Dell hybrid laptop pits Intel against ARM

"a new line of Windows-Linux hybrid portables"

Just drop the Windows and give us Linux-Linux. Then there'd be proper compatibility between the two different modes and you wouldn't get people whining about the "instant on" Linux bit which looks different from the rest, or whatever excuses people come up with before finally declaring that they have a secret fetish for a 16-core, 32GB RAM, 21" widescreen laptop running Vista and wouldn't consider a netbook anyway, thus proving all the pundits wrong when those pundits keep claiming, contrary to all available evidence, that it's netbook vs. laptop across the entire spectrum of prices and users.

Of course, Dell could use a modern ARM chip with decent floating point support and just run Linux on that. It might even be faster than some of the Via CPUs seen in other models.

I actually really like the sound of this. A good way to introduce Linux to non -linux people in a non threating way - even notice users can 'generally' figure out web/email with a few pointers in the right direction.

i just want to show yall how incompetant dell is. Apparently they dont even understand how to answer a question; really it's sad:

10:12:41 AM james wood Initial Question/Comment: what is the arm processor in the lattitude E4300?
10:12:52 AM System You are now being connected to an agent. Thank you for using Dell Chat
10:12:52 AM System Connected with SMB_Rodney_Smith
10:12:52 AM SMB_Rodney_Smith Welcome to Dell Small Business Chat! My name is Rodney and I will be assisting you today. If we do get disconnected, I can be reached at through e-mail: Rodney_Smith_Jr@Dell.com.
10:12:52 AM SMB_Rodney_Smith my hours are 10:00 A.M.-7:00 P.M. CST.
10:12:52 AM SMB_Rodney_Smith hi
10:13:29 AM james wood yeh
10:13:30 AM james wood sup
10:13:37 AM james wood what is the arm processor in the lattitude E4300?
10:13:57 AM SMB_Rodney_Smith are you asking how long it takes to deliver
10:14:01 AM james wood no
10:14:04 AM james wood what is the arm processor in the lattitude E4300?
10:14:25 AM SMB_Rodney_Smith the intel core 2 duo
10:14:28 AM james wood if you dont understand what i'm asking then escelate me
10:14:47 AM james wood escalate*
10:15:27 AM SMB_Rodney_Smith what do you mean by arm processor
10:17:05 AM james wood look smb_rodney_smith
10:17:28 AM james wood if you dont understand what i'm asking
10:17:33 AM james wood i asked to be escalated
10:17:45 AM james wood this is exactly why your company loses a good portion of its sales
10:18:24 AM james wood a person like yourself is asked a very simple question and isnt even smart or knowlegable to know what i'm asking
10:18:25 AM james wood i mean
10:18:37 AM james wood if you dont even know what escalate means... let me take pity
10:18:47 AM james wood since you obviously have no business doing your job
10:18:52 AM james wood give me someone who knows what their doing.
10:20:44 AM james wood wth, do i have to blog this to get the proper attention?
10:20:47 AM SMB_Rodney_Smith my manager is about to join the chat
10:21:00 AM james wood thanx SMB_Rodney_Smith
10:21:02 AM System You are now being connected to an agent. Thank you for using Dell Chat
10:22:07 AM Heidi_Lanning Hello James.. One moment while I see if I can get you some information.
10:22:48 AM Heidi_Lanning Let's try to be professional no need to speak this way to the agent.
10:23:02 AM james wood heidi
10:23:10 AM james wood ive a 40k budget for laptops this year
10:23:17 AM james wood figured i would do a little basic research before i tell my it guy what i want
10:23:23 AM james wood this is not how i expect to be treated
10:23:25 AM james wood anyhow
10:23:35 AM james wood what is the arm processor in the lattitude E4300?
10:25:14 AM Heidi_Lanning I will get you some info if you will hold for a moment.
10:26:00 AM james wood :waits:
10:27:51 AM james wood :saits:
10:29:00 AM james wood :stiaw"
10:29:39 AM Heidi_Lanning Yes the system has ARM processor with ON options
10:29:52 AM james wood what the hell is your problem heidi
10:29:59 AM james wood i asked WHAT ARM PROCESSER
10:30:06 AM james wood if you cant answer the question then say so
10:30:17 AM james wood and consider what that means for dell
10:30:21 AM Heidi_Lanning I did not say no?
10:30:25 AM james wood "we cant tell you what we're selling you"
10:30:27 AM Heidi_Lanning i said ON processor option
10:30:30 AM james wood no you did not say.
10:30:39 AM Heidi_Lanning Yes
10:30:45 AM james wood that's like asking what car you have and you say japanese
10:30:51 AM james wood or
10:30:58 AM james wood ive an on-board navigation system
10:30:59 AM Heidi_Lanning You can call tech support but you don't need to be so unprofessional
10:31:03 AM james wood WHAT NAVIGATION SYSTEM
10:31:03 AM Heidi_Lanning Thank you
10:31:07 AM System Heidi_Lanning has left this session!
10:31:08 AM System The session has ended!
10:53:30 AM james wood Initial Question/Comment: what is the arm processor model number in the lattitude E4300?
10:53:40 AM System You are now being connected to an agent. Thank you for using Dell Chat
10:53:40 AM System Connected with SMB_Brenda_Griesel
10:53:50 AM SMB_Brenda_Griesel Welcome to Dell’s Small Business Sales Chat! My name is Brenda and I’ll be your personal point of contact. If we do get disconnected, please do not log back into chat, I can be reached at Brenda_Griesel@dell.com. Is this for business or personal use within the United States?
10:54:07 AM james wood business/personal combo
10:54:22 AM james wood i'm re-equipping my sales staff
10:55:20 AM SMB_Brenda_Griesel how can I help you
10:59:31 AM System SMB_Brenda_Griesel has left this session!
10:59:31 AM System The session has ended!

Neko or James, you're an idiot. It's a niche laptop only available in the states, and surprise surprise, they can't give you a detailed answer to an utterly obscure question that 0.0001% of their customers might be interested in.
Yeah, their customer service reps might not know the model number of the capacitator used in the power supply either, but at least they don't waste other peoples time, and act like rude pricks towards them like yourself.

And to the rest of the above posters, you don't get it, do you? PEOPLE DON'T WANT LINUX!!!!
The reason why Linux has such a puny consumer-marketshare, around 1%, is that businesses and regular people, the kind of people that buy their laptops from Dell have no interest in alternative OS's.

Even on Netbooks, which was supposed to be an ideal platform for Linux, your obscure OS has already been, or is rapidly being replaced by Windows XP.

Instead of being happy that Dell has found Linux worthy of running a subsystem that serves emails on the secondary screen while the computer is off, you freetards start fantasizing about how it might lure people over to Linux, but it's not going to happen. If people had any interest in switching to Linux, it would have happened years ago. Sorry, but Linux will always be an obscure OS in the consumer and business market.

asking the model of the processer that is being used as the copro/alternate processor is not an obscure question. its quite valid, and i can think of a few other netbook type devices that have dual processors and frankly, ive never had a problem finding out what is inside. all this is is a total lapse of training and failure of marketing. i want to know if its an arm 9, what mhz, etc. how am i supposed to know it's capabilities without knowing what cpu is in there... what the F#$% kind of customer do you think i am???? i was NOT subjected to a crappy computer running vista when it really couldnt, as i actually purchase on an informed decision. and never again tell anyone PLEASE that knowing the product you sell is optional. otherwise i'll just go to newegg where they actually describe what is being sold. or somewhere equivalent. or i'll spend 5-7% more with another company that knows their product line. there is no excuse for second level support to not be capable of understanding that telling me that the arm chip is in there is not telling me the effing KIND of arm chip it is. and if you CANT tell me, then tell me you cant tell me instead of trying to confuse the issue. To attempt to demonstrate what this means in dollars i will give an example. i was selling the 14k fonality pbx voip package to my customers for new setups. they refused to help out in basic questions, misquoted the product that was sent, etc. as a result i now deal direct, which turns out to be around half of the cost or less typically. This savings is passed on to the customer, and my commission goes up. quite frankly, it's cheaper for both me and the customer to not deal with dell. NOW - if they want to continue to keep my business when i'm upgrading, and outfitting my clients. which to dell is but a penny in the bucket, however an overall average of around 450k/yr spent with dell or someone else on IT supplies, is not completely unsubstantial.

you're all a bunch of wankers.

my notes if I was a help desk operator: "customer was initially agitated, rather than explain further what information he was looking for he acted like a teen age punk that would sue your daddy if you didn't put out for him and his red corvette. Recommend disconnecting immediately if this user contacts support as he is not looking for support but only to badger people at this point. Had he been polite we would have jumped through hoops to help him as usual"

I don't work for dell, but I did do help desk years ago, you are a dick sir, and that's the fact. Your question has nothing to do with it.

Neko, you could have elaborated instead of just copy-pasted your question again. And immediately after the copy-paste you became rude. Was there really a need for that?

You could have explained that there is a "brand new" laptop coming out and that the rep might not know much about it. It has 2 different processors inside, one is a regular Intel cpu for laptops and the other is a special low power cpu made by ARM. It's the ARM processor I am interested in because it can run the laptop for days and I would like to know it's capabilities to see if it's suited to my work plans for it.

If you'd said the above you might have found out the answer, or been routed to someone who would.

Sometimes we all get a bit annoyed when someone cannot answer a question for us, but it doesn't mean we can be rude to them. I would not expect many sales people working in call centers to know that much about their products. And that's because large companies generally don't give a crap about having knowledgeable call center staff. It's low-cost, low-cost, low-cost.

An old proverb - you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

--- 1) Dell always puts memory two+ grades below what a proc requires. They will have to resurrect SDR RAM for their ARM --- 2) How much do you save when you replace a 5W intel by a 0.5W ARM (making up numbers)? probably 30% of your system power, with that nice big screen sucking the most. Ain't gonna be multi-days battery. --- 3) to Victor: my mom doesn't want "Linux" but give her instant-on web access and you get a sale....