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November 21, 2008 | News
Asus Says Windows and Linux Eee PCs Getting the Same Return Rate?
Asus’s CEO is grabbing headlines for an interview (which actually happened in late October) in which he stated that Windows and Linux Eee PCs are getting about the same return rate, contrary to what MSI and Canonical have said in the past. Really, though? There are four reasons why I doubt this is completely true.
- Asus’s CEO did not exactly sound sure. In the interview, he said this:
“I think the return rate for the Eee PCs are low but I believe the Linux and Windows have similar return rates.”
To me, that sounds like he was guessing, not stating an actual number - It would not benefit Asus to disclose their return numbers. No matter what the numbers look like, there is really no reason why Asus would want to say that one of their products gets returned a lot, unless they were actually going to discontinue the product.
- The is no real reason why the CEO should know anyway. Asus is a big company and Eee PCs are only a part of their business. Why should their CEO know specific numbers for return rates inside a specific product line, if Asus even knows what those numbers are.
- Even Canonical admitted Linux has higher return rates. If even Canonical says Linux is returned more, then it is highly likely that it is true across all netbooks. Plus, it makes sense that the unfamiliar product would be returned more.
Of course, the counter-argument would be that Linux on the Eee PC has been talked about so much more that it is not as much of an unknown as Linux is on other products.
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The distributions offered on netbooks, such as produced by Asus or Acer, are limited to the point of being straight-jackets. I’m surprised people’s expectations of an OS are so low that they accept these hobbled distros. I, for one, have had much of my spare time consumed by friends and associates who want their stock netbook OS replaced with Ubuntu eee or such.
That said, until there are hard numbers, all this is conjecture.
i don’t think the return rate is high at all for any version.
You can read all the reviews at amazon for example and 90% are positive for the linux version.
the xandros on eeePC is very very easy and nicely configured.
also, its not their main pc.
it just gets the job done.
also the piece of mind of no viruses, spyware and security features of the linux version are well worth it and an absolute plus for this type of product.