modern games but might bite into the thriving "5 year old second hand Thinkpad" market that is still dominating the Linux desktop world.

[vegabook]

For 200 quid and components like a gen or two out of date Macbook or 2015 Thinkpad would be very feasible and perfect for most users. Yes, not for modern games but might bite into the thriving "5 year old second hand Thinkpad" market that is still dominating the Linux desktop world.

We're talking about a new device that Dell needs to make money from. Of course there are a multitude of 5-year-old machines that work fine with Linux but that's an orthogonal issue. You're asking Dell to make a 200 buck machine. Come on man. Nobody on earth knows how to make a 200 buck machine that is not a total piece of crap.

700 bucks for a brand new machine that's not a complete dog, is actually great.

I'll even flip that on its head: I'd know Linux has properly arrived if a 4 grand machine pre-installed with Linux was viable commercially. I personally believe that Gnome 3.whatever that ships with Ubuntu 19.04 beats OSX hands down in elegance.

[andyprough]

Those specs are actually pretty pathetic for $700. Looks like the type of laptop you might have paid $700 for about 10-12 years ago.

[Buntolo]

I paid around 1000€ for a 13.3" FullHD IPS Clevo W230SS with SSD, 8 GiB RAM. i7 47XXMQ and NVIDIA 860M. 4 years ago.
Can't they do the same thing for 700€ 4 years later?

[smartalgorithm]

The specs and the price are joke in 2019...

[caligula]

The specs and price are totally ridiculous.

Dell even sells Latitude laptops with full HD TOUCH SCREEN, 256 GB SSD, and 8 GB of RAM for $767

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Latitude-Touchscreen-i5-8350U-Quad-core/dp/B07FW7Y7H2/

How about this
1080p, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, $549

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Vostro-5000-LED-Backlit-Professional/dp/B07LBR1CWF/